A second glance at first

Self Destruction, Final

2012-02-07T21:05:00.000-09:00

There must be some kind of logarithmic algorithm for determining just how much the driver behind you hates the fact that you are using the road with a vehicle that does not have a pair of fake testicles hanging off the back or a dead dinosaur in the tank. It seems the larger the wheels, the more the horse power, the more car-bling, and the younger the driver, the more moronic and, dare I say it, jack-assedy they become.

Case in point? We had a nice snow dump on Friday and things are still not completely cleaned up, so I have a half mile stretch between my office and my client's site that I am forced to ride on the road. It is a busy road, but it is wide and the speed limit is not too out of line. However, when the road crosses Old Seward, it narrows and is hemmed in by a median. So, today I hang out in line waiting for the light - two or three cars ahead of me and who knows how many behind? The point is, we were all waiting there when I hear the truck behind me revving his engine. (I know it is a pick-em-up truck and driven by a him without looking). No biggie, none of us are going anywhere until the light turns anyway.

So the light turns and we start making our way across the intersection. The whole way across the intersection I am keeping pace with the cars in front of me. As we make it across and into the narrower section of road I have taken the lane - a fifty or sixty foot section of road - as the bike lane is covered with snow. Halfway through this bottle neck, said pick-em-up driver begins honking his horn. And not just a quick toot to his buddy going by the other way, but for the remaining duration of the 25 to 30 foot of bottleneck. Oh, and by the way, there is still less than a car length between me and the car that was directly ahead of me at the light, so I have a hard time thinking I was slowing this dude's progress overmuch.

As soon as the median mediated section of road is completed, pick-em-up driver guns his engine and flies around me, because he has a cool engine that makes big noise, and promptly has to apply the brakes so as to not hit the car that was still not much more than two car lengths ahead of me, a car that I promise even my fat rear end did not obscure from pick-em-up driver's view.

Maybe he was a doctor on an emergency call. Maybe his wife was going into labor. I don't know. Maybe he just had a bad day at work and wanted nothing more than to beat the traffic and get home. I get it. It just seems an overly large proportion of the times where there are revved engines, honked horns, shouted comments out windows as they speed past, come from pick up trucks. Usually with "KC lights, tractor tires, everything but the CB."

In other news: The trails are still soft and horrible for riding after the last snow. Skiers, fat bikers, why you no pack my route down? (Actually, I had to walk a section of trail tonight and found it quite enjoyable following the tracks of a fat bike that had clearly slid all over the place, just like I was doing.)

Bliss in Concrete

2012-02-06T21:25:00.000-09:00

I should be grading right now. I should be, but I'm feeling antsy and want to just get out of the house. So instead I am typing.

A-town got an amazing snowfall yesterday. Not sure how much, but enough that while running errands over lunch yesterday, I determined I wouldn't be able to ride home and didn't want the wife to have to go back out again to get me at five.

Errands. That might be a misnomer. In reality I was trying to get my bike fixed. On Thursday night, while riding home from work, my non-drive side crank arm fell off. Just...plop into the snow. What the...right? I figured it was the bottom bracket, that it had stripped out or something. I put the crank arm back on, luckily found the bolt, put it all back together and rolled the rest of the way home. I had to stop once to crank it back down to make it home. I made it all the way to work on Friday morning in the snow, without needing to stop.

The plan was that over lunch the wife would take me to REI where I would have them take a look, install the part, and we'd be on our way. The best laid plans, right? So, the guy at REI looks at it and tells me its the crank arm, not the BB that's gone to pot.

He doesn't have a crank arm. He can't get a crank arm that's the same brand. He sends me to Paramount Cycles, about a far from my house as possible. And I am glad he did. The service was great. I got a whole new bottom bracket and crankset that does not use the ISIS config. I'll be back to get my bike tuned up in a week or so. That's what I like. An LBC where I feel good about taking my ride. The Shop guy didn't try to sell me anything more than what I needed and when I did ask about buying more than what was needed, he pointed me to the best option for the money.

That's what I liked about my LBC back in Yankton. Mike, the owner, never tried to sell me anything. I don't know that I ever walked out of his shop without buying something, but I never felt like I had to buy from him. That's the sense I get from Paramount. Example: Every time I have taken my bike to REI, the Bicycle Shop, or Speedway, I get the type of comments like your bikes really not what you should be riding for commuting, man, those wheels are heavy, I could hook you up with a niner hard-tail that would work great for your commuting ride. I understand the shops need to make sales to make money and stay open. I get it.

This is part of the reason that I generally try to fix my ride myself. I don't like taking it in when I know that someone will try to sell me something.

Oh, what a life. The new crankset seems to be pretty great. I can certainly feel the difference having a tightly fitting crank arm makes. Now, if only the trails would pack down and firm up again... We had to have gotten nearly 2 feet of snow on Friday.

The Best Quote of the Week?

2012-02-05T11:14:00.000-09:00

"The ad is a fun way of putting this claim in the context of the apocalypse.

Last time I checked fun and apocalypse were pretty much mutually exclusive. The sad thing is that this says so much more about us as a society than it does about the person who said it.

3 Ghosts I

2012-01-28T12:51:00.001-09:00

Woke up this morning to -11 degrees at my house, clears skies, and an ice fog haze. For some reason I decided this was perfect weather to go for a ride.

Maybe I was feeling guilty for not riding to work yesterday. Maybe I just got a good night's sleep. Maybe I just needed to give my new to me tires a real workout to see how they perform.

At any rate, I was out the door before the sun was all the way above the mountains, bundled up like a spaceman. I'm sure I must have looked quite silly: Helmet, stocking cap, goggles, neoprene face mask, buff, black soft shell jacket, bulky gloves, nylon running pants, snow boots...and because of the number of layers if I didn't look like the Michelin man, I sure felt like him.

The day was custom made for biking on skinny, studded tires. The trails have all been recently groomed and the cold air has turned them into dense roadways that ride almost like pavement. By the time I got to the Blue Dot trail, I was feeling loose, warm, and ready for a ride. I turned off the wide avenue of the Tour trail and onto the twisty single-track. Because I had to slow down, my goggles started to fog and I ended up taking them off so I could actually see the trail.

The funny thing about riding the single track in winter is that as long as you stay on the trail, you're fine. As soon as your front tire hits the suck on the edge, where the snow is still powder and feet deep you are in trouble. As I found out...again. I figure that eventually I will ride the whole of blue dot without incident. Today was not one of those days. There is this nice section of the trail where there is a decent downhill section with a bit of a curve to it. Nothing major, but something I wanted to slow down for, so as to prevent myself crashing. Intertia grabs me, I grab my rear brake and squeeze. The brake freezes up, the tire locks and the tail starts to swing out on me. I turn into the skid, trying to correct. It is then that my front wheel hits the suck and I instantly go ass over tea kettle.

This should be nothing, just take the flip into the snow and call it good, right? Yeah. Tell that to reflexes. And the stump poking through the snow where I would have landed. I instead try to arrest my fall with my hand. You know, you're falling forward and you put out your hands to stop yourself. Usually this is how wrists are broken. I was lucky today, My arresting hand hit the suck as well, sinking in and not even having the chance to break anything delicate. Bummer, right?

So, after some hooting and hollerin' I get back on the bike and start progressing again, noting all of the places where others have had similar experiences. Brilliant fun.

All in all, I ended up posting ten miles or so. More tellingly, I was in the saddle for nearly two hours. The best part of that time was when the sun finally cleared the mountains while I was on the Coyote trail - I could feel the warmth on my back. Amazing! The snow around me turned gold with the rising sun and I found myself yelling out of the pure joy of feeling that warmth, knowing that as amazing as winter is, it is already starting the slow process of melting into spring again.

When I arrived home the thermometer still read 6 below, but I wasn't feeling it. I mean, I wasn't feeling my toes while the rest of me was sweating and hot from the workout.

Not a bad way to start the day. Additionally, with the cold temps, I didn't have many other trail users, two or four legged, to deal with.

Good times.

Duress

2012-01-24T20:17:00.000-09:00

I am all out of words -
they are meaningless anyway. Signifiers
imbued with whatever meaning
we seem to fit.
The only honesty is in feedback
washing through us from the solar flares
eating the sun, rerouting planes,
killing communications.

Remember when we would drive
all night long, listening to the
frogs and crickets mating in the summer
humidity, the top down on that second-hand
cabriolet and Van singing the familiar words
to every song we were too young
to experience in its authentic setting?

Remember the nights chasing storms
across the plains, the sound of the rain
on that canvas roof drum beats
programmed in true random fashion.

I used to sit in basement rooms
bathed in red light listening to
the reverberations from the earth
transmit through concrete too new to have cured,
the taste of hollow eyes and
false sleep coating my throat.

That summer when we lived together without
air conditioning and the night we watched the fireworks
with the rain poking needles into our
upturned eyes - somewhere part of me was lost
between then and then - between the basement
and the summer.

You made me realize...

Haunting a Ghost

2012-01-23T19:30:00.000-09:00

Riding lately has been less than stellar. The bone-deep cold ensured that the recent feet of snow did not have a real chance to consolidate down. For the past week the ride has been much like riding through inches of sand on top of asphalt. Squishy, wiggly, and causing a general sapping of forward motion. Not ace, but still a lot better than driving a car.

We've rounded a corner, though. Yesterday it was on the positive side of the scale. A inch or so of fresh powder came down, and the temps allowed everything to firm up really nicely. While my morning ride today was slow from enjoying the weather, it was not a thigh-buster.

The warmer weather, does come with some challenges all its own, though. Campbell Creek which runs along my path to work, is famous for overflow during the winter. Ergo, while crawling under the Seward bridges, I broke through the overflow multiple times, soaking myself up to the shins. Fortunately, once under the bridges, I have just a few hundred yards to go until I am in the warmth of my office.

The ride home was nowhere near as exciting. I knew about the overflow and was able to avoid another soaking. The trails remained wonderfully packed and fast. So fast, In fact, that blew past a fat biker as if he were standing still at Elmore road. I continued around the horn, taking the long way over Tudor to the APU bypass. Fat biker cut across a mile before at Tudor Center and came out on the bypass just beside me as I approached the bridge over the creek. There is something to be said for thin tires on a day like today...

Heck, I even did a mile sprint for the last bit of my ride, topping out a touch over 18 mph on the flat(not that fast, I know, but even the best snow drains a bit of energy.)

Stay Gold

2012-01-16T11:45:00.000-09:00

It has been an exciting few days. We are learning a new activity/sport as a family, it has been cold as snot around here, and I am in count-down mode for the new semester.

So, bit by bit, huh?

Since last winter we have slowly been building up sets of cross country skis for each of us. I say building up simply because we decided to go the thrift route. Why buy new until we know if we even like it, right? Fiscal conservatism? Maybe... anyway, there has been a wealth of skis, poles and bindings this season after the holidays and on Saturday we put together the last set for me. Admittedly, my big feet coupled with the SNS bindings on my skis did require that we purchase my boots new. We each now have a decent set of touring skis that will allow us to take advantage of even more of this great city and state.

On Saturday we took the first step toward that end. We bundled up against the -4 degree temps, headed to the Campbell Science Center trail head and skied in Far North for just a touch over two hours. The beard/eyelash/haircicles were epic. It was an awesome time. Being so cold meant that there were not many people out and about so our newness to the sport was not overly embarrassing. Also, even though it was cold, the lack of wind and the bluebird skies made it a perfect day to be out and about.

Sunday evening we continued the adventure by heading over to Russian Jack after dark, in -9 degree temps to experience some night skiing. We spent an hour or so puttering around the park, enjoying the night and the silence. It was perfect.

Throughout both skis I had two recurring thoughts. First, now that we have skis, a whole new piece of the map of Alaska has been opened up to us. We can ski to Tolvana Hot Springs in the dead of winter for a secluded weekend. We can rent a cabin at Lake Eklutna for the Christmas Holiday next year. We have thousands of miles of trail to explore year-round now. I'm sure that as we progress, I'll want to get more outfitted for back country touring. I'd love to hit up Denali in the winter. But there is time for that. For now, though, we'll stick to the groomed trails in and around A-town. There's plenty of space to roam here.

The second thought that keeps coming into my head has to do with memories and how I hope that these moments are making memories for my kids. When I think back to my childhood and try to understand my love of winter, I have a scene that is firmly at the fore each time: My father coming home after a long day working building some building or another, smelling like dirt and sweat and coffee. It is dark out, as it can only be in the winter. He tells my mom to get her skates and the sled, get me bundled up, and get ready to go because we are going to go ice skating. I was young. Younger than 4 because I was still an only child. We went to the skating rink, which must have been close to our house because I don't remember driving, but I could be wrong on this point because I seem to remember there being a playground by the rink and the playground in my memory was nowhere near where we lived.

I do remember the feeling of the cold and the movement as my dad pulled me behind, he on his skates and I on the old steel-runner sled. I later learned how to skate wearing those skates.

The memory is a simple one. Just three of us in the dark moving over ice. It is a memory that I cherish because there was so much simple and real joy. Just a man tired after a long day at work realizing the perfection of the winter's night could not be wasted inside. It had to be shared with someone.

These are the types of memories I want to build in my own children. I think that skiing might be a key to that. Though I wonder if my memory is so strong because it was a rarity. It was not something we did often.

I don't know. I'll take my chances. Even if it doesn't build strong memories, it gets us out of the house. And around here in the winter, that is dang important.

Who Needs Enemies?

2012-01-06T19:03:00.000-09:00

A cold one this morning. -1 when I arrived at work. A great day for beardcicles. Wish I had a picture to post over at www.beardcicles.wordpress.com. They were great ones today. A nice white froth of luxuriant ice. Not as cold as yesterday at -8, but cold enough.

This week has been a strange one at work; a long one. I am going back to doing some project work again, so I had the whole first-day experience again when I went to the client site to meet everyone. As a remedy and release, the wife and I went thrifting over lunch time.

I'm not sure who's to blame for the whole thrifting thing. In high school, oh so many years ago, I would go to the local thrift stores and pawn shops looking for electronics I could fix up and the other strange things that one can only find at a thrift store. I'm not sure if the wife ever thrifted before we met.

I think maybe part of my fascination with thrifting has something to do growing up going to antique stores. The ones I remember the best are those that were more or less flea markets - pole barn buildings packed floor to ceiling with the collected detritus of myriad strangers' lives. It always thrilled me to sneak through the labyrinthine halls and canyons of junk looking for that one amazing find - the original pressing of the White Album on white vinyl, the Babe Ruth rookie card, the funky warthog leather bracelet from Mozambique. The appeal is that shopping at thrift stores and flea markets is a treasure hunt.

You go in always seeking that one thing that you never knew you needed. My big scores were two new chamois, which is kinda gross in a way, but nothing a little hot water won't remedy. So, I now have a new pair of shorts and a knicker length bib for use while riding. Good stuff.

Ballad in Urgency

2012-01-03T21:47:00.000-09:00

It's been a bit of a melancholy day for some reason. Maybe just being back at work after the holiday breaks. Maybe the first real shot of winter has made me realize that we've a long way to go yet before it really starts feeling like things are on the upswing. Maybe I just didn't sleep well last night and it is sitting on me? At any rate, at times like this I find it is good to make up a play-list to pull the funk out.

So, here it is, is it? My forty songs to groove the day away in the vein of Blue Monday:
1) Toes Across the Floor - Blind Melon
2) Low - REM
3) Eat My Dust You Insensitive F - Catherine Wheel
4) Gold Mine Gutted - Bright Eyes
5) Get Gone - Fiona Apple
6) Oceans Apart - The Fire Theft
7) Black Metallic - Catherine Wheel
8) Kanga-Roo - Jeff Buckley
9) Lights - Interpol
10) A Letter to Elise - The Cure
11) Creme Caramel - Catherine Wheel
12) Coming Down - Daniel Ash
13) The Precipice - Mogwai
14) Be Quiet and Drive (Acoustic) - Deftones
15) Homesick - Rosetta
16) Brena - A Perfect Circle
17) Disappear (Alternate Version) - Motion City Soundtrack
18) Ha Ha High Babe - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
19) Girl Stand Still - Catherine Wheel
20) Time - Blind Melon
21) I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
22) Truce - Dresden Dolls
23) Save a Prayer - Duran Duran (yeah...)
24) Orange - Idaho
25) One for You, One for Me - Bright Eyes
26) The Lighthouse - Interpol
27) I Know We Could be so Happy Baby - Jeff Buckley
28) The Telephone is Empty - Love and Rockets
29) Antarctica - Midnight Oil
30) Cuts You Up - Peter Murphy
31) Meds - Placebo
32) Drive - REM
33) Planet Telex - Radiohead
35) To Wish Impossible Things - The Cure
36) Driven Like the Snow - The Sisters of Mercy
37) Souvlaki Space Station - Slowdive
38) Sweet Thing - Van Morrison
39) Never Lose that Feeling - Swervedriver
40) End - The Cure.

Low key. That's the approach. There's something to be said for wallowing in minor keys and dirge-like beats per minute.

The Space In Between

2012-01-02T20:25:00.000-09:00

Hovering around zero degrees, the light reflects from the well-packed snow differently. The trails were amazing today. Took the Tour trail to the Blue Dot trail - a single track that I've never hit up before.

The trail was nicely packed and wonderfully ridable. I did have one other rider come up behind me and ask to pass, but apart from that, not a soul was around.

At one point I was so engrossed in the scenery that I strayed off the packed track and into the pow - causing a quick dismount of the bike and a nice soft landing in the snow trail side. I don't mind bailing when the landing is soft.

Generally speaking, it was a great ride. I did, however, end up bashing my knee against my headset at one point. My left knee. There's a nice little knot there now and it has a certain stiffness now. This winter has been quite tough on the left knee. So far I've bashed it against the icy paved road, cut it on a rock, and now bashed it again today. I can't complain, though. I'd rather be able to count the bumps and bruises than the aches and pains coming from sitting far too much.

I found, I think, a darn good kit for riding in temps like what we saw today - hovering right around zero. Only the three outside toes on my right foot were painfully cold by the time I got back home. The kit was as follows - from feet to head:

1 pair synthetic cycling socks (Sock Man yellow Giant team socks, a bit threadbare at the heels)
1 pair Cabella's wool/acrylic blend knee length socks (picked up at Salvation Army at the beginning of the season)
1 pair Keen Pyrenees hiking boots - badly worn, sole falling off in places, leather collar lining broken and cracked - My favorite boots right now.
1 pair spring weight, chamois tights with the seams busted at both ankles - unsure of brand, found on the rack at the Civ in Vermillion years ago.
1 pair Patagonia capaline long underwear - Value Village find - purple in color, which might explain why they were at VV.
1 pair heavy fleece long underwear - Gift from the parents for xmas. Not sure of the brand, but from Cabella's
1 pair Patagonia fleece-lined wind pant - also from Value Village prior to last winter- My go to pants when it's cold out.
1 Game Day bright yellow warm weather compression shirt. Did I mention it is bright yellow? Like a banana? Yeah.
1 heavy fleece insulating top - the match to the Cabella's long underwear bottoms
1 Under Armor loose shirt - a birthday present from the family a few years back and another of my near daily wearing pieces of kit.
1 soft shell jacket
1 day-glow yellow Buff
1 Outdoor Research windstopper hat
1 Bolle goggles
1 Giro helmet
1 pair Grandoe Expedition gloves, right thumb repaired with Duct Tape for extra durability

There were a few times while riding that my nose grew rather chilled, but apart from my right foot becoming quite cold, I was quite warm for the full ride. In fact, I could likely have left one of the inner layers off on the bottom and still remained quite warm enough.

A beautiful day for it.

Sol Winds

2012-01-01T18:50:00.000-09:00

It has been a busy week and a busy a holiday weekend. Starting on Thursday I took part of the day off of work and got a good start on gettibg my spring courses ready to go. I have a bit to do yet, but am on my way, which, feels good.

On Friday we ventured late in the day to Lake Eklutna for a short hike. It was wonderful being out in the world. The cold was refreshing and the transition from quit to dark was fun to experience while out in it rather than mediated through the window pane as is so often the case.

On Saturday we decided to hike around Flat Top. Again, an amazing way to spend an afternoon.being New Years Eve, we followed up the day with a jaunt downtown for the annual fire and ice festival. Again, a good time was had by all.

Today has been spent hunkered down at home with temps in the negative range all day long. There may be some ice skating later tonight, but

Primary

2011-12-28T21:31:00.000-09:00

It's been a rough time for cycling. The snow, the plowing, the lack of compaction... these are all things that bother me.

This morning I was again forced to ride the multi-use trail along side of Tudor road, a crap ride even on the best of circumstances. Today made more so by the wonderful tendency of the state to plow the roadway after the city has plowed the multi-use. The result? A bit more hike-a-bike than I would have liked. Not my favorite way to start the day. That said, though, it still beat riding in a car.

A week ago or so, I picked up a new headlight at REI as an early Christmas present (Thanks ma and pa!). I've lamented far too often about the challenges of lighting the morning and my attempts to address the issue.

I really like the idea of having a home-brew light. Makes me feel special. The reality is that I just don't have the skill to pull it off properly. Well, maybe that's not quite right. I'm sure I have the skill. Just not the materials/patience/time to research all of the possibilities, gather the materials, and then put together a system. In short, I am just as much of a consumer as everyone else.

But I digress. So, I ended up spending a bit on a really nice and bright head-lamp at REI. Not a cycle-specific light, but an all around headlamp that I could use while camping, night hiking, landing airplanes, etc. Here's what I've found out about the light so far. (It's this one, in case you wanted to know.)

When turned on high, this thing lights the morning. It's like a car's headlights. The problem is that at full-blast the batteries only last an hour or less. The thing is that I can run this on the middle setting and have more than enough light to see where I am going. More importantly, others can see me. When someone is sitting in their car, talking on their phone and getting ready to run me down at a cross street, one quick blast into their car gets their attention right quick. Me likey.

Plantlife

2011-12-26T18:22:00.000-09:00

Ah, the Christmas weekend is winding down. Tomorrow is a new day at work, a reduced week requiring quick work to complete everything on the plate.

The weekend was a good one: lots of snow, lots of food, lots of surprises.

We spent some time ice skating and some more time ice skating. We watched a bunch of movies. We vegged.

It was a nice break. Next week will be another. Then the long span of late winter.

The start of something
---------------------------------------
This world,
our world,
my world
is besieged with screens. Every moment
of these pathetic little lives
is spent looking at, reflecting on, or trying to
look through screens. Electronic mirrors reflect
a truth we want to see, ripping out our souls.

A man sits next to his wife
at a late lunch of pizza and beer, neither speaking
neither looking at the other, tapping empty messages into
3G screens, arranging letters, taking photos, embedding video,
sending missives to no one. To everyone. The social network
building invisible walls as we continue to collect
friends much as we collect old coins or stamps.

Copper wires extend from the machines, from the screen -
tentacles reaching, seeking, penetrating our eyes. Burrow in
they wrap and combine becoming part of the fabric
of his being - weaving sheaths around optic nerves, building
electric distortions around every scene.

The Leaving Song Pt. 2

2011-12-22T21:37:00.000-09:00

There is going to be one second more daylight today than yesterday. We're back on the side of the pendulum that I enjoy - the days'll be getting longer, winter will lock us down and then release us into breakup and, eventually, summer.

I'm excited for summer. I have a number of backpacking trips I want to do. Apart from my teaching gig, I don't see much preventing some epic trips. Except for the desire to fill our freezer with fish. And berries. And maybe even a moose.

But that is all a way off yet. First we have to get through the winter. I've been a bit lazy to this point this winter. Yes, we've done some skating and gone snowboarding once or twice. But I've not taken any joy rides early on a Saturday or Sunday morning. We've not taken a hike in the woods in the snow.

Part of this may be due to the strange winter we've had to this point. First we get dumped with a ton of snow and then the old mother decides she can't decide whether it is supposed to be fall, winter, or spring. It's hard finding motivation to get outside when the wind's blowing 90mph, even if it is a warm wind.

Now the weather people say that things'll settle down. The winds will diminish and the colder temps will prevail. At least for a while. Which works out pretty good, I'd say.

Might be time to dust off the coats and hats and go for a walk in the woods.

I've been trying to remain anti-political about my cycling. At the heart of my desire to bike commute is simply two things:

1) I have a hard time justifying paying $4.30 or more for a gallon of diesel that will only allow me two round trips to work, if even - depending on how long I have to sit in traffic each morning.

2) I really enjoy spending the time I would be stuck in traffic getting outdoors - I can space for my whole ride if I want, just follow where my wandering mind goes. Can't do that very successfully in a car for very long.

The thing is that whether I see my cycling as a political statement or not, others may. Because of how much of a hot button topic cycle commuting has become both nationwide and locally the very act of riding a bike as transportation has become a subversive thing in some circles.

Me, I just like to ride. But I did run across this while cruising the interwebs and, because I also like infographics, found the content quite compelling. One has to wonder what it would do to our nation if every one of us made one of our weekly commutes by bike or walking. Just one a week.

I can promise you it would not result in anything bad.

Created by: Healthcare Management Degree

And because I occasionally end up blurting out similar sentiments when forced to ride next to the street...

| Bicycle Comics - Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery

Feeling This

2011-12-21T21:25:00.000-09:00

Q: What do you call the workout you get riding in winds gusting up to 55mph?

A1: $*#& that's hard
A2: How fast am I going again? (with the wind at my back)
A3: Since when did South Dakota move north?
A4: Epic

Yes, epic. And epically tiring. But that's quite alright. There was hot coffee and good cookies this morning. Yum.

Flowers on the Wall

2011-12-20T21:30:00.000-09:00

Which is worse? The ice you can see or the ice you can't? Interestingly, when a fresh inch of powder sits on top of ice, it increases the the slip factor not by two, but in direct proportion to the number of cars that are racing by, just waiting to run over a dumb cyclist's head, popping it like a watermelon under the wheel.

On the trails, where the only danger right now is the occasional moose and off lease menace, the snow on top of glare iced over snow has the same traction as if I were driving a formula 1 car on hot, dry asphalt. In the three places where I have cars close at hand? Traction like Teflon coated in cooking spray coated with fresh lard, coated with axle grease. Good times.

Or maybe it is more like a slip and slide coated with baby oil and bacon fat? It's slick out there. That's all I'm saying. Slick. Warm though. 34 this morning. 34. And I had dressed in my three layers, soft shell jacket, hat, and gloves. I could've worn shorts and a t-shirt and been perfectly comfortable. Instead, I was dripping sweat by the time I got to work.

Is it wrong that I want it to get and stay cold? I would be perfectly happy if the following played out:

1) Starting Thursday night we get 10 inches of fresh, wet snow with temps in the upper 20s.

2) Friday the temps drop into the mid-teens, the groomers hit every trail in the city, and the winds cease.

3) It stays in the mid teens until after the Iditarod start, occasionally dropping no more than an inch of snow at any one time and always with two days in between snowfalls. Then in May it climbs rapidly into the 40s then 50s and stays at those temps or above until next winter.

Yeah, that's what I'd like to see. I somehow doubt that'll happen.

And a gentle reminder of why it is never a good idea to be a hipster:

Exercise One

2011-12-19T19:47:00.000-09:00

What a crazy winter it has been. Each weekend the wind has been whipping up, bringing hot winds from the south, rain, and melting snow. It has made the daily commute interesting. This morning was a fairly quick ride once on trail - the ice layer created a great, hard-packed riding surface.

The roadways, however, were less than ideal. I could have ice skated faster.

The worse part of the commute? Falling on my face while trying to scale an ice-slick plow berm where I have to cross under the Seward highway. Somehow during my fall I pulled my shin in such a way that I now seem to have a shin splint. Great.

Even with the studs today I was sliding quite a bit on the roads. Fortunately I did not have very far to ride on the road. I'm hopeful that the weather does not turn warm today. I want the trails to remain ride-able for at least a week. Is that so much to ask? Just one complete week this winter where I don't have to ride on the side of Tudor, sucking down exhaust fumes and dodging cell-phone oblivious drivers?

The year is winding down. Everyone can feel it. The days continue to get shorter and shorter. Soon, though, soon, the pendulum will start to swing the other way again. The light will come back, and with it a renewed sense of being.

The dark days can be hard on a mind and a body. I really feel like I could sleep all day long.

The solstice falls on the 22nd this year. We don't have any plans for the shortest day of the year, but I'm thinking it might be nice to take a ride, hike, or skate over the midnight hour as a way to welcome the impending upswing.

Pictures of You

2011-12-17T12:49:00.000-09:00

I've found myself thinking a bit about an answer to the question "Why Alaska?" I think now that we've been here for over a year that I am not as quick to say that we recently moved here. At least not in the same way as six months ago.

Inevitably, when you say "I just moved here" people what to know from where and, more importantly, why? I've never really had a good answer for why.

I've dreamed of Alaska for a long time, but like many things, it came and went, but was always there under the surface. I think the dream started with, as with so many people, Jack London. His tales of the great white north are the type of stories that make one dream of escaping to the amazing scenes he painted. But those dreams tend to be a bit more fleeting than some. The fact that the reader always knows, on some level, that the scenes are just imagination, and that London's Alaska is not Alaska at all.

But those stories plant a seed. What drew me here more than anything is that Alaska is really the last place where one can play out the pioneer spirit of yesteryear. I know that eventually I will be able to get a piece of land far off the road system, build a cabin with my own two hand, and live as a pioneer to the level that best fits - I could be a Hymo.

Or I could be a weekend warrior. What is important is that I have the option, I can still make the choice here. That's pretty powerful. That's a big, big motivator for me.

Supernaut

2011-12-14T19:26:00.000-09:00

I'm done. That's all there is to it. I'm done with my home-brew bike light. Twelve batteries and I keep burning them out. The draw just has to be too much. That's all I can think of that would be causing batteries to continually burn out. Too much draw. When this happened, I should have had a clue that it just wasn't going to work...

Time to rethink and retool. I could attempt to put together an LED-based headlamp, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't know that I would save anything as the parts are still a bit expensive. And I can't get most of them locally, so I'd have to ship.

Instead, I'm thinking it is simply time to find a super-bright, non-bike or outdoor specific flashlight and then devise a mounting system of some sort. This way I can continue to use my good cells, have a lamp that lets me see where I'm going, and not pay the outrageous cost of a bike-specific light.

--------------------------
I'm reminded of my first time winter camping. It was in Wyoming, I think. I was maybe fifteen, sixteen. A boyscout trip to the Big Horns. We set up our ancient Army-issue wall tents on a flat piece of land surrounded by pine trees. Six tents in a rough circle around the camp site. A fire ring built in the center.

These were the tents that had one entire site that rolled up as the door. We built the camp in a ring around the fire, rolled the doors up half way, and then took turns tending the fire all night.

I was on duty from four to five in the morning, after not sleeping all night for being so cold.

I sat as close to the fire as I could get, just trying to get warm.

Warmth is an amazing thing. When you get so cold that all you can feel are phantom tingles in your hands and feet, all you want is a little bit of warmth.

I remember watching the sun rise over the plains to the east that first morning. We were just above Buffalo and from our hillside we had a perfect view across the rolling high desert plains that is Wyoming between South Dakota and the beginning of the Big Horns. The sunrise was mauve and pink reflected against the clouds, but not mauve and pink. More essential. More alive and glowing. I can't explain it. Maybe lack of sleep made me see it a different way, but it was amazing. Like nothing I'd ever seen before.

That's not entirely true, though. I once caught an arctic char and when I gutted it, its flesh had the same vibrancy for that first moment after the blade slipped into its belly. Then it was gone. Like the colors of a once in a lifetime sunrise.

Then there's that whole fifteen or sixteen thing. I can't really recollect anything from that time with any certainty. Like a former ex-junkie rationalizing dropping from the wagon based on faulty memories of the first time around. We know that nothing from those times that we remember are remembered accurately, but we long for it just the same.

Battlestar Scralachtia

2011-12-13T19:50:00.000-09:00

I love it when I can't wipe the smile off my face while riding. This evening was like that.

I don't know why. I was stuck riding on the separated multi-use along side one of the busiest roads in town, dodging cars, and waiting on stoplights. This is generally my very definition of hell. Hell, even driving down Tudor bothers me.

Yet tonight there was utter joy in it. Joy, I say. Maybe it was the overcast sky. Maybe the humidity in the air. Maybe it was just being on the bike again after driving yesterday.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that the temps are dropping, meaning that the flurry of grooming the muni, APU, and the Nordic Ski Association completed yesterday and today
will have a chance to set up, making for some awesome riding. Indeed, if things go my way, the Tour trail and the Far North single-track should be just about perfect for a nice long ride on Friday.

Some days the ride is just perfect, even when it isn't. You know what I mean?

One quick tip for making the ride better: Download Bloc Party live from the 9:30 Club from NPR's All Songs Considered from back in 05 or 06. Awesome party rock.

----------

Post holing for eight hours is not my idea of fun anymore. I'm too damned old.

By the time we made it to the pass between Williwaw and Long lakes, it was already dark. Then again, sun set is around 4 these days. That said, we had hiked for just over seven hours and barely made the three miles to the pass before another storm set down, forcing us to bivy on the exposed saddle between the valleys.

Things were not going to plan. The plan was to have already scrambled between Tanina and Koktoya peaks and be down into the North Fork valley and prepping for the next big up and over - skirting Cantana and over to Hurdygurdy mountain.

I shoulda brought my skis. Even snowshoes would have made it more bearable. Postholing just isn't any fun.

Even going as light as possible, our packs were thirty pounds or more. Slowly dwindling as our food supplies were used up faster than we planned.

Default This

2011-12-12T16:55:00.001-09:00

On Saturday evening we watched The Help on DVD. I've heard of many people talking about what a great film this is. It's got a 75% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is saying something.

But it is crap, pure and simple. If we discount that the same story has been told time and again and simply look at it from a point of view of agency, we see that this film does nothing, and can do nothing, to meaningfully address issues of race and class. The black characters have no agency until the "enlightened" white girl gives it to them. They are set pieces. And it is clear from the opening scene that this is the case. We don't see who asks the question of what it is like to raise a white child while your child is at home, but we know. There is no denying, even from the outset, that the questioner is white.

The story is nothing more than the colonial tale. It's been told and told again. Yes, there are villains, but the villains are comedic and possess no real threat. The heroes, as much as the director tries to make us think otherwise, are the two white girls, the reporter and the bimbo, who deign to give voice to the maids, not the maids themselves who actually do risk quite a bit to tell their stories.

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

The world had gone silent by the time we attempted the descent. Overnight a wet, heavy snow had fallen. Six inches. Maybe seven. Wet. Hard to hike through.

When a plan comes together... Perfection. We'd set out two days earlier, in the middle of a mid-winter Chinook raising the temps into the low fifties, melting the record-breaking three and a half feet of November snow pack and driving rain through the gray air. The wind blew in off the inlet - moist with the tropics.

I'd left my skis home. Snowshoes too. Why make it easier than it should be? We'd make the traverse hundreds of times before. Always in summer. We needed a new experience. Needed a story to tell.

By the time we got to Black Lake the wind was circling back on itself - driving the rain into mid-air whirlpools. We built camp in the coulee leading down to the lake's edge. We'd hoped to be out of the wind.

Day two broke like a hurricane. I found out later that where we parked the truck wind gusts of 118 mph were recorded. All we knew was that even with both of us and all the gear in the tent, it was still threatening to blow away.

The tent wet-out by ten. After that it was pointless trying to keep anything dry. The tub floor filled up with icy water. Our body heat warmed the water, melting the snow under the tent, sinking us in to an even larger tub, which also filled.

By three it was clear that the rain wasn't stopping. The wind wasn't stopping. I set up the JetBoil, figuring the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning was a better way to go than by slowly succumbing to hypothermia. I made soup of three chicken bullion cubes and water.

It doesn't take much to make me happy.

We drank the salty brew, pissed into the piss bottles, and tried to get some sleep. tomorrow we would either move to higher altitude or bail. There was no way we were going to sit for another day shivering like dogs tied to a porch rail.

I knew something had changed when I woke unable to breath. The nylon wall of the tent was pressing on my face. Snow had loaded the structure until two of the poles buckled.

I dug out of my bag and out of the tent to see a blue-bird sky and a world of white. It was well past ten. We'd be lucky to get to the last of the Williwaws today.

The trip hadn't even truly started yet and already I was wondering what the hell we had gotten ourselves into. Before we could start climbing into true back country, we first had to descend into Williwaw valley - the snow might cause some trouble.

Chinese Burn (Headcase Medipac Remix)

2011-12-11T19:33:00.002-09:00

Skating at Night in Cuddy Park

The night shuddered, fog encrusted and cool
as we disappeared into her. The streetlights haloed
and the reverberation of cars passing on C Street insistent yet distant -
like the sound of an alarm clock scream when you’re ensconced
in the last dream of the morning.

The movement of chrome steel in the instant of melting and refreezing
is an everyday miracle I try to explain to my daughter, daughter, and son – the physical
captured in the screech of metal biting ice and releasing,
growing colder in the dark – the sound reverberating against
the concrete facades of Midtown mid-rises.

We have captured the quarter mile oval
used Sundays to prove something, used to demonstrate
physical prowess and skill unobtainable by most - the long-blade wearers with
legs like pistons wrapped in form fitting spandex,
determined sneers under yellow tinted sun lenses.

We defile their ice in the dark night with our laughter, or unskilled stumbling
across the infinity of ice. The winter silence of this winter
city comforting, the dark a welcomed friend – we can play on this field of sport
and no one can care. We cut through the dark, unlit paths across the
sudden-smooth surface under the glow of the city
reflected on the pregnant bellies of clouds above.

The darkness and the speed give a greater thrill
than day lit speed. Each orbit makes our sight
a little clearer, adjusting to the to the night.
Our noses burn with the cold,
our lips freeze and crack as we race each other
from one beginning to another.

When we run out of breath, we stop to watch the moon rising swollen
over the Chugach – just another streetlight wrapped
in the gauze of fog, bouncing over the cathedral peaks -
my daughter asks me to take her hand, to
whip her forward, the extra speed in the dark frightening and perfect.

We race forward and back again,
tagging each other, chasing the leader, cracking the whip,
reveling in night, understanding the immediacy of the cold –
when we stop our heat freezes and we have no choice other than
to move again. The orbit must continue. The cycle of melt and freeze
drives this movement. Melt and freeze. In the dark there is nothing
more perfect than the movement of melt and freeze.

An imperfect capturing of the time, of the scene, I know, but a start. I'm trying to focus on place a bit more when trying to write poems. I'm starting to understand the importance of place. I mean, at some point the examination of the self has to give way to the examination of the universal. I think focusing on place can help to reach into that universal realm.

The trick is to make the universal seem personal and the personal universal. Maybe I am just trying to find the words to capture the feeling of winter - silence, cold, dark, magical. Who knows?

2 Ghosts I

2011-12-09T13:56:00.000-09:00

Today was the last day of teaching for the semester. Now comes the fun part - Grading.

I'm sitting on my couch right now, waiting for comments on a document so I can update it and then get it to a branch manager for review. I don't like waiting.

I'm thinking I need to either make my oldest daughter go for a run or bike ride this afternoon. It's nice out and I want to get outside.

I have a nice bowl of salmon salad for sandwiches waiting in the fridge for when the wife gets home. My son's friend's dad gave us a number of cans of salmon and one of halibut that he caught and canned. I am just now getting around to tasting it. While making it, i nibbled a bit of the fish and...well, let's just say that I might have a new favorite food.

Divine Mother (The Tower Crumbles)

2011-12-07T19:37:00.000-09:00

Music. Man, it's what makes life worth dealing with, most days. My wife only half jokes that I would give up one of my kids before I give up my mp3 player.

I guess it depends on the kid.

I don't know if I could face the day without it. Most of the time it is just pleasant background noise, something to blot out the sound of the DitchWitch punching through frozen ground outside my window, phones ringing down the hall, the people in the next office suite over slamming industrial oven and fridge doors for most the day, and the general hubbub of modern office life.

Other times, though, it works to drive me into a frenzy of work. At the heart of matters I type for a living. When I get in a good groove, when the music is connecting and the ideas are flowing, I find myself typing in rhythm to the music pumping through the headphones.

I've never recorded myself, but I am sure it looks funny to passers by to see me bob and jive as I pound away at the keyboard as if I were Nick Rhodes, Thomas Dolby, Gary Numan(?), Trent Reznor, or even Jesse Johnson (Check out about 1:47 - I do this. Every. Day.)

Lately, I've been on a Rosetta binge. These guys are love 'em or hate 'em. There doesn't seem to be any in between. Heavy, dreamy, agro, and mellow all at once. Prog? Check. Awesome remakes of Cure songs? Yup. DIY credo? Oh yeah.

I've been thinking about what draws me to certain bands such that I can listen to them for years and years and not get bored. Why is it that I still listen to Disintegration by the Cure ever day and have since it came out in 89? Every day. Do you know how many copies of this album I have bought?

Anyway. What draws me to that album is that it is crafted in such a way that each time I hear it, I catch something new in the music. There seems to be ways that music can actually build a world around itself - a certain set of notes, chords, darkness and light, whatever - that causes it to alter reality, build on itself and change with each new playing. And this is a rare thing.

In fact, this might be the rarest of traits in music, the sympathetic resonance, if you will, the intangible something that adds up to a sum greater than its parts. Floyd achieves this at times. Rush as well. Cash does on some of his American recordings. Mogwai and 65 Days of Static do this. Disintegration does this in spade. So does Rosetta for me.

There is just so much going on in the music. Maybe it is that neural trip that I go on when I listen to the music. Through it, I am able to completely forget where I am and just be. Just. Be.

It's meditation. It's peace. Yet it also energizes and excites me. The yin and the yang. It is the balance of both sides. Tension. Right? That's what makes Elliot's poetry and Faulkner's novels so damned good. That's what makes 2001: A Space Odyssey even watchable. Tension.

What this is all leading towards is a top ten list. It is that time of year, right? The look back and categorization of all things from the past into nifty little lists.

So - the list: Top Ten High-Tension Albums on my mp3 player (not necessarily from the last year)

10 - Salvation - Cult of Luna. This is an interesting sludge metal band from some Scandinavian country. They were one of the early bands of this ilk I listened to and they have a good handle on the conventions, but have also somewhat expanded the canon.

9 - B Sides and Rarities - Deftones. This one is a mixed bag album. The type of mid-career album that is thrown together to buy the time needed to record the magnum opus. The strange thing is that this album works for me. The tension is more from the mishmash of influences covered here. For a real treat, check out their cover of Sade's No Ordinary Love

8 - Carmina Burana - Carl Orff. Remember that scene in Oliver Stone's The Doors where Jim Morrison is being chased around in a coke induced rage by a naked "witch"? Yeah, nuff said.

7 - Anything by Rosetta. They are still young enough on my scene to have not worked up to the top five slots yet. That said, their three proper albums are some of the most amazing works of modern music I have heard in a long time. Inspired. Inspiring. They make me weep.

Honorable mention - F# A# Infinity - Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Listen to Dead Flag Blues while hauling down a darkened trail and just try to not be absolutely terrified. Yet there is some amazing beauty lurking under it all. I don't want to be too much of a hipster, though, so I'll not give this one a proper slot on the countdown.

6 - Astral Weeks - Van Morison. So rarely does one voice balance pure joy and sadness all in one breath.

5 - In the Fishtank 14 - Isis and Aereogramme. Isis on their own are amazing. Throw in these Scots and wow. The tension of delicate and brutal is astounding.

4 - Rock Action - Mogwai. These are the guys who got me into "post" everything. Loud, delicate, amazing live. Check out You Don't Know Jesus at painfully loud volumes.

3 - The Destruction of Small Ideas - 65 Days of Static. This album just never lets go. They use the quite/loud/quite structure so often used by acolytes of the Pixies, but in new and interesting ways. Also, the balance between jungle, post rock, metal, glitch, and so many other genres makes it all good.

2 - 10,000 Days - Tool. Wings for Marie parts 1 and 2. Listen to them loud. Now. While running or riding a cycle. No better form of exercise induced "altered reality" can be found. Should be illegal.

1 - Disintegration - The Cure. What can I say that I haven't said about this album before? To quote Cartman: "Disintegration is the best album ever"

Yeah. That's ten. To quote Christian Slater as Mark in Pump Up the Volume "I'm spent."

Oh, the trails riding home today? Amazingly awesome. I was actually able to keep an average speed of 10 mph the whole way. Awesome.

And speaking of DIY...

2011-12-06T19:52:00.000-09:00

A quick shot of the great hat the little lady knit me recently.

That is definitely cooler than anything that can be bought at the store, and the cost of learning was relatively low...just a few warm heads of various sizes.

Temet Nosce

2011-12-06T19:47:00.000-09:00

I think I mentioned recently that I have built a home-made bike light. The idea was to find a cheap and easy alternative to the offerings by NiteRider and others. I built what I thought was kind of a winner, adapted from instructions I found on Instructables.com. The following are the parts I used:

1 1.5 inch no hub plumbing connector
1 1.5 inch male to female PVC coupler
1 20 watt/12 volt halogen lamp (with the two little prongs on the base, not the screw in kind)
Assorted copper wire to connect the wire to the batter housings
3 4 AA cell battery carriers
12 rechargeable AA batteries

In simplest terms I simply connected the wires to the bulb and to the battery carriers, which are wired in series so that my volts add together while my amp hours remain constant. With me so far? Good.

The light works well, producing a good strong beam of nice warm light rather than the somewhat flat light of an LED.

The problem with this project is in powering the thing. I have to carry the weight of twelve batteries with me in order to make my commute each day.

I'm not a weight weenie, so this isn't a big deal. However, it seems somewhat odd that I can generally get only an hour and a half to two hours before the light starts to noticeably dim. Thus, I am charging batteries all day long at work and all night long at home. That's a lot of charging for an old guy like me.

Then one day I noticed that one of my battery chargers was telling me that I had a bad cell. I figured out which one it was and sure enough, I could see where it had actually burnt itself out to the point that the mylar label was discolored. No biggie, just pick up a few more batteries, right? Yeah, that's right. Just buy some more.

Now, mind you, a package of 4 rechargeable batteries is somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 dollars. 14 X 3? That would be 42 dollars. Hmmm...a 350 lumen USB rechargeable light from REI is only 110. Hmmm...I bet if I added up the cost of the...never mind. I'm committed now. I've built this thing so I need to get it to work the way I envision it.

The problem is that this morning I walk into the kitchen and before I am even able to start thinking about making the sweet elixir of life - yes, coffee - I notice that my charger is flashing a warning to me AGAIN! So, I quickly deduce which cell is bad and throw in one of my old, faithful, impossible to find 2500mah cells to see if I can't get enough of a charge to get to work.

Of course, when one cell is not working, the other cell it is paired with in the charger is not charging. Needless to say, by the time I am a half mile from my house, the difference in charges has caused the light to start to dim. Rather than let the batteries burn all the way down, I stopped and turn the light off, riding the rest of the way to work with only my helmet mounted light. As I was working a snail's pace today, this was more than sufficient to light my way.

So, I've been thinking about why I am having cells burn out. Two in a month is pretty weak, if you ask me. What I figure is that because of the charger technology, the batteries are gaining differing charges. When I put my batteries in the charger, I inevitably have one set that shows full before the other set. The thing is, only one of the cells has to reach full charge before the charger shows them both charged and stops the charging process.

I think what happens then is that one or more cells is simply progressively charging less and less until it is so low on charge that it simply expends its full charge and once it does that, the rest of the series of cells push electricity through it, heating it up until it just fries.

I am certainly no mechanical engineer, but that seems to be what is happening. Also at issue is the fact that I am not modulating the power at all. No matter what, the rig pulls the full 12 volts, even if the total volts available in the cells are less. Ergo - yet another possible reason the cells are blowing.

Next time? I'm going with the lead acid battery! What's an additional 6 pounds, right?

It is sad to think that so often the cost of doing things one's self ends up being higher than feeding the machine. I guess that is the cost of learning.

I need something to make me happy now:

You're welcome!

TMA-3

2011-12-05T20:34:00.001-09:00

I am a bike commuter. For better or worse. It started out as a financial decision. When we moved from SD to AK, we had to get rid of one of our vehicles because we did not want the extra expense of driving two cars the whole way up here.

We never intended to buy a replacement for the second car, and I figured I would cycle some times and drive the others. And it started out that way. I cycled most of the time, driving one day a week, tops.

Then winter came. At first I was a bit lax in my cycling, driving two or more days a week, or even working from home instead of the office.

One day, though, something changed. Part of it was a change in my work schedule - 4 10 hour days versus 5 8s. I found it harder to justify driving one day a week when only working four to begin with. So I rode. Every day. In fact, from December 27, 2010 until November 1, 2011, I did not drive to work once. Sure, there were a few days when I would get a lift home, but I always rode at least one leg of my commute.

A few times people ask me how I do it, especially in winter. Now, first let me just say that what I do is not special. I am not some superman. In fact, I am generally quite lazy. Almost anyone can bike their commute. The biggest challenge is the mental one - gathering the motivation to pile on the layers when it is dark and cold out.

Once I'm out the door, it is really just a matter of having found what works for me to keep me going, even on days like today where the it was a bit like getting kicked in the can by a giant the whole ride. (30-40 degrees all weekend + rain + moose and people using the trails when they have the consistency of a slurpee = a mess of holes that really test one's ability to keep from biting one's tongue off)

So, what are my tips for bike commuting in winter?

1) Prepare your kit the night before. I try to pack my backpack with everything except for my lunch the night before. This way in the morning I am ready to go and have a good excuse to NOT drive - I'd have to walk down stairs to get my work clothes unpacked. I also leave my cycling clothes hanging in the bathroom, my first destination each morning, so that I have everything right there and waiting. Really, this tip works year round.

2) Shop the thrift stores. It takes a bit of trial and error to find just the right kit for each possible winter weather condition. As I am loath to buy anything that has only a single purpose, I find that the thrift stores are the way to go in finding my kit. I've been able to pick up a wide variety of nylon pants, fleece pants, base layers, shell jackets, and hats. I'm getting to the point where I have a complete set of kit for nearly any ten degree temperature spectrum. The added bonus is that when I wreck and rip the arm or knee out of one of my thrift purchases, it doesn't bother me overmuch as I generally didn't spend more than six or seven dollars on it to begin with.

3) Layer, layer, layer. The same as any outdoor activity in the winter, to stay warm, you need to dress in layers. Moisture wicking base layer. Insulating mid layer. Wind repellent top layer. To be honest, I generally don't have too much trouble staying warm with fairly thin layers all the way down to 0 degrees. The thing to keep in mind, though, is to experiment with your options so that you know what works for you and what doesn't.

4) Keep your feet and hands warm. I know a lot of folks here in AK use Neos overboots and pogies for their hands. I am not that extreme yet. Until about zero degrees I am fine wearing a pair of water proof hikers that are large enough to comfortably wear a pair of thin wicking socks with a thick pair of wool/acrylic blend over top. Down to -15 or so and I'll wear the thin wicking, a thin pair of wools, and a thicker pair of wool or fleece on top. Hands are a different story. After the first blast of cold weather in the fall, I am generally comfortable in a thin pair of acrylic gloves down to 20 degrees or so. Colder than that and I wear a pair of expedition-type goretex gloves. When it gets really cold I could use a pair of liners or a pair of mittens, but have not found a pair that I am happy with yet.

5) Cover your eyes. The worse part of riding in the cold? Freezing eyes! Maybe I have sensitive eyes, but when it is ten or below, my eyes just ache if they are exposed to the wind generated by riding. Last winter I used a pair of ski goggles for much of the winter. Those worked great, but in warmer temps actually made my face too warm. This year I've been using a pair of clear sunglasses I found on the bike trail. They've worked quite well thus far. However, on those mornings when it is below zero I still opt for the goggles.

6) Light your way. I love riding on those full moon mornings when lights aren't needed, but that doesn't happen that often. I've tried all kinds of lighting configurations and still have not found the optimal approach. This season I am using a Princeton Tech Remix mounted on my helmet with a home-brewed 20 Watt halogen mounted on my handle bars for front lighting. This provides ample light to see by, but the battery cost is somewhat steep for the halogen. I get about an hour to an hour and a half per charge. This is part of the reason for the helmet mounted light. On the back I have a couple of red blinkies, just to let people see that I am there.

7) Be prepared. In the winter it is vital that you are prepared in case something happens. You could have a mechanical, a blow out, run into a moose. Who knows? When you dress for the ride, you'll be dressing a bit lighter than the conditions warrant. So what happens if you end up walking? You'll get real cold, real quick. My bag always includes the following when I am riding in the winter: an extra tube, a quality tool kit, an extra set of batteries, a lighter, a fleece jacket, a down or synth puffy, an extra stocking cap, extra gloves, and my daily work gear. In the event I get stuck somewhere, get wet, or what have you, I am fairly well prepared to get myself into some warm clothes and prevent hypothermia.

8) Enjoy the ride. The hardest part some days is simply enjoying the ride. Those days when the route is just sucky it is hard to see the beauty of the world, but I always try to stop and really look around myself a few times on each ride. I am a big fan of the winter world, the dark and cold mornings are just magical to me and I try to appreciate that - the glisten of the snow, the silence of the city in the morning before most people have started their work days, the crunch of the snow under my tires. These are all things that help ground me and connect me with this place. It's certainly better than cooping myself up in a car and dealing with traffic...

This is all pretty basic stuff. I think by far the biggest hint I can provide is that if you don't, somewhere deep down inside, love riding bike, you'll find all kinds of excuses to not ride. I could preach all day long about how wonderful it is to have those minutes or hours each morning to myself on the trail on the way to work and how I loath driving in general now, but that won't convert anyone else to my way of thinking. You just need to get out there and try it. If you love it, go for it. If you don't? Try something else.

The important thing, I think, is to find ways to grow your own image of pure happiness. Kinda like this - I've never seen me look so happy!

Noise (Rain on a Factory Roof)

2011-12-03T15:15:00.000-09:00

It is the epitome of lazy day today. All day has been overcast and gray with intermittent spits of rain mixed with snow. A good day for sleeping in and slowly getting around to anything.

Last evening we watched an interesting film about the Great Divide mountain bike race. I've read a book about this race and it intrigues me. Actually, I find myself quite intrigued by the idea of long distance touring right now in general.

I like the idea of moving across vast distances under my own power. I like the idea that doing this can lead to a type of deep personal understanding that only physical tests can bring.

I wonder if this is a sign of age? It seems that many long distance riders are older. You know, you get to that point where speed is no long the prime concern. It becomes more about the process itself. Moving forward. Experiencing the ride.

I want to put together a cycle tour this summer. A couple of friends, peddling into new areas of Alaska, the family meeting up with us at the end of each day. A nice, relaxed experience.

I also want to do the Iditarod Invitational race the winter of my 40th. I certainly won't be racing it, but to experience that wilderness in that way? Amazing!

It might be a good start to first tackle a half century ride and follow that up with a century, before I start thinking about riding multi-day tours of over a thousand miles.

Funny stuff, this: Big Wheel Building: Didn't just laugh. Cackled!

And thought-provoking, this:

Moments. from lacemine29 on Vimeo.

And just to say, you have to check out lacemine29.blogspot.com. Dude has some amazing images, videos, and words. Inspiring.

Europa (Demo)

2011-12-02T08:47:00.000-09:00

I've not commuted by bike to the U in three weeks. First it was... I don't even remember why. I know why I didn't today. Even though I would have been safer on the trails in this weather, I simply could not bring myself to gut up to the prospect of the rain we are getting having turned the nicely packed trails to quicksand.

Yes, that's right. It is raining out. In December. After getting near record snow fall in November (close to 3 feet). Sadly, it is beautiful out. Warm. Refreshing. And I chickened out of riding.

Now I am standing here waiting for class to start and I've no real idea what I am going to teach.

I've been thinking a lot about how I've taught this semester and I think I am really starting to not like having access to computer at the podium. While teaching in SD, I found myself engaging with students much more, as I was constantly moving, writing, questioning.

Here I am tied to the computer so that I can flip the slides and I tend to focus more on the content I had created for the class than expanding into discussion.

A big part of this is the subject matter. Technical writing seems much more difficult to get students engaged in. Few people really want to be tech writers and all of my students are only here because they must be. It is much easier to get someone interested in a discussion of the symbology of color in Cheever's The Swimmer than it is in a discussion of how to best use white space to direct the reader's eye and response to the writing.

These are the thoughts that fill my head. It's a strange place.

This is also in my head, a video that's been around for a while, but some amazing sights and sounds.

Bikerafting Alaska's Lost Coast: Yakutat to Glacier Bay. from lacemine29 on Vimeo.

Now for something completely different...

Been a while

2011-12-01T08:18:00.001-09:00

I've come to the realization that I hate my work. I love the people I work with. I love the challenges I face. I love the work itself. I just hate my work.

Ahh, but let me be much more specific. I don't really hate my work. I hate that I am feeling stale, as a writer. In essence I write the same material over and over and don't force myself to stretch my writing muscles much anymore.

I equate it to riding bike every day. Sometimes my legs just feel dead even though they are in probably the best shape ever. Dead. No energy. Tight. Sore. Makes it hard to walk up the stairs, let alone peddle the daily commute.

How do I break out of my cycling doldrums? I stretch a bit. I peddle a new route. I go for a fun ride in the dirt or on the snowy single track and it awakens the legs and refreshes the commute.

The same can be done for writing, right? If I force my mind to exercise itself, bend in new directions, and do so in a systematic way it will only serve to freshen my writing overall. Right?

That's what I hope and why I am going to try launching this thing called blog again - just to have some place to go when I need to refresh the synapses and gain a new perspective.

And just for the heck of it, here's a video to enjoy:

I am frightened

2010-01-21T17:32:00.002-09:00

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-campaign-finance22-2010jan22,0,850920.story

We all know that corporations are running the government in round about ways, such as through lobbying groups and such. However, the recently ruling by the Supreme Court has now removed any and all barriers to our next president being nothing more than a corporate shill for Nike.

I wonder if he or she will be provided with an unlimited wardrobe of tracksuits, al a Sue Silvester on Glee?

How long until the year of the Depends Adult Undergarment?

We're All Really Happy You're Here

2009-08-24T18:35:00.002-08:00

Fall seems to be really coming along nicely. The sun is setting earlier and earlier and though the days are still hot as can be, the nights are becoming crisp and cool and even now the kids are getting ready to start back to school. Summers seem shorter and shorter each year as we try to stuff more and more into the ever diminishing time we have free from one of many constraints.

Winter is too soon around the corner. No matter how many miles we put on or how much time we wish otherwise, winter will be here again sooner than we know it.

Interlude 2

2009-08-24T07:56:00.001-08:00

I have not been out on the water today, nor should I really be sacrificing a few moments here to post anything. Sometimes, though, it is important to capture thoughts or ideas as they are fresh.

I realized today that I have been at this whole thirty days on the water thing for twenty five days now. Five to go and then it is back to normal life. No more drive to ensure that I fit in time on the water each and every day, even when I don't feel up to it. It seems that doing anything for thirty days straight must lead to some sort of burn out. The challenge is certainly not a physical one, it is mentally dealing with the imperative that you "must" do…whatever it is that you must do.

The impending end has also raised a number of other thoughts as well. One of which is if I could do a year of thirty days. Meaning, could I continue this experiment over the course of a year, engaging in a new activity each thirty days? Could I run for thirty days, followed by biking for thirty days, followed by… who knows, maybe bowling for thirty days? Eventually I would run out of things to do, wouldn't I? Would it prove anything other than a minior league obsessive streak? I think the possiblities are interesting, especially as winter comes into full swing.

This is a topic I need to think on further. It might just be something I need to try. It might just kickstart something in my mind, some new poems or something. Or it may just be a distraction. Hmmm…

Drinkin' Beer in the Hot Sun...I fought the Cheyenne and the Cheyenne Won

2009-08-23T19:29:00.002-08:00

As I mentioned before, we decided that it would be good to get out and camp again this weekend, as it has been some time since the entire family slept on the ground. Saturday morning we headed to the Badlands, set up camp in the Sage Creek campground, the kids explored, and we explored with them.

I had been hopeful that the creek for which the campground is named would have enough late season water to allow at least a modicum of a paddled, but I did not think that my vessel could draft in three inched of assorted muds and mucks. After much himming and hawing, we decided to drive the kids into Wall, get some ice cream, and then head either to the White River or to the Cheyenne.

In the end, after a root beer float gulped down at a brain freeze pace in front of the Wall post office, it was decided that the drive to Wasta was shorter than to Interior and the Cheyenne had a better chance of still having enough water to float.

What we did not know is that the Cheyenne at Wasta does not have any public access, at least none that we could find. With daylight growing short, the fuzzy logic of brain freeze dissipating, we found a small access road to the rail road tracks just outside of town on old highway 14/16. After some reconnoitering, it became clear that this was a regular point of access for locals looking to sit on the banks, drink a few beers, and get their fishing lines wet. By crossing the aforementioned tracks, ducking a barbed wire fence, navigating down a steep incline, avoiding the rickrack of gigantic highway pieces from the last time the road was rebuilt, managing to keep head above arse and shoes unstuck in the gumbo, we were ready to head out.

The idea was that Jo and I would head south, against the current towards I-90 while the rest of the fam gassed the car and sought out a slightly easier exit route that the entrance had been. We hit the current and felt the tug on the bow, trying to move us to Oahe. Then we felt the sand on the bottom of the river abrade the plastic hull. Then we felt stillness.

We knuckle-drug ourselves into the "channel" along the east shore of the river, turned upstream and proceeded to paddle toward the first "rapid" a mere fifty feet away. As we approached, we again ground out and were forced to abandon ship, drag it over the rock and scree and into the deeper, being a relative term, water above the rifle. Here again, we moved about fifty feet before disembarking, pulling and pushing the boat through the debris field below a slightly larger and faster moving rifle of water. On the up-stream side I jumped back into the boat and before I could put the paddle to the water, we were turned into the downstream flow, over rock and snags and into the flowing water. Half-way in I gave up. I gave up thinking I could move up stream in the Cheyenne without spending more time outside the boat than in. I gave up thinking I had the energy and resolve to fight a river.

We rode the rapids back to the launch point, I hopped out, mucked through the mud, grateful to have my shoes both firmly on my feet when done, and crouched to grab the bow-line and yank the boat with my daughter still in it onto shore. This act resulted in the sickening rip of fabric and thread that only comes when the crotch (my wife hates that word...) rips apart and you realize that you have but one pair of shorts on this short excursion.

By the time we wrestled the boat back up the slope, through the barbed wire, and to the car, I was a bloodied and sweaty mess. Had my wife not stuck around to watch the fun and then came to help with the lugging, I doubt that I would have bothered to remove the 'yak from the tracks, preferring to let the next train obliterate the hateful thing.

Today, Sunday, however, I found myself grateful that we took the effort to reload the boat, as we ended up heading to the hills and to Lake Pactola. On first arriving, I was not sure that I would put the boat in as the water was stirred up to sizable swells by the passing boat traffic and the wind. I was not in the mood for a challenge. I wanted a nice easy lake to paddle.

After much cajoling, my wife got me and Jo on the water, and it was enjoyable, though I would like to paddle it after Labor Day and in the middle of the week once, as I think there is a ton to explore there, but the boats that pass create a wake field that just saps the fun out of it. The smell of exhaust while on the water turns my stomach.

The coolest part of Pactola was the bald eagle flying above us. Jo and I missed the first sighting, when it passed quite close overhead of the other as they frolicked in the water. We did get to watch it circle and soar from the time we landed until we pulled out of the lot and started for home.

I always love putting too many miles on the car and trying to fit too much into the weekend. That is until it is time to come home, face the reality of life and start the preparations for yet another week in the salt mines.

They Say it’s the Quality that Matters…Whoever “They” Are

2009-08-21T06:31:00.002-08:00

So, the titles are getting a bit more overblown with each passing day, but it is important to keep one's-self entertained. Before we dive in, I just want to pose a question: Since when did having "inadequate lashes" equate with a medical condition requiring medication? And we wonder why our health care system is in such a state…

On with the show. After last night's wonderful paddle, I decided to force myself up earlier than usual this morning to put some time in on the water before work. We are planning on camping in the Badlands this weekend and I know how difficult it may be to find water so I thought to myself that it would be best to get today's paddle done with so that tonight I can focus on setting camp and relaxing with a book, looking at the stars, and trying to not get run over by a buffalo.

When I rolled out of bed shortly after six my oldest daughter was up and about so I put her to work filling my water bottle, making coffee, etc., while I took the kayak off the car and loaded the canoe. I have been feeling bad as we bought the canoe last winter and really have barely used it when compared to the last canoe, simply because I have the kayak now, which is easier to load and unload, maneuver and cover miles both solo and tandem. The kayak also allows for paddling in a wider range of water and weather conditions. Last night's paddle would not have happened in the canoe. Or it may have, but it would have been more nerve wracking than relaxing. So this morning, Jo and I loaded the canoe, headed down to the marina launch by Griffin park, and set off for a quick 1.5 mile jaunt around Dump Island.

The air was a bit chilled and the wind was starting to pick up a bit, though nothing that was concerning. We had a bit of tailwind to speed us downstream and a touch of chop to contend with on the way back upstream. As we rounded Dump Island, we noticed a large bird on the exposed sand to the north side of the island. At first I figured it to be a vulture, as I have seen them hanging around on the sand in the morning before. As we came closer I was able to see that the bird was way too big to be a vulture and it did not have the pink head. Rather it had the bright yellow talons of an eagle. I was not positive that this was an immature baldy until it flew off its breakfast at our approach and I was able to see its mottled under wings and get an even better glimpse of its talons. I feel bad that we drove it off its breakfast, but we did so in an non-threatening way and the bird flew back to the strand after we passed, so we did not spook it overmuch.

As I started to loosen up and feel my stroke I reflected on the differences between a canoe and a kayak. Even with the use of my kayak paddle on the canoe, we never broke more than 3.2 miles per hour, though I was sweating as if I were paddling a 7 mile per hour pace in the kayak. I suppose one could draw an analogy here. The canoe is the freighter of the self-powered craft world while the kayak is the pleasure cruiser. In my canoe I can load it to 1200 pounds and she will float and handle pretty much the same as if she is empty. I can pack a week's worth of supplies, ice chest, and a plethora of other non-necessity items in the canoe and have a really comfortable camping excursion. The kayak allows a total payload of 550 pounds. Now, I am a bit of a large guy, meaning that not much capacity, weight-wise, is left once I get settled in. The covered fore and aft decks and dual seat configuration also reduces the possibilities for packing. Cooler? No way. Aluminum beach loungers? Not a chance. Gear for an extended trip? Likely not, though this is debatable.

Clearly each boat has a different purpose, which supports my logic for buying the kayak when I already had a really fine canoe. Sometimes it is nice to cover close to ten miles in choppy, wind-blown water in a few hours after work. Other times it is nice to take a leisurly paddled down the river, secure in the knowledge that the payload does not overweight the boat, knowing that when it comes time to break out the grill and burgers, the grill will still be dry and ready to go and the burgers coming out of the cooler will be free of dangerous bacteria as they remained at the proper temperature in the cooler for the entire voyage. Maybe the post title should be "It Takes the Right Tool to do the Job Right."

The Sun Burns the Clouds Away and the Sky is Still Blue

2009-08-20T19:04:00.002-08:00

The wife and the kids had an appointment at 7, so the drop-off at the put in was hurried and the route was decided without due consideration.

"Where should we pick you up? Farm Island?

"Yeah that sounds good."

"Up or down?"

"Ahhhhh....up...no, wait, down." An east wind should help me make the first leg of the journey in record time, which I could then, I figured, make up moving back upstream and against the wind after rounding the island.

Sure enough, as I got my bow wet and began making those first tenative strokes before my shoulders fully warm up, I stated feeling good that I was going to make the trip in record time. Heading down stream, the wind provided a nice boost and I made the main channel of the river in what seemed to be mere minutes.

Once I hit the river, however, the wind and the water characteristics changed and the chop made for a challenge in keeping a straight line. Even so, the ride was not too bad until I came to the midway point of Farm Island where a group of twenty or so pelicans were sitting in the middle of the river on what I thought was a submerged tree, but what turned out to be a sandbar. The bar was not a challenge, though the rising of the river bed caused the waves to grow larger and more challenging. At one point, I allowed the waves to drag me onto the sand so I could take a break for a moment.

After taking off from the bar, I headed into one of the bays of the island, looking for a channel to connect the two sides of the island. I figured that with the water as high as it has been lately may have opened a way through. In the end, I explored some amazing scenery of the island, but did not find the connection I was looking for. I found it somewhat interesting that areas where I would cut through the island on my bike last summer were now under my keel.

I moved back into the main river and continued working around the island. As I came close to the tip of the island, to the south east there sat a huge white blotch on the water. What must have been two hundred pelicans and literally thousands of gulls all gathered together under the wind. As I passed by, the gulls lifted into the wind and the pelicans began fluffing in preparation for flight. I wish that I would have had a camera with me because the sight was absolutely amazing.

By the time I started back into the sun, it was low enough that all I could see was the sun glinting from the water. While paddling, I decided that I prefer paddling with a five to eight mile an hour headwind. Yes, this leads to some chop to cut into, but having a headwind almost requires a long stroke with a slower turn-over. This happens to be my most efficient stroke allowing me to travel just about as fast against a light wind as with it.

All in all, I paddled 9.64 miles in just over two hours. Not a bad haul for a weeknight. Having the clouds part and the sky turn blue again was an absolutely wonderful cap to a long work day.

The Gods are Taunting Me

2009-08-19T16:45:00.003-08:00

Today. What a day. Busy, so busy I barely had time to think and throughout the afternoon the skies opened and dumped copious amounts of water and lightning into this fair burg.

By 5:30 it seemed as if things were going to clear up and the evening would be fair, if not perfect, for completing last night's planned circumnavigation of Farm Island. I was not worried about the weather turning to crud again, so I played a bit of Wii and ate dinner before Bells and I set out.

By the time we pulled out of the driveway, the sky was starting to look threatening again, so we headed down to the water between LaFram and Pierre and put the boat in. We paddled against the wind for nine minutes before the lightning started sparking the sky over the bluffs surrounding Ft. Pierre. We turned around and hustled back to shore, landing just as the lightning intensified and a few boomers sounded quite close to our location.

We watched as the front came through. It was amazing to watch the formerly calm water suddenly turn into a violent maelstrom ready to eat anything in its path. Even the barge dock was taking it on the chin and seemed tempted to let the waves take it down. Almost instantly the rain was pelting down and the water was pushing some of the biggest waves I have seen in this part of the country. The wind tried to blow the 'yak away from me and Bells had to help secure it to the car.

Dejectedly, we headed home in the rain feeling a bit cheated. As with any weather in South Dakota, tonight's is fickle. Right now I look out my window and see blue skies surrounded by ribbons of clouds that appear to be the beginning of the next wave of storms to hit this evening. The weatherman says tomorrow will be better and the weekend most wonderful. Then again, when has the weatherman ever been right?

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

2009-08-18T18:58:00.003-08:00

I love a good thunder storm. Watching the clouds build into writhing black masses. Watching as the systems move together and build even higher. I like watching these things build on most occasions.

When I walked out of work tonight at half past five, I knew we were in for a whopper of a storm. The wind had been steadily blowing all day at a respectable, but not annoying, nine to twelve miles per hour. As I strapped on my helmet and unlocked my bike to make the ride home the air was dead calm with towering cumulus dotting the sky around the periphery of this micropolis. I think they were actually cumulonimbus, the really high cumulus clouds. I might be wrong, though. This is beside the point. The point of the story is that it was dead still, which for Pierre, South Dakota in August is absolutely not right.

A storm was brewing, and a big one.

By the time I made the 4.2135 minute ride from work to home, the wind had picked back up, shifted directions, and the clouds began to dance in the sky, blocking the sun one moment and completely disappearing the next. I came in the house, we ate dinner and by seven I was headed for the waters around Farm Island with the intent of circumnavigating this island with Gav along for the ride.

The weather had different plans. As we got close to Farm Island, it was clear that the weather was not going to hold off long enough for a six mile paddle. Instead we put in on the inland side of the island, planning to paddle down to some of the channels that cut into the island. By the time the boat was wet and the skipper and first mate aboard, it was clear that the voyage would be a short one, unless we wanted to end up like Gilligan.

Gav and I putzed around the water, crossing to the island before seeing lightning and hearing thunder, a sure sign that our trip was over. We hustled back to shore, loaded the boat, and made our way to Wal-Mart to run some errands before the storm really broke. But when it broke, it broke good.

I had wanted to put in some good time on the water tonight, exploring some areas I have not had a chance to check out yet, as they are inaccessible if the water is not high. Although I did not complete the planned route, I still got my feet wet which is really what is important in life. Now? Now I am going to sleep and am hoping for a clear sky come tomorrow night.

A Lack of Dead Fish...Yet the Smell Remains

2009-08-17T18:28:00.003-08:00

3.42. That's the miles I paddled.
6.2. That's the maximum speed I attained.
3.5. That's my average speed.

Sometimes data overload is a good thing. Sometimes it is a bad thing. Tonight I took off from the Ft. Pierre launch to make my way up the Bad River, yet again. The wind was whipping, so I thought it would be best to paddle in a fairly sheltered area to avoid getting blown to the Gulf inadvertently.

At every turn there was evidence of the water that has fallen from the sky over the last few days. The normal green coloration of the Bad had changed to a murky brown, much the same color as the dirt of gravel roads all across the western part of the state. Snags of tree branches, fishing line, fence wire, assorted trash, and other detritus created floating obstacles to paddle around.

I wasn't looking all that forward to hitting the Bad again, as it seems that I have been on this waterway quite a bit recently. As I make my way up the river, I decided, given the water level, that I would check out a side creek that enters the river at about a mile from the convergence. I was able to make it quite a ways back into this small capillary, making a number of tight turns that my 13.5 foot craft should not have been able to make. As I moved ever up the creek I noticed the soft dirt of the hillsides surrounding me were slowly dropping pebbles and rocks into the water as I passed.

I continued along, hoping that the walls of dirt would hold until I made my way back down. The creek continued to narrow as I pushes along, pole-boating with my paddle. As I rounded the last navigable corner, trying to capture an image of a great blue heron standing atop the nearest spire of dirt, I saw the distinct head of a beaver break the water's surface ahead of me. I repositioned myself, trying to capture the large rodent as it swam towards what must have been its lair. As I brought the camera up to focus on him, his tail slapped the water with a bullwhip crack and he was gone.

I decided this would be a good place to attempt a 35.5 point turn and head back to the main artery. I made the turn and poled down the creek and as I rounded the first challenging curve I saw yet another beaver. This one, too, I missed capturing on video or film. I may have caught the sound of its tail-slap, but that is all.

The return trip was nothing too spectacular, just a quick run with the sluggish current and back to the waiting car. By the time I got back to the launch, the wind was completely stilled and the evening was perfect apart from the mosquitoes. By the feel of fall in the air tonight, I don't think we will have to worry about the blood sucking fiends for too much longer. Rather, we might have to worry about the waterways freezing over before I am ready. Winter is too close for comfort.

NoDak to SoDak

2009-08-16T20:43:00.002-08:00

It is hard to write about the Missouri River. Everything that anyone has ever written about this vast highway of liquid has the feel of a tall tale or outright lie. Case in point: The Complete Paddler which spends an inordinate amount of time talking about sandbars and mudflat that the author of the book has gotten caught up in, as if he were paddling so fast that he could not see the changing aspect of the water before running aground. But when he wrote the book the river and the region was in a time of drought. From the present, everything seems off kilter when speaking of the river.

What is abundantly evident is that every turn of the river brings a different face. I have been fortunate to paddle portions of the river as it runs by Vermillion, a part of the river designated wild and scenic by some federal agency or another. I've also spent much time on the water around Pierre – clearly. In comparing those two distant areas of the river, I have noticed huge differences in the character of the river. In Pierre, even when the dam is releasing, the current is not too strong. It peter's out as it hits the big waters below Farm Island. On the wild and scenic stretch the water is muddy, murky, and full of floatsom and jetsom that can cause a scare or two for the unsuspecting paddler. This section of the river can move along fast enough to make even experienced paddlers question the sanity of embarking while at other times the water seems to be moving so slowly that it is moving back toward the dam that had just recently freed it. Each of these portions of the river are enjoyable for different reasons.

The wild and scenic portion flows through some beautiful rural lands with the bluffs of Nebraska on one side and the floodplains of Dakota on the other. The tamed river by Pierre offers vast stretches where the only trees are the ghosts of cottonwoods past and the only boat traffic is centered around the dams and boat launches and where one can travel for hours without seeing a single soul The upper Missouri tamed by dams can change in an instant from the perfect calm and mirror shine to a writhing, dare I say, serpent intent on punishing any fool foolish enough to venture onto her waters and the lower "wild" Missouri simply moves the bars, channels, sawyers, and snags at whim so the traveler can never really have a route memorized because as soon as it is committed, it changes and the paddler finds himself hung out to dry.

Today I experienced yet another aspect of the river. The river as it makes its way through Bismarck, North Dakota and into Lake Oahe. I was dismayed to find that it is almost impossible to find a place to launch in Bismarck. I am sure that part of this comes from not being familiar with the town, but even when following the signs to marinas and water's edge parks, it was most difficult to find a public launching spot. Indeed, I had to go a bit commando and haul the boat on my shoulders across a vacant lot to the cove a land developer created to entice house buyers. As I pulled into the main river and nosed into the current, I was shocked by the power of the water flowing downstream. I am not used to this type of current. The 15 plus mile per hour head wind did not help matters much as I fought for every inch of forward motion I achieved. As I passed under bridges the mixture of current and wind continually tried to spin my nose back downstream. The passing boat traffic further complicated the situation with large wakes generated by the narrowness of the river and the shallowness outside of the main channel.

The river channel is of such importance to navigation in this section of the river that I often had large pontoon boats pull to within a few feet of me in their passing, causing me to need to nee into the wake to prevent a broadside roll from the displaced and displeased water. In each of these instances the frequency of the wake-born waves was such that at least one would break over the bow and flood a rush of icy water into the cockpit. The mile upstream felt like five in the waters I have been paddling and I was beginning to question if I should continue trying to make it to the iron train bridge before turning around. As I slowly grew closer to the towering pylons of the bridge, a strange vibration moved through the plastic of my boat and I thought that I must have overtopped a submerged tree. Then I heard the train with my ears. As the Burlington line started across the bridge above, the weight of its passing caused yet another profusion of ripples in the water to deal with. There was more than just a bit of excitement rush through my veins as I passed under the tonnage of railcar suspended on what seemed spider silk from my vantage.

As I passed under the train, ahead of me rounding a bend that passes under Interstate 94 came a bit of an anachronism: A paddle wheeler clearly packed with tourists out enjoying a cruise on the Mighty Mo. The wake from this behemoth was clearly visible from my position almost a half mile away. I thought to myself that this giant would have a hard time seeing me, let alone realizing it if I got caught in its passing. I made a b-line for the shore to allow the ship to pass before I ventured my turn back downstream. As I snugged into the sand and mud and chased off a flock of Canada geese I watched as the wheeler turned in a slow arc into the current and to a landing formerly hidden from my view. I pushed out of my cradle and nosed back down the river, sticking to the west shore and the strip of water where the boats powered by petrol were unable to run.

The return trip took less than ten minutes with the current's assist. Now I am sitting in the car, feeling pleasantly tired and thankful that I was able to get my boat wet in a new patch of water. I wonder how long it will take for the water I rode today to make it through Oahe, through the dam and back under my boat as I continue working the waters.

It Smells Like Shampoo and Fish

2009-08-15T16:05:00.002-08:00

Today I took off from Antelope Creek in an attempt to complete the short stretch where Gav and I did not paddle last weekend because of the weather. The weather today was perfect for paddling. There was only the tiniest bit of wind blowing and the dam was moving a lot of water downstream. All in all it was a Huck Finn day, the type of day where the paddle can be set aside and the river moves you as it wishes and every moment is filled with wonder.

Today's wonder started with the perfection of the weather. The wonder continued as I drifted along and into a giant pod of pelicans and other assorted water birds. The birds continually took to flight just ahead of my bow and by being silent I could hear every wing beat. As they flew above my head, gliding effortlessly between the earth and the sky, the sun turned their out-stretched wings to x-ray images, the structure of flight revealed.

Even the dead fish flowing towards the sea were not as bothersome as per usual, the scent of rot covered by the scent of the fresh, cold deep lake Oahe waters that were creating the current I was floating.

Everything was perfectly clear today, I could see the takeout point from the put in, a distance of almost five miles. It appeared, as I looked down river, towards the Mississippi, towards the Gulf of Mexico, towards the ocean, that I could see the very water vapor rising from the surface and building future storms.

The stretch of water between Antelope Creek and Medicine Creek is the best water to paddle when the weather is perfect. I would be willing to bet, however, that when the wind turns up, this stretch, wide and shallow, becomes a miasma, a yawning hell stretch. I might just have to try this stretch next time we have a blustery day to see if my assumption is correct.

A Webwork of Lightning

2009-08-14T18:49:00.002-08:00

The calm before the storm is always the nicest time of the day. The water goes absolutely flat, mirroring the the growing cloud bank over the bluffs that locals think are the most beautiful landforms in the world. The leaves of the cottonwoods and Russian olive stop their light dark, light dark shivering.

Tonight, the Gavster and I headed out from the marina and paddled over to Dump Island where we pulled over, he played in the sand a bit before we headed back out, the seating arrangement altered, the front end riding high with Gav paddling for mere minutes before his little arms gave out.

I continued the paddle down the length of the water between Pierre and LaFram, moving around the dike and then up the shallow channel where we normally view eagles. The water was still quite high and one of the sawyers that is often exposed to the main trunk was showing only the top-most branches. Sitting atop these skeletal fingers was the stark white and blue-gray contrast of the osprey. Moving around the reeds edging into the water was a beaver, its triangular head barely breaking the water, the hump of its back creating brief ripples in the water/

As we continued moving up the channel, over the rifle caused by the sandbags the Corps of Engineers or some other river altering body placed in the water, Gav called out "Lightning. I see lightning."

"Where" I asked, thinking he saw the distant line of xenon lights on the skeletal framework of the distant dual-purpose cell phone-radio tower on the hills to the southeast of town, as I had been fooled by these lights myself a time or two. When I heard the roll of thunder following a few minutes later, I knew for sure that what he saw was no tower. Rather it was the thing I did not want to see, knowing how far we were from a safe landing. We turned about, I paddled a steady stroke first with the current and then against, hoping to get somewhere close to the rendezvous before the storm decided to really open up on top of us. The thought of getting wet while on the water does not bother me, but the thought of sitting atop of millions of gallons of water holding a large metal pole in my hand as the sky melts into bright streamers of shifting electrons just does not seem like the best place in the world to be.

Fortunately we arrived ashore well ahead of the storm. We watched as the clouds grew blacker and the wake-board boats continued to tow their riders through the chop and white foam, almost daring the electricity to streak down and burn the polyester rope from their hands.

Now I am sitting here, safely ensconced in the dry, climate controlled perfection of my house watching the web-work of lightning light the sky over town, delicate and deadly lattice works. I miss the storms of the east, the big banging storms with torrential downpours almost like biblical prophesies. These middling storms are violent in their approach, but the staying power leaves something to be desired. A long night of stormy weather is a thing of beauty to cherish. Around here, the dryness of the land saps those clouds far too quick and the river never seems to change much.

Overgrown Wall Drug Sign Falling into the Water

2009-08-13T18:03:00.003-08:00

Too many people out and about tonight, the lonely river clogged with unaccustomed traffic: row boats, paddle boats, a fellow kayak, un-nameable detritus. The banks lined with trailers moored to semi-permanent footings, sawyers bobbing in the green murk, mange-riddled dogs, four-wheelers slowly sinking into the shore mud, and barefoot children and wives cleaning freshly captured carp, the guts briskly yanked still digesting, bleeding, pumping, and thrown into the water from whence it came. Dinner for another night. The beer cans bobbing half submerged, low-rent Cartesian divers, constantly remind me of something.

The half-hidden Wall Drug sign, buried in the scrub trees, Russian olives, northern catalpa. Can one travel by water to Wall, to the famous free ice water and tourists from around the world? Can one trek through the temperate desert on the first highway system? The water of this river creeps slowly towards the sea, away from Wall and the wall of land that rises out of the prairie that gives the town its name.

There are storms brewing tonight. The charge of electricity palatable in the film of slime stuck to the sides of the river, to the roof of my dehydrated mouth. I don't know what this means.

Vroooooom...Splash, Splash

2009-08-12T17:33:00.002-08:00

I have come to realize that I really hate, with insane passion, jet skis. These beasts built for only one purpose, to go fast, just defy logic. Take X horse power, combine with testosterone, throw in a few scantily clad ladies on the shore for good measure, mix it all together with sand, sun, and more often than not, a bit of adult beverages and turn it loose on the lakes and rivers. Ack!

The sound of these fiberglass and steel machines is like a swarm of giant mosquitoes that are pissed off because there is no blood to suck. The hull shape is designed specifically to create large wakes for the pilots of these crafts, often boys not even old enough to shave more than once ever six months, to try jumping over. The stupidity of it all just boggles the mind.

I must be getting old or something, but any activity that involves gasoline, water, speed, and mindless screaming at the top of one's lungs just seems so...caveman-like. Maybe I am just getting on my high-horse, I am sooooo much better than you because I am trying to become one with the water rather than pummel it into submission, environmental impact soapbox. Either that, or I just have lost the ability to see the appeal in flying over the water at highway speeds, trying to launch a rather heavy craft into the air without landing wrong and killing myself.

Don't even get me started on wake-board boats...

Tonight Jo and I hit the water for a quite paddle before the storm broke. No storm has yet broken, though the sky seems to speak of tornadoes and other such mischief as is signaled when the entire world turns a jaundiced yellow color and everything becomes just a touch too still. We put in at Griffin park and paddled around Dump Island in some decent waves and wind. The paddle itself was nothing much to speak of in challenge or distance, though taking a nice, slow paddle with Jo was nice. We did not talk much, just watched the weather sail in from the south.

I did not think at all during this paddle, just moved one arm at a time and worked on keeping a straight course. Sometimes that is the most important thing, keeping a straight course even when the waves coming your way seem overwhelming. This is as true on shore as it is in the water. Though sometimes quartering the waves is the best option. Both come to the same thing, persevering even when it seems impossible to do so.

An Old Man Peeing from His Dock into the Bad River as if No One Were Watching and Laughing at Him

2009-08-11T18:22:00.003-08:00

Tonight, while the kids splashed and frolicked in the Ft. Pierre pool, which is, to them, much cooler than Pierre's pool as it has a high dive, the wife and I took a cruse up the swollen, bloated, foul smelling Bad River. The early stretches seemed a minefield of dead fish. Left, right, dead ahead the eyeless bloated creatures bobbed and threatened to explode in a profusion of unspeakable grossness at the slightest touch. Where the dead were not littering the water, the living broke the surface feeding on the insects congregating and decaying the dead. It was a ripe old time.

When the minefield abated, we had a nice stretch of water where an osprey flew and hunted, seemingly more comfortable with our presence than the last time we met on this stretch of the river.

Beyond the realm of the osprey, however, the recent rains and fertilized runoff from the surrounding fields transformed the water's surface into a petri dish teeming with alge of the most noxious green color and scent. The microscopic beings built to such numbers as to slick the paddle blades and bottom of the boat. The wife and I made it as far as the second train bridge paddling slowly and relishing the silence of the day. Even the wind was absent from this cruise.

As I found my stroke, I began to lose myself in thought, the sun in my eyes. I began thinking about one of the books I am currently reading River Horse by William Least Heat-Moon. The premise of the book is that the author and a revolving cast and crew traverse America by boat. I thought about how cool this idea sounds. The river was once the highway of the nation and only those places accessible by river were prosperous. As a nation, we have somewhat lost our dependence on water in this fashion. Least Heat-Moon tries to recapture some of the glory and glamor of river travel.

As I thought about this premise, however, I began to wonder just what he proved. He traveled in motor powered boats most of the way. Even the canoe that they utilized has a motor on it. I realize the logistics of this trip requires some delicate planning to ensure that all of the water routes are navigable from coast to coast in one season. However, to really be an astounding journey would require the absence of petrol power. What would truly make for an astounding trip would be a solo trek from coast to coast under the power of one's own muscle.

This idea intrigues me. I find myself curious about the possibility of paddling from Florida to Washington. Of Florida to Alaska. I find myself wondering about the limits of my ability, my sanity. I find myself wondering if I could garner corporate sponsorship.

Just Like Old Times

2009-08-10T16:10:00.002-08:00

Not really. I am having the final 101 class of the summer via D2L chat, much like working at the Online Writing Center in Vermillion. I'm sure that my students are enjoying the ability to enjoy a beautiful late summer night, rather than sit in a dreary classroom.

I've felt off all afternoon today. When I spend 45 minutes out on the water and all I can think about is work, I know something is wrong. Normally I start out thinking about work and then my mind moves elsewhere, where ever the current takes it, so to speak. Tonight all I could think about was the headaches that always seem to pop up when least expected.

There is nothing I hate more than being pushed up against a deadline. I like to have my work done weeks or months in advance so that I can sit back and relax a bit before I have to focus on the next task. I am a creature of leisure in that way, I guess. Work all out for days at a time to save a few weeks down the road.

This tactic has worked well for me, thus far. I have been able to have my work ready to go early so when the spirit called, I could simply pack my things and head out the door to who knows where. Now, however, I am stuck working with other people's schedules and it brings me down a bit. No one likes to work ahead. They wait till the last possible minute, rush to get the job done, and end up putting together something that isn't worth the paper it is printed on. It frustrates me to no end.

So I head to the river to try to escape thoughts of work and tonight all that enters my head are thoughts of work. I suppose this has more to do with the Monday blahs than anything else.

The water was high tonight, higher than I have seen it in a long time, and it was filled with flotsam waiting to bash into me. Fewer fish than normal so the smell of rot has dwindled somewhat. While on the river tonight I realized that I don't mind Pierre, as a temporary place. It is just not where I had envisioned myself while busting my butt to make the grades in grad school. Yet things have worked out amazingly well for me thus far. Yes, I am working my tail off much of the time and the stress does sometimes build, but it is a good learning experience and I am making some good friends who bring me sweets from India. I love me some sweets from India.

I'm not quite fifteen days in to my thirty days on the river and I think that the whole concept is growing on me. I doubt that I have had or will have any great revelations, but the act of writing on a regular basis is re-sharpening my mind and the time on the river, alone or with family, is becoming key to being centered and at peace with the world, even when a bit snappy from a rough day at the office.

Telling Stories to my Son

2009-08-09T16:29:00.004-08:00

I am beat. (I'm a beet) It's been a long weekend and I am ready to sleep a bit before I have to face another week. The plan was laid early last week. Gavin and I would leave on Friday night, camp at Antelope Creek, continue down river on Saturday, camping at De Grey before meeting up with the girls at Joe Creek.

Like all the best laid plans, however, this one seemed to go awry almost from the start. Friday night starts out as it should. I head home from work a touch early so as to take a nap before heading out as I had worked into the wee hours of the morning on Friday, completing an important task. My wife woke me up just as scheduled, we ate a quick dinner, and then headed to Farm Island. Gav and I loaded up the boat, shoved off, and made our way to Antelope Creek. Almost as soon as we hit the water, the plans started to unravel.

We headed south across the lake and east towards the main river channel. As we paddled for the open water a storm started brewing over Oahe in the distance and moving towards us as a fair clip. Gav and I paddled, pulling the five plus miles from Farm Island to Antelope Creek, landing amid the stink of rotting carp and floating beer cans just as the sky to the west seems to explode in light, searing our retinas for the moment. We pull the boat up the launch and begin unpacking so that we can get the tent up before rain comes in and soaks us.

The girls were scheduled to meet up with us for 'smores at 9:30 or so and as they pulled in Ame related the weather report: damaging winds, large hail, possible tornadoes. We decided to head home rather than try to tough out a storm that could bring baseball sized hail. As is usually the case when trying to be better safe than sorry, nothing happened, weather-wise in Pierre.

Saturday morning came round with rain and winds, clouds and an overall feeling of ugh. We looked up the weather report and were not given any good news. Gav was super disappointed and wanted to get back onto the river to complete our weekend of travel and camping.

We made deal, Gav and I, if it looked better by one, we would head out and complete the paddle we had planned. By the time one came around it was looking a bit better so we headed out, deciding to put in at Medicine Creek so that we would not have to cross the river against the wind. I was feeling just a bit cautious as I had not really been out on the water with a fully loaded boat and the boy with. I did not want to have his first trip be the first time he experienced being flipped into the water.

Fortunately as we left, the wind stared to ease and we were able to make decent time with the wind to our backs and the sun warm on our shoulders. We continued making our way east, riding the waves and taking a break at Mac's Landing, a small private beach that makes a good half-way point. Gav broke into the granola bars and I had a few hand fulls of trail mix. We got back in the boat and resumed the journey, the final leg from Mac's Landing to De Grey. I have now decided that the stretch from Mac's to De Grey is the worst stretch of the river. Something about the way that the wind and the water meet as the river bank turns and widens makes the water perpetually difficult to navigate. The waves somehow moved in multiple directions at once. Waves coming down from the north and cutting across the water from the east, the occasional rogue wave overlapping from the south. In short, the few miles from Mac's to De Grey always seems to take longer than the rest of the journey.

We landed at De Grey at about a quarter after five and set camp on the water's edge, collecting fire wood, making dinner, and starting a nice fire. Gav was excited as he made the fire and tried to light it. We got the fire almost going as the girls pulled in with marshmallows, chocolate graham crackers, and even more fire wood for us. We had a nice time eating the sugary goodness before the girls left Gav and I to our manly pursuits: mostly putting the fire out and going to bed early.

This morning, Sunday, we woke up a bit later than I had intended. I first woke up at 6:30 this morning as the sound of an engine approaching invaded my dreams. I checked on the Gavster and decided to roll back over and get a few more hours of sleep. By the time I re-awoke, it was 9:40 and I hopped up and began the process of packing up for the day. Gavin was not interested in getting up, so I made all the arrangements before waking him up for the day. I made coffee, we ate a few bars and other such, and then packed the last of the goods, spilled my coffee, and shoved out. The sky was clouded over, heavy with water vapor, and dead still. The water was flat and still. It almost felt like we were in the swamps or something, the ghost trees stark in the gray light of morning.

Gav and I paddled and paddled some more feeling that we would not ever make it to Joe Creek. To help pass the time, I told Gav a story about a boy who helps his father get free from alien mind control devices that had been implanted in his spine. The story must have made some impression on him as when we arrived home, he related the story to my wife.

Throughout the day, the weather was absolutely perfect for paddling. There was a light head wind, but one that did not impede travel, the waves were next to non-existent, and the sun was bright. The only time that we had any issues with the weather was in the final half mile stretch, when the wind started kicking up a bit heavier ahead of a massive storm that ripped through much of central SD this afternoon. Luck of luck, however, we did not get caught anywhere near the water as it started to move in. Rather we were on shore, celebrating our return to the girls with water mellon and peanut butter sandwiches before loading up the boat, the gear, and making the drive back to Pierre.

All in all, though the weekend started out a bit rough, it ended well, with a nice set of miles put in and a good experience had by Gav for his first time out for a camping trip of this nature. Now we just need to get the girls out there with us.

It was Sketch…

2009-08-06T23:00:00.002-08:00

The sky and the water were the same color, patina green copper with a hint of blackness for good measure. The wind was the constant companion as I counted to myself: one two three four one two three four. Slow rollers are nothing of concern any more. Even the high frequency breakers don't bother me much. I am not afraid of it I will tip and have to swim, I am only curious as to when this will happen. Tonight would have been a good night for it, or a good night to get struck by lightning as I pounded the waves and the wave pounded me back, holding an aluminum pole and sitting on highly conductive water filled with just the type of minerals and materials that an electrical charge needs to travel for miles and miles. And as always, the trip started out so nice. The water was smooth and calm. Of course, as soon as I made the turn around the head of the island, the wind hit me at full force and the wave started their relentless attempt to breech and then beach my boat.

The birds were skittish tonight, not wanting to fly into the wind ahead of my passing, but not wanting to stay put either. The herons were flocking together in the naked lower branches of trees and the ducks were so drenched that their normally water proof feathers were sodden and incapable of flight. Even the vultures were staying on their roosts, waiting for a nicer clime to return again.

Today's storms were doozies. Full of lightning and thunder. Passing squalls and torrential downpours filling my boat as it sat atop my vehicle waiting for its next use. I am hopeful that the next few days are not repeats of today. Gavin and I are planning a kayak camping trip from Pierre to the Joe Creek lakeside use area, about forty miles total. I have no issue myself of spending a wet weekend getting rained on and fighting the river and the wind to make it from point A to point B. I am really just in dire need of a weekend again when I cannot even thing about my email and all the things that are waiting for me back home, back in the real world. I think that Gav is excited about the trip. It will be wonderful fun to spend some time alone with him, teaching him some of life's most important lessons. Of course, his main concern is collecting river water in petri dishes for his older sister for "experiments."

Something in the air today made me a bit poetic. The resulting results are less than stellar, though somewhat interesting.

It's more than I can allow,

the feeling of smug satisfaction

when your bad shoes force you

to skulk through cubicle jungles

with visible proof of ill fit and a strange awareness

of ill will.

Some people just make themselves feel better

by pointing out the mistakes of others.

I keep trying to watch the rain that runs down

the open window

of this otherwise featureless room.

It's more than I can allow, the droplets looking like melting snow

as they slither over smudge covered sills, August is

too early to think of the depression of December.

The waterways are blockaded by lightning today,

gates of electric wanderings, waves not born

of aqueous solutions.

The constant confusion of smells freed from suspension

by the solvent power of water is more than I can allow

while I stare dreaming at the sky,

hoping for the power to transmogrify

and slip slide through the slit in the window,

escaping the four walls that separate me from anything real.

Damned the Dam Run

2009-08-05T18:53:00.001-08:00

It has been a few weeks since the fateful day when my coworkers and I set off from the Oahe Downstream Marina on a dam run that would turn somewhat dangerous and end up with two of the party taken out of the river by rescue workers. I had been somewhat hesitant to make the journey again, particularly with one of my children. Yet tonight I decided to take Bella out for another try at running from the dam to the landing. The wind was light, though coming at us from the south. The dam was releasing at a break-neck pace. The current was strong. The conditions were right to repeat the adventure of the last go round.

Fortunately the wind did not continue to build so the wave stayed manageable. Bells and I surfed a few wakes as boats passed by and we made great time down the river in spite of the wind working against us. Throughout the entire paddle Bella chatted and chatted and chatted. I only caught about half of the conversation, which is often the case when I am sitting in back and the passenger is in the front. I heard her ask how much a wet suit costs because she needs to save up to get one so she can dress up as a marine biologist for Halloween. I heard her talk about books she’s read, movies she’s seen, and music she’s listened to over the past few weeks. I watched as she dangled her fingers over the side of the boat, feeling the coolness of the water pass over them. I helped her capture a cattail to bring home.

I’ve noticed a few things about being on the river every day. First, the river is always changing, always. One day the water can be so low and clear that the bottom is clearly visible and other times it can run so fast and deep that the current can catch the bow and move it around at will and the water takes on the turquoise color that only occurs when the light reflects from the colder, deeper water and back to the surface. I’ve noticed that the weather in general is never constant. Even when it seems that it is not changing, it is. The breeze comes and goes. The clouds scuttle through, storms build over Oahe. The barometer falls, the humidity raises. Everything is in motion, a perpetual motion machine.

I’ve noticed a few things about myself as well. I’ve noticed that each time I dip the paddle in the water, flutter through, and pull it out, my stroke grows a bit stronger, my arms feel a bit stronger, and my boat moves a bit further. I’ve noticed that I am finding it easier and easier to silence the interior voice that reminds me of everything I have not accomplished over the day and everything I have left to do. I’ve noticed it is harder and harder to enjoy being inside all day long while the river is sliding past not five blocks from my office window. I’ve noticed that my skin is getting rough and is sloughing off when I rub my temples, trying to thing some problem through. My hands are growing calluses that rub and ride the keys of my computer keyboard with scuttling sounds when they rub past Tab or the tilde. I’m noticing that the feeling of being on the water even when on land is becoming less and less as I am on the water more and more. I’m even starting to no longer notice the smell of dead fish.

I’ve said to my wife before that a day should not go by when a person’s feet are not whetted by the water of a mighty river such as the Missouri. I still feel that way, but I might amend the thought to declare that one’s butt and body needs to ride the waves of the same said river.

A Blissful Lack of Words

2009-08-04T19:34:00.002-08:00

Sometimes the water is low, sometimes the water is high. According the USGS, the average water level in the Bad river at the measuring station is around two and a half feet. However, for some reason tonight I was able to paddle up stream past the second train bridge, around the bend, and almost to the Bad River road. This is the farthest I have ever been up this winding river. Last summer I spent some time on the Bad and never even made it to the second bridge.

It was nice exploring, feeling like I was discovering something that hadn't been discovered before. The temperature was great, the wind was low, and the birds were flying around my head. My only complaint with the Bad is that there are so many houses along the river kind of reducing the feeling that I was discovering the undiscovered.

I didn't think much while paddling, instead letting my mind go into that realm where the only thought is the repetition of left right, left right, left right. Dip, slide lift. Dip, slide, lift. The water drops flying in radiant arcs from the tip of my paddle, splashing back down to the water's surface and creating concentric circles that converge and break over the backs of the fish fluttering just under the surface.

The smell of the dead fish and the sluggish water is certainly not the most pleasant thing in the world, but being out there is better than sitting on this couch and working on yet another document, putting out another fire, coming up with a strategy for another meeting.

Sometimes words escape me.

Lunchtime Cruise: The Best Way to Face the Afternoon

2009-08-03T13:48:00.002-08:00

This morning, though it looked pretty nice out as the sun was struggling to rise over the buildings of Pierre; I just could not pull myself out of bed to get on the river before work. I am not sure if this has to do with the fact that if I did wake up and leave the comforts of a warm bed I would be that much closer to beginning another challenging day in the office, or if the adventures and work of the weekend had simply caught up with me. Either way, I hit the snooze button and pulled the covers back over my head to pretend the world didn't exist for another hour or so.

This led to a dilemma. When would I be able to get out on the water if I did not go before work? On Monday and Wednesday evenings I teach from six until ten, thus removing any chance to engage in any kind of activity during the day or evening apart from work. Through some stroke of brilliance, mine or, as is more likely, my wife's I cannot say, it was determined that we would head out over my lunch break to take a short cruise.

At a bit after noon, my wife and son pulled up to my place of employ, whisked me to Steamboat Landing and we promptly put the kayak in and began the paddle against the current of the releasing dam, my son and wife eating their lunch while I paddled and then the two of them paddling while I ate my lunch. I realize that technically three people are not intended to fit in the tandem, but the boy is still quite small, so we made concessions. The water was, apart from the man-made current, perfectly still, as was the oppressively hot sky. The day was, from my limited experience in Pierre, a bit of an oddity. Normally it seems that one cannot have a day without wind here. I will not complain. By the time we were almost to the railroad bridge I had worked up a fair sheen of sweat and a bit of a hunger.

I passed the paddle to the wife and boy and began the eating the sandwiches my son packed. The current was strong enough that we were unable to continue making headway and turned around to make the trip back to the landing. Because of the weight distribution, the propulsion coming from the front of the craft, and the current, we often found ourselves spinning in circles. I don't know that I would have minded a good dunking, apart from the plethora of dead fish in the water, which would lead to an office that smells of fish – a definite faux pas in the business world, I would say.

All this paddling has made me realize what is so amazing about Pierre. It is possible to get away from things even in the middle of town. It is nice to know, at least from a conceptual point of view, that if things ever get too crazy and hectic around here I could pack the family and the camping gear and we could literally float away. We could float all the way to the ocean, if the desire so struck us. We could make Huck Finn's epic journey after paddling in the wake of Lewis and Clark. Or we could just head to Farm Island and camp for the night before returning to the comforts and conveniences of home. Ahh…air conditioning.

Somtimes the Wind Blows and Sometimes it Blows Harder

2009-08-02T17:39:00.004-08:00

The joys of working even on the weekend wear thin after a while. Today I had a number of documents to work on that I need to have ready for use tomorrow. The plan was originally to go into the office, slog through them while all the time wishing to be outside, and then try to find a way to get on the river. Instead my wife had a grand idea. Print the materials while she packed a picnic lunch and then we would head out in an attempt to find a nice piece of beach to occupy while the kids swim.

Of course, I agreed. I agreed before I had gone outside to find out it was hot and windy. A combination that is less than perfect for our style of boating. Yet a bit of wind and an oppressive 100th meridian heat would not keep us inside. We packed our things into the Jeep, loaded the boats, and made our way to the Antelope Creek boat launch to see just how things looked on the water.

As we arrived, the wind was still kicking up a bit from the west and the sky showed signs of clouds building over Oahe, but we decided to head out anyway, me and the girls in the canoe and my wife and son in the kayak. We paddled upstream, thinking that if the Corp decided to release and if the wind continued, it would be better to fight it early in the day when our arms were fresh rather than after we ate and the kids had swam.

We started making the paddle west/north-west keeping an eye open for a good landing place. Almost immediately the wind dropped to next to nothing and the waves subsided. The paddling was free and easy, but with the flow of the water moving downstream when we stopped paddling the boats would change directions and follow the river towards the ocean.

We planned to paddle around a marshy outcrop, hoping for a wash of sand on the upstream side where we could have a relaxing afternoon, but the number of boats as we approached tainted our desire to move ahead. Instead we back tracked a little ways and found a small shale beach that we knew would serve our purposes. We pulled out, the kids slipped on their swimsuits and ventured ever further into the water while the wife and I sat up our chairs, pulled out our respective work, and enjoyed the slap of the waves against our feet while we allowed ourselves to be absorbed in the work. After this experience, I am half tempted to get a wireless card so I can paddle out to the sandbar and work from there when the office becomes too stifling... I'm afraid of commitment, though, so I don't think that will work.

It is remarkable that just moments out of town it is possible to remove yourself from the hustle and bustle of daily life. The kids are able to run and frolic and play in ways impossible at the local park. They are able to make discoveries such as finding fossils by Big Bend dam or making ladders and huts as they did today. These are important things for kids to do. As my wife and I were chatting, it seems like too often it is too easy for kids to get wrapped up in the world of Wii, iPod, cell phone, internet, always connected, always on. We have to be losing something, some cognitive capacity through our constant interaction with virtual representations of people and the highly structured world of video games, the grammatical abomination that is SMS, and the need to constantly be insulated from the world by music, podcasts, and other audio distractions pumped through those little white headphones.

Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe in the "New Economy" the only skill that will matter is being able to text 150 words a minute and complete the entire song "Eye of the Tiger" on Rock Band.

After some time spent in the sun and surf, we decided it was high time to head home as I still had work to do. Needless to say, the entire time we were on the beach, the wind had been growing in intensity again from the north west and this, in conjunction with the water releasing from the dam, led to some nice sized waves, the type of waves I prefer to avoid while in the canoe. Fun in the kayak, a killer in the canoe. We shoved off and almost immediately the stern was being overridden by waves. I am sure that my "healthy" size helped the boat to ride low enough for the waves to invade. Thinking back to advice I had read in some book or another, I shouted to my wife:

"Head to the blue water, the waves should be smaller there. In theory, anyway."

We paddled out to the deeper channel, turned tail, and allow the wind and waves to push us back to the launch, making it with only a wet bottom to complain about. While the paddle was short, the time on the shore was more than worth the effort. Just getting in the sun and on the water makes the day go so much better. Of course, in Pierre, if the wind isn't blowing, just wait a minute and it'll start.

Stop the Water, I Can't Handle the Sloshing Anymore

2009-08-01T17:04:00.004-08:00

Today I decided to do a longer paddle than any I have done before. My wonderful wife woke up early on a Saturday to drive me and my 'yak to DeGray Lakeside area east of Pierre about fifteen miles or so. The weather reports looked to bode well for a day out with relatively light winds in a favorable direction, sun galore, and no predictions of rain.

As we approached the Highway 34 bridge over Medicine Creek it became apparent that even though the wind seemed quite calm, the water was already poking some white fingers into the air ahead of the wind. Given that I was planning to do about sixteen miles, I had high hopes that the wind would remain manageable.

When we arrived at DeGray, it was clear that the water was going to provide some good fun, with irregular interval waves of a foot or so. I buckled up the PFD, kissed the wife goodbye and set out across the river (Really it is a lake, but...) to avoid a forest of ghost trees filled with nesting cormorants before turning bow downstream and working my way, inch by inch towards the destination, Joe Creek.

I have been on water for hours before, but never for as long as today. The total trip topped four an a half hours and during that time I had plenty of silence in which to think. For the most part, however, I tried to keep my mind blissfully blank, letting the waves and the motion of my paddle fill my being, losing track of the small discomforts that accompany most long journeys, the chaffing and the stiff backs, the numb feet and numb behind. Yet, as anyone who meditates will know, it is much more difficult to clear the mind of all conscious thought.

The thought that continued to invade had to do with a book I have been working on, The Complete Paddler, Lewis and Clark, the Lewis and Clark camp sites that the book identifies, and the impossibility of actually experiencing a river that is close to that experienced by Lewis and Clark. Yes, the river seems wild in places, but much of the upper river has been dammed and lies swollen and bloated like a body that has finally found the surface. Even the areas of the river that are not dammed and designated "Wild and Scenic" are mediated by the dams. The dams control the watershed all the way down to the Gulf. Forty years ago, fifty years ago were the cut bank bluffs that line the river today mere rolling hills sinking from the high grasslands to the cottonwood forests that lined the river? Should the forests of ghost trees throughout this section of the river cause us to question the validity of changing the landscape so drastically to fit our wants and desires?

We can never go back to the way it was. My fear is that someday the landscapes that I enjoy so much will be so far removed from wild that my children will not have the chance to actually wrestle with a river, struggle through a long slog of a hike wishing for it just to end, chance coming upon a bear in a wild area, or risk the possibility of landslide, avalanche, or other natural "disaster" while trying to get away from civilization even if only for a bit. I worry that nature will become so mediated by our society that it will be relegated to the status of theme park and whittled down to a few protected acres in high traffic area supported by a plethora of t-shirt, hot dog, and kitsch vendors.

Maybe I should not spend so much time alone with my thoughts.

When I set out, I fully expected that the length of the trip would lead to some trouble for me, would be uncomfortable for me, would test my resolve to keep going. While I dealt with my share of waves and had some moments of discomfort, never once did the trip feel like an ordeal. When surrounded by such immense blue skies, the buff colored bluffs rising all around, and the silty brown of the water crashing over the gun-whales, I felt at absolute peace with myself. The release of the stresses of the last week's worth of work was so overwhelming that I believe I could have rubbed holes when my arms and chest met on each stroke and still would not complain about it. I have to thank my wife for being so considerate as to realize that I needed this trip to even things out before diving back in next week.

The river, even if I am not swimming in it, seems to have a real cleansing affect on me, a rejuvenation. I think I see why water is central to so many religious practices.

Not Fighting...Working in Harmony

2009-07-31T18:06:00.003-08:00

The land west of the 100th parallel is famous for a few things: Mt. Rushmore, big open spaces, more prairie dogs than people, and wind. Wind was probably the biggest surprise to me when I moved from the eastern portion of the state to the dead center. One moment the world is absolutely calm and still and the next... well the next moment it is howling and blowing, trying to crack the sky with the force of it.

This morning broke perfectly calm, warm with the slightest autumn chill, and not a cloud to be found. By the time I completed my work day the wind had picked up to a steady 16 to 20 miles per hour with gusts up to 40. I had planned to make a dam run after work, in an effort to piece together a trek from dam to dam, Oahe to Big Bend. However, given certain past experiences with dam runs put me on my guard against this when the winds are shifting and the water is releasing. Instead, I put in at the Steamboat launch to paddle to the same Farm Island upstream ramp I pulled out of yesterday evening.

The waves were constant and the water was moving from the release, but only a few whitecaps broke as I paddled away. The beauty of being on the water when it is windy and less that optimal conditions is that only the hardcore fishermen are on the water. The boaters and jet skiiers avoid the water on days like today. This means that as a paddler I do not have to watch over one shoulder while trying to keep an eye ahead.

The idea of paddling is to find a rhythm and stick to it from point A to point B. While the winds keep the boat traffic to a bare minimum, it also creates enough wave action that it is sometimes hard to find that rhythm. Tonight I would find myself hitting the rhythm only to have a wave sweep at me from the side and as the blade reached down to slice the water, the water would be out of reach. Kind of like climbing stairs and missing the first one. The chatter of a day's work and activities also makes it difficult to find the rhythm. Tonight I found myself constantly returning to thoughts of the work I have yet to do, the work that I have completed, and where I will go and what I will do once the project is over.

One of my favorite sayings is "Some days you fight the river and the river wins. Other days you fight the river and you win." What I am learning in my age and wisdom is that most of the time it is better to work with the river and come to a mutual respect and understanding than it is to work against it and end up bashed against the rocks.

Which Came First, the T-Rex or the Frog

2009-07-30T20:02:00.003-08:00

The river does not always show its capability for wrath. In fact there are times when it is about the most peaceful, easy place to be. The wind and the waves, the current and the sun are all just right and everything is as it should be. Tonight, July 30, my son and I set out for a little paddle from Pierre to Farm Island. It always seems that time spent with a seven year old is well rewarded.

At first my son, Gavin, was silent as he contemplated swimming versus being stuck in the back of the kayak. I paddled from the front seat, he sulked in the back. As we moved through the "lake" that resides between La Frambois Island and Pierre, Gavin started to warm up to the idea of being on the river for a while and began his normal activity: asking questions until is seems that there are no more questions left to ask.

"Why does the water get shallow on one side of an island and really deep on the other?"

"Why do the fish swim with their backs out of the water?"

"Was the whole world once and ancient ocean?"

"No, Gav, the whole world was not an ancient ocean, but a lot of it was."

"Did you know that the T-Rex is a relative of the chicken?"

"Yes Gav, I did."

"Did you know that alge came first and then bacteria grew on the alge and then the bacteria grew bigger and turned into a frog?"

"Nope, I did not know that. Which do you think came first, the dinosaur or the frog?"

"The frog came first because it spends most of its time in the water. Yep, the frog was first. How did the frog become a dinosaur?"

"I don't know buddy."

"Can I paddle?"

I've come to realize that the most difficult thing in the world for me is letting go of control. At work I often take on more work than I should because I feel like I can do the work better myself than if I hand it off to someone else and take the time to show the other person how to do it. What brought this home to me is when Gavin asked to paddle for a while. Of course I let him, but just for long enough so that he would feel like he contributed. Three minutes. Five, tops. Then I had to have the paddle back, set the course straight, and move ahead because I had a schedule to keep and he was not moving in the right direction.

Reflecting on it, I see the stupidity of this act. Who cares if it had taken us fifteen minutes longer to get to the take out? What did it matter that he was paddling us in a slow circle? I was still in work-mode a bit, however, thinking about all I had yet to do before the day was done and over and in my head, I was just trying to keep my hands around everything.

I work for a technology company that designs, develops, and implements, among other things, Medical information systems. The bulk of the work that the company does is in two to four year projects where they build an information system, put it into place, and then move on. Anyone who is in this world understands the stresses that go along with it. Late nights, weekends, always feeling the pressure to perform at the top of the game. The pressure cooker analogy is suitable here. Take thirty or more type A personalities, put them into a small office, over burden them with work tasks, set an unrealistic goal for completion of the tasks, then sit back and watch as the pressure builds and builds until it explodes. Sometimes it is a recipe for really excellent work. Other times... well other times it can be downright deadly.

Recently I have taken on even more responsibilities than I had previous, trying to cover management duties for my normal training area as well as those for the Organization Transition group. Organization Transition is a realm that interests me, but at the same time makes me wonder at the absurdity of it all. I mean, the whole point of this field is to manage people's anxiety and resistance to change by openly and repeatedly telling them how you are manipulating their emotional responses to the stresses that change brings about. The funny thing is that most people who are being organizationally transition managed don't even realize it.

Of course, the group of people I work with and pseudo-manage are a strange mix of psychologically aware, obsessive compulsive, other-driven, and a damned lot of fun to work with. A lot of fun until the pressure is turned up. Right now we are being compressed by the pressure of a million dollar document that we have to have put together tomorrow. This is on top of the other documents that we have due.

Which brings me back the whole control issue. Just like I had a hard time letting Gavin control the boat, I am having a hard time letting my coworkers, the experts in the field, take control of the document while I provide insight and guidance when asked. I know the desire to control everything does not stem from wanting recognition, but from wanting to do everything in my power to ensure that the work lives up to my standards. In the end, this desire to control everything is just another type of river I am fighting against.

Prelude

2009-07-29T09:07:00.002-08:00

The day crept into being slowly. July 29, 2009. Gray blanket of clouds obscure the sunrise and a light drizzle fill the air as I head to the La Fram Island causeway, intending to lauch, cross the main channel of the river and head up the Bad River in Stanley county, hoping to move farther upstream than I have in the past. The geography of this river has always perplexed me. From the highway, it is hard to discern where the river flows. On sat maps, it becomes clear, though I wonder if the technology is telling the truth as the reality of the water seems to tell a different story. I wanted to see if the river would reveal any more of itself to me today.

As they say, however, the best laid plans. When I arived at the causeway I realized the river had been dropped significantly over night. I cannot recall the water being so low at any point this summer. Discovery Island had become a single island again, repleate with a nicely extending beach. The boat dock was completely out of the water, and judging by the water line on the concrete ramp, an additional six to seven feet of the ramp was exposed. According to the USGS water gauge near the mouth of the Bad, the water level is less than a foot lower than yesterday. I'll believe my eyes over the stream gauge. Of course, the other USGS gauge, in the Missouri itself, shows a drop of well over two feet between last night and this morning.

The odd thing about the lower water levels was the clarity of the water. Throughout much of my paddle across the channel, I could look over the gunwhales and watch the bottom of the river undulate through the distorting lens of water. I could see the mud, sand, and rock that creates the uplifts, eddies, and pillows that can make this stretch of the river so much fun to paddle when the dam is realeasing. The dam is the Oahe dam, currently the largest rolled earth dam in existance. This will soon change as a dam in China will be larger upon completion, but that is a discussion for another time. The Oahe is the focus here and in more ways than one. I am a recent transplant to the Pierre area and I am starting to understand just how the wall of rock and dirt know as Oahe influences this town. See, in most places in South Dakota the old men in the coffee shops or gas stations talk about the weather and how it looks like rain or how it's going to be another hot one out there. This does not happen as much in Pierre. Rather, people talk about the river and the level of the river. They talk about the resevoir, Lak Oahe, and the water level, number of fish, the storms that build off the lake and the latest fool to bend a prop, beach a boat or jet ski, or swamp a canoe for not reading the changing river. The river, the dam, and the resevoir have become a vital part of this town. So much so that it is hard to fathom the town without the dam and the recreation that it has brought to the area.

This, of course, does not mean that I like the fact that the river is always and forever mediated by this dam, that the river has been tamed, broken. But that is another story.

I set off from shore about 6:30 and crossed the channel of the river diaganally, with few, if any thoughts in my head. Being less than an enthusiastic morning person, I found myself struggling to wake up and really take in the day. The water was cold and the drizzle had picked up. My joints were stiff and I did not have coffee. As I slowly paddled across the river, I started to notice that the sandbar where my familiy and I spent so much time last summer was again exposed to the air, higher than I have seen it before and, of course, it was covered with the birds that normally call this area home, pelicans and gulls. A crow here and there, and what I took to be cormorants from a distance. Given the lack of current and lack of wind, I thought it would be fun to see how close I could get before these birds flew the coop. As I slowly made my way closer to the sandbar, I quickly realized that these birds were much bigger than the cormorants I have seen around here. My heart leaped thinking that these two birds might be bald eagles sitting at the edge, waiting for an easy meal to swim by in the shallows. Of course, it quickly became apparent that the birds were nowhere near large enough to be badies.

Thinking that my original assessment was correct, that these were a couple of cormorants, I turned tail and continued my paddle towards the mouth of the Bad. The movement of arms and the opposite and equal movement of boat was starting, by this time, to work their magic, waking me up from the mind-numb state I had been in, flooding my mind with thoughts about work, about the papers I have to grade, the lesson plans I need to write, the overwhelming number of tasks I have at my regular job, how I keep finding myself in a state of near panic and resort to a bit of writing to alleviate the feeling, knowing that this takes away from the tasks at hand, but not really caring. In many respects, I would have liked to stay mind-numb for my paddle, allowing the brain to act as a sponge rather than a barrier.

The light of sunrise, as it filtered through the scrum of clouds landed flat on the river banks, making landmarks dissappear. As I moved toward the Stanley county side of the river, toward what I assumed was the mouth of the Bad, I slowly realized that the dock I was heading for was a personal dock and not the public doc that marks the Bad. I was still an eigth mile or so from my destination. I made the adjustment to my heading and looked to the sky to gauge the clouds moving in when I noticed three low flying vultures. Now, I am a bit of a nut for vultures. I appreciate these birds because they are so large, yet so graceful in the air, though less-so on land. Maybe I idendify with the duality of these birds, being a bit large and awkward myself. I have always attempted to get close to these birds to observe them on the ground, to see how they interact with each other, to learn more about them.

I looked to my watch, changed course and started heading toward the sandbar, moving slowly, quietly, hoping my scent on the lightly building tail wind would not spook them off. I glided to within ten or fifteen feet before the first bird spooked, lifing off with nary a sound. The rest of the group quickly followed, rustling feathers and what appeared to be much effort. The group drifted a ways south on the sandbar, landing near the shore again. Again I turned and made my way toward where they had now landed, having the advantage of the wind moving from tail to head relative to their position, which meant,that I would be able to drift in closer than previous. Turkey vultures are not known for their keen eyesight, but more for their sense of smell. Provided I did not make any large or sudden moves or noise, I thought to myself, I should be able to get in as close as the bottom of the river will allow.

I drifted ever closer, watching the black and dark brown feathers ruffle in the light wind, the awkward and lurching, like Lon Chaney as the Hunchback of Notre Dame, only silent. Five vulture completely unaware of my presence, just milling about, waiting for the sun to break. I sat there, floating in my Wilderness Pamlico 13T drawing ever closer until the lead bird puffed up its feathers, strutted across the sand and began flapping wildly to achieve lift. A moment later and all five were gone from sight and in the distance, over the grasslands of western Dakota, thunder rolled and menaced. The introspection and focus I exhibited lead me to a more than dangerous situation, a thunderstorm moving in, the wind starting to pick up at the leading edge of the storm and me across the open expanse of water from where I needed to be. Clearly the river was not as tamed as I may have thought. There are still surprizes to be had when dealing with the the big muddy. Yes, the danger level I faced is low. In a pinch I could pull out in Ft. Pierre, wait for the lightning to break and then relaunch and paddle back to my vehicle. The level of danger is not what is important here. What is important is the constant reminder that the river, that nature, is in control even when embarking on a "tame" section of water. Human kind's hubris is laughable to the wind and the waves.

Aeon Blue Apocolypse

2009-07-28T10:18:00.001-08:00

Sometimes it is absolutely impossible to continue on without taking a short break of some sort. This is one of those moments. I am at the place where the competing demands of what I need to do are butting heads and I must simply step back for a bit, let the stars realign and then push forward on the appropriate path.

So, I had this crazy idea to partake in a bit of a writing experiment. Nothing earth shattering or groundbreaking here, but something to help focus my efforts and mind. I thought that it might be interesting to write thirty days on the river, paddle everyday for thirty days, keeping a notebook or journal with me to capture my thoughts and such while I paddle through the same areas of the river day after day, at different times of the day. The idea is to hone my observation skills by viewing the same area day after day, looking for the subtle changes that occur as we move from summer to fall.

It is a simple task, really. Just get on the river for thirty days. It is not like I am seeking to paddle from the headwaters to the Gulf, as Joe the Paddler is, not am I trying to suse out some great mystery of the world by getting this intimate with the river. This certainly won't save the world. Here is what I do know:

I have been terrible about keeping to an exercise program lately
I have been terrible about getting up in the morning
I love being on the river
I rarely need an excuse, just the motivational tool
Making sure I get out on the river ensures that I am not allowing myself to be consumed by the additional responsibilites I have at work now
The task presents a few interesting challenges for the month, as I am sure that the family and I want to do some more camping and traveling this summer, so how do we do that and still meet the self-defined goal?

The plan, as I envision it now is that this experiment will begin on August 1^st and run through August 30^th. In that time I will paddle a section of the river that takes me around LaFram Island, at times deviating and doing a dam run or other stretches of the river. While paddling, I will observe and take notes, write brief observations, and at some point during the day will post the results to the blog. These posts may be journalistic, poetic, narrative, or simple bulleted lists of stuff. Clearly, a scientific approach.

I will allow myself to, if I am out of town, paddle and observe, using the same approach of paddle and observe. This might also lead me to some interesting paddling opprotunities (the White River?). I will paddle solo, with my family, in the kayak, or in the canoe. The main idea is to get out every day.

Given the hectic-ness of my schedule of late, it may be a challenge to get out there thirty days in a row, but I really want to try as I think it will be both mentally and physically rewarding. Here is to the best laid plans, may they come to fruition.

I Want the One I Can’t Have

2009-07-25T06:42:00.001-08:00

It has been a crazy week and it does not look like it will get any more calm any time soon, so I thought I would steal some time away and paddle myself into a Zen-like state before the setting sun lowered itself behind the buff hills that surround this oasis town. After eating a quick dinner, we headed to the Bad River boat launch in Ft. Pierre. The plan was that the kids would swim and I would paddle into the great wide open. Instead, the pool was closed for some reason so I launched with a plan to meet everyone at the Pierre pool in a few hours.

This meant that I would have to circumnavigate La Fram Island and head back upstream to the Griffin Park beach area to land and then carry the boat a couple hundred yards to load up and head out after the kids were completed with their swimming activities. I can't think of too many better ways to spend the early stretches of a Friday night.

From the launch everything seemed a bit odd. First off, there was a serious lack of boat traffic. On most nights the river is packed with boats and jet skis and other kayakers and canoeists. Tonight, however, there was only one pair of jet skis, a fishing boat heading back upstream after catching its limit, and a few guys shore fishing at the mouth of the Bad. The wind was calm and the water was, for the most part, smooth and easy. The dam was releasing, as evidenced through the up wells and small eddies breaking the surface of the otherwise calm world. The gentle pull of the current kept me moving forward with such a miniscule effort that I found myself crossing the main channel and heading into the channel that cuts through the edge of the island a scant seven minutes after launch. Having had such a wonderful paddled to this point, I decided to move against the current for a time and paddle up one of the side channels to see if I could spot any wildlife, or maybe it was just to explore a part of the island I had not explored before.

The amount of fish that travel in the channels that bisect the islands of the Missouri is astounding. It seems with every stroke fish jump and shudder to get out of the path of the blade. Indeed, it sometime seems like the boat is riding on a writing mat of carp and buffalo, catfish and … whatever other kind of fish hang out in the shallow, silty waters.

After my last paddle around the island, I knew that I should see some bald eagles in the area, a family of three, if I kept my eyes open and mouth shut. The ghost cottonwood trees, those hulking white and seemingly lifeless trees that have succumbed to disease or age, but refuse to fall, that follow the channel edge make perfect perches for the big birds, affording unobstructed views of the island and the water. The channel must be a particularly interesting and enticing spot for the birds, being so full of fish and shallow enough that the fish must stay within talon reach even when diving to escape. The population of other small mammals on the island also make it a desirable location for the eagles as well as hawks, ospreys, and vultures.

Tonight, along with a lack of boats, there was a lack of birds. Sure there were sparrows and the wonderfully annoying and fatefully introduced starlings, but the big birds were nowhere to be seen. Normally one can spot a clutch of vultures circling on the wind at most any point in the sky, if one only looks. Tonight, however, there were none. The calmness of the air may have had something to do with this, but it still just felt odd. Like a piece of the world had been removed.

I continued paddling with an eye to the trees, hoping to come across even a glimpse of a big bird. As I floated, a live cottonwood seemed to curl the furthest reaches of its branches in to reveal a loan baldy sitting high in a ghost tree. The bird was huge and looking right at me. As I got closer I could hear the bird calling out to one or both of the others that would be in the area. I was so close that I could hear the weak cry, see the creature's tongue as its beak opened wide to communicate with its mate and offspring. In all my life, I have never been so close to a non-captive baldy. I sat in my boat, quietly drifting further downstream until the sound of a distant engine spooked the bird and it flew from my view.

I decided that time was getting short, so I began paddling with the current with renewed vigor and a renewed sense of the world around me. Suddenly birds appeared, like a cheesy 70's pop song (why do birds suddenly appear whenever you are near…) and deer rustled through the reeds at the water's edge; a beaver slapped his tale a few feet ahead of me and disappeared, leaving me to break the perfect circles of sound wave traveling on the surface of the water. I saw a little blue heron perched on a branch and leap-frogging from tree to tree just ahead of me. And I found what appears to be a good camping spot on Dump Island. I am not sure if camping is permitted here, or not, but I intend to find out and spend a weekend there.

Of course, every Zen moment has to end. Mine ended with the sight of the beach and the cars, people and their pets, reminding me of all the work that faces me in the next week. Of course, the only way to get it done is to just keep plugging away at it. Saturday night the wife and I are going to try to capture the baldies on film and of course, I will spend as much time on the water as I can, forgetting that land exists as anything more than a launch pad when I can.

Myxomatosis (Judge, Jury & Executioner

2009-07-20T06:53:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you battle the river and win. Other times you battle the river, get beat to a pulp, chewed up, and dashed upon the rocks. Sometimes this leads to greater respect and understanding of the forces of nature. Other times it leads to less pleasant conclusions. Fortunately, the battle our little group did with the river did not end as badly as it could have.

Let me recap a bit. On Thursday evening last week, a gal I work with, we will call her M, said that a group of folks from work were going to do a dam run and asked if I wanted to come with. Being a bit of a river-rat, as you know, I jumped into the plan with both feet. We decided that Sunday would work well and early in the morning would be the best time for the group to shove off.

Sunday morning a group of nine assembled for what was supposed to be a leisurely float down the river. The sky was clear and bright and calm. The river was clearly rising given the release at the dam, but it was generally calm, with only mild swells caused by the movement of the colder water from the dam rising from the bottom when encountering up swells in the river bed. It was, in short, the perfect morning for a paddle of this type.

By the time we launched at Oahe Downstream 45 minutes after our decided upon start time, the wind had started to increase, blowing hot and dry from Nebraska and reaches further south. This, coupled with the release at the dam caused some wild water, yet nothing that I had not paddled before. I knew that sticking to shore and paddling at a continuous, relaxed pace would get us where we needed to go. A bit tired from the work, but intact and hungry for the picnic lunch my wife put together for us.

The plan started to unravel almost from the start with M and her husband trying to learn to control their craft in the vortex between wind and water while also trying to learn how to navigate the intricacies of their marriage, as often happens in a canoe. In a canoe, one person must give up control and simply follow directions, find a flow or rhythm that works in harmony with the other paddler. In calm water this process can take a while and not have any repercussions. In big water, that rhythm must be found quickly.

I tried to provide some instruction on navigation and paddle strokes, warning that whatever happens M and her husband, we'll call him K, must not allow themselves to get hit broadside by the waves. I rearranged M and K so that K was in the back and navigating and M was in the front. I discussed C strokes versus J strokes. I showed them how to handle a paddle, holding it in the way that allows the most control. Yet we all know that trying to teach someone when they are in the middle of doing the activity is not the most effective method. Even so, once we pushed K and M back into the flow, they appeared to have a better grasp on the process, keeping a fairly straight, if somewhat westerly course while the rest of the group stuck to shore and downstream.

At some point we lost sight of M and K, but did not think too much of it at first. The water was rising and the waves were growing a bit and being so close to the water, we just figured that they had gotten far enough ahead of us that we could not make out their shape in the rush of movement. We continued on, keeping an eye out for their vessel with ever increasing worry that something bad had happened. M and K were the only two who had almost no experience in a canoe and this, coupled with the struggle for control and the water conditions made me worry that they had dumped the canoe and were in trouble.

The water was cold. 58 or 59 degrees coming from the depths of Lake Oahe. Even with the air temp in the mid eighties, that water could sap the life out of anyone in it too long. Add the wind to promote evaporative heat loss and it becomes clear that having someone in the water, panicked and not prepared for the situation, could end in tragedy.

As the rest of the group continued to paddle it became more and more apparent that something had happened. M and K were paddling slowly and, even given the current had there been no wind, they could not have gotten far enough ahead to prevent us from seeing them. Given the situation, boat positions were exchanged, putting three of our group into my canoe while I took the kayak. I sent the group downstream towards the rendezvous and I headed upstream into the six plus foot swells in the middle of the river to see if I could see any sign of M and K or their boat. I paddled from just above the last point on GFP land to the tailrace of the dam taking far too long fighting the wave, sometimes surfing the crests, other times paddling with all my might trying to climb the backsides. By the time I reached the tailrace I was ready to just pull out and call it enough. However, I knew I had to head back downstream to meet up with the remainder of the party who were heading to Steamboat landing.

As I faced back into the ever increasing wind, I took a drink of water and dug my paddles in, rising and falling with the waves, getting soaked as they broke over the bow, filling my craft with water at every turn. Yet in the distance I saw just what I was looking for: Two heads bobbing above the water in a canoe. The problem was that they were far enough away that I could not tell if it was the missing M and K or another couple. With my energy restored and a slight relief in my heart, I paddled on, faster and faster only to find that it was not M and K, but another group from our party, caught in the current behind the point. We pulled ashore for a rest and regrouping. While discussing the options available, we heard an ambulance racing to the point and noticed, for the first time, the large group of people on the point. Curious as to what happened, we hiked through the rocks to the road and started asking questions.

The answers to those questions revealed that M and K had sunk their canoe and were carried to shore, after a substantial beating, by the current. Fortunately they were fine. A bit shaken, a lot cold, but fine in the overall scheme of things. This just left three of us on the river trying to get to Steamboat landing. After viewing the movement of water around the point, I knew that we would not be able to make it around the point without swamping the other canoe and I was unsure of being able to cross back to the east shore given the waves and increasing wind. I decided that it would be best to move up river toward the campground and pull out there. Because the couple in the canoe was visibly tired, I tried to tow their canoe behind the kayak upstream, but the waves and current were just too much for me so we separated and slowly made our way upstream with the couple in the canoe lagging farther and farther behind. Luckily, two young men in a John-boat pulled up and asked if they could help out by towing the canoe back to the landing. Of course we obliged and I continued to the campground, relieved that everyone should be safe now. The other canoe was still somewhat in question, but the pilot had experience and knew to follow my directions.

I beached the kayak on a small sandbar next to the tailrace, disturbing some sunbathers in the process and proceeded to walk all my gear back to the marina where my Jeep was parked, not knowing if I had keys or not, but not really caring. After a nice little stroll through the park I came upon the marina and, walking from the combo bait shop/restaurant, I saw my son and one of the members of the group who had continued their downstream movement in my canoe. They had brought me my keys and were anxiously waiting for me to arrive, knowing that I was heading that way after being told by those who had gotten a ride downstream from the two young men.

Today I am sore, sun burnt, and still feeling the waves move me as I sit and type this. Already I have been asked numerous times to give my side of the story to colleagues, which of course makes me laugh somewhat. This need to hear the stories of all involved really displays the power of perception. Everything I have recorded could be wrong. It is only how I perceived the events.

Looking back, it is clear that everyone made mistakes yesterday. The rental company should have provided more instruction before sending the group off. They should have suggested that a kayak may be the better option for first timers as they are even more stable and easier to navigate.

I should have realized that the rising wind and waves was creating a situation beyond the ability of most of the group and should have turned us back to spend a few hours paddling in the shelter of the swim cove or tailrace. I should have not allowed M and K to get so far away from the rest of the group to begin with.

R and his wife should have met up with the other canoe when it became apparent that they were going to have troubles crossing the river.

M and K should have not ventured into the open river before spending some time getting instruction on maneuvering. They should have avoided trying to cross the river parallel to the waves. They should have left the boat capsized and hung onto it as the river moved them and the boat to shore. They should have told me that they were not ready for the type of water we were hitting.

Only S made no mistakes, executing his duties perfectly.

In the end, we all ended up safe and sound. That's what matters. I know that I learned a lot from the river yesterday about my own abilities on the water as well as how to work with group dynamics so that I can be a better guide in the future. Though I am not sure that anyone around the office will want to go out on the water with me…

Weight

2009-07-17T06:11:00.001-08:00

We measure the weight of air,

hoping to learn some grand secret, to prove

or disprove the existance of god,

forgetful that the mystery is what allows

the mind's continual evolution. Forgetful

that the question is more important than the answer.

We pretend that the petty concerns of a transitory

existance can slow the spinning of the earth and that we can

change our trajectory in midflight.

We've been reading too many conflicting accounts of

the nature of the world. The dry scientific, the starry-eyed romatic, the

illogical, impractical, pragmatic – the misinformation

seeps through every crack and pore.

Just taking another quick breather before I drop down the next hill on this roller coaster called an IT project. Sunday is going to be a fun day. The family and I were going to try to make it down to the Niobrara, but many of my collegues had planned to do a dam run on Sunday morning and asked if I could come along as an informed expert (which I am most certainly not, just an avid hobbiest) to ensure that they are able to make the run with little problem and no drownings. Of course I said yes. I thought it might be a good way to spend the day and might get some other folks interested in the sport. Besides, this is a great group of people who are going and many laughs are sure to be had. Right now it sounds like we will have twelve people out on the water in a combination of kayaks and canoes. It will be an armada to behold.

Speaking of floating, I have been seriously toying with the idea of designing and building a sail rig for my 'yak. I think I have a good starting idea and now I just need to tweak the design a bit. I think it would be super fun to sail the 'yak on some of those super windy days we get around here. Then again, maybe I will just work on building my upper body strength so that the wind proves less of a challenger than it does now. …yet the speed of racing on the wind would be exciting….

Only

2009-07-14T12:41:00.001-08:00

Just taking the briefest of breaks here while I let my head rebound from the mental acrobats it has been doing for the past six hours. See, sometimes I still procrastinate a bit more than I should, generally when I have what appears insurmountable piles of work to do, Mt. Everest sized piles of work to do and like many creatures possessing an intellect, I allow myself to go a bit deer in the headlights when I think about the obstacles I have to face. This being the case, I have spent the entirety of my day thus far working out the design specifications for a user manual document. Identifying what is needed in a user manual is not that difficult. The challenge comes from the software. Word is the worst darned document creation tool in the world when trying to create anything more advanced than a plan document. I know, I know. Word can be beat into submission until the document design is where one wants it to be, but who has the time to redesign headers and footers through a document with twenty plus sections that only has twenty plus sections because that is the only way to trick Word into allow the type of design elements wanted. Such is life.

See, I am procrastinating again. Back to work.

Wake Me When it is Over

2009-07-13T10:54:00.001-08:00

Well, yesterday we decided to forego the trip to the Niobrara yesterday. J. We decided that a five hour round trip simply did not pay given the lateness of the night before and such. Instead we decided to postpone for a week so that we can camp somewhere by Valentine and break the drive into two days. During the afternoon, to practice and prepare, we decided to paddle a portion of the mighty muddy Missouri. Given the path of Joe the Paddler (As mentioned at http://www.piratesofthemissouri.com/) we decided that a scaled down version of the same course would be suited to our desires. We put in at Medicine Creek and paddled roughly 8.5 miles to De Grey. The first half of the paddle was absolutely cake. No wind, water smooth as glass, a nice current moving us in the right direction. We covered miles and miles with nary a strain.

Of course, anytime that something goes so good means that there will be a corresponding flipside. We met our flipside at about the half way mark. At that point, we ran into a stiff headwind and waves that often broke in white caps. The going was slowed to a near standstill and the rocking of the boat even infected my dreams last evening.

Falling into dream

the bed breaks on the rocks of a fantasy shore,

waves lift and move this supine body.

Even now the sound of water kissing shores and floating vessels

permeates my mind – a sieve catching and replaying the sensation,

I understand why sailors have difficulty adjusting

to life on the unmoving land when age

precludes further affairs with the briny mistress.

The hum of motors in the distance, pumping units

to boost farmed production, destroys the illusion

of being all alone in this meeting of land and water.

The Lewis and Clark fantasy constantly strained by passing semis and

teen boys in their Cameros and Mustangs, Hondas with cannon mufflers,

the noisy parade drowning coos and squawks, frightening

regular inhabitants before our silent passage can.

Mouth of the Architect

2009-07-11T07:49:00.003-08:00

So, this morning we decided, somewhat grudgingly, to go fishing with the kids. (It was early, I was tired, and I might have had one too many drinks last night while watching movies) As we arrived at the fishing station, we noticed the Missouri Pirate and Joe Forrester, a young man paddling the length of the Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico to raise money for Parkinson's research, were passing by in their vessels, so after getting the kids set up with their fishing gear I put the yak in the water in an effort to catch the flotilla. By the time I got to the main channel of the river I noticed that the group was quite a ways down stream and the wind was calm so I decided to head upstream and around the island that way.

It was a nice paddle and I saw lots of wildlife. Two baldies, tons of deer, even more vultures, a beaver, and sundry shore, marsh, and water birds. This was the longest paddle I have made this year and it felt really good. Tomorrow we are thinking of hitting the Niobrara in Nebraska tomorrow.

I would like to discuss all kinds of things, but time is limited, the papers won't grade themselves. I will say this: My son is an angler extraordinaire. Excellent reeling, sonny...

Fragile Tension

2009-07-01T06:15:00.001-08:00

Last evening J and I went for a dam run in the evening after picking up a couple of cheap life vests. I think that given the oddness and intensity of the past few days, the time on the water was more than therapeutic. We set off at 7:40 and made the Steamboat Park boat launch by 8:55. Not bad for a trip that, given the cross channel path we took, crossing the width of the river a couple of times and the side stream we explored for a way, totaled just over 5.5 miles. We had the current of the dam release to our backs and the winds from the plains to our faces making such that if we stopped paddling we would often sit in one place for a bit before slowly drifting down stream on the power of Oahe held back behind us. It was good.

The Art of Self Destruction PT 1

2009-06-30T06:26:00.001-08:00

Running in the same circles again,

eating grooves in the dirt, creating canyons.

The sheer walls

freeze everything in time.

Stasis comforts at times,

like a blanket from childhood, well worn

and frayed in all the right places.

Reading poetry can feed the delusion

that words have some power to change

the feeling that everything is a bit further away than it should be,

that the perspective has slightly skewed and the vanishing point

has taken up the hobby of perpetual motion.

Words have no power here, only time will erode

the canyons built by endlessly pacing feet.

Exit Music (for a film)

2009-06-29T11:34:00.002-08:00

There are so many words

waiting to flush from numb lips;

constrained moments

dam them in - more efficient than concrete and steel

at keeping the floods at bay.

Opening drawers and ledgers,

peeking through bags and boxes,

trying to separate the body from the spirit –

an exercise in futility. Open the windows

to prevent the dust of confusion from sticking

to our upturned faces.

Silence is the hardest part.

The echoes in halls and corridors –

incessant clanging of voices once resided here – silenced

like locusts in the trees as a fire rages.

Language loses all power

Air has a weight heavier

than the number recorded on the barometer,

is weighted with more than gravitational pull and moving molecules;

it rests on shoulders,

pushing them towards the ground – seemingly

seeking the cold cocoon, the ultimate prize

we rush headlong for from the first feeling of light

on purple and suffocated skin.

It is never fair, the failure of the physical,

there is never time enough to…

And when it ends…

Stunned silence is all that is left

when the vacuum of unkind surprises opens.

For What its Worth

2009-06-25T15:03:00.001-08:00

Mountains and sky, streams and highway – we are now in the big sky county. My family surprised me last evening with a telescope so that we can now search the heavens while staked out in the back country. We can also use it as a spotting scope this winter to watch the eagles from a safe distance. I am excited by this new activity and the possibilities it creates, especially for G-man who has been enthralled with space lately. In addition to star gazing, we have purchased a handheld GPS unit, holding the heavens in our hands in a way, so that we can start looking at geocaching as yet another way to get out there and explore the world. There are some caches around Pierre that we will certainly seek out. We will also likely look for those caches that are found in and around the Hills and in Badlands National Park. Yup, the possibilities really are endless.

(Five days later, no showers…)

The wind-down is always the rough part, knowing that the real world beckons yet again. Here is a brief rundown of the activities of the past few days:

1) Arrive at Glacier as it is starting to get dark. It is chilly. We are tired. We decide to stay at the Two Medicine Lake campground rather than our planned Cut Bank Creek camp. This is partially as I did not do such a splendid job as navigator and we realized that it would take another 45 minutes to an hour to actually get to the Cut Bank camp, and we were not sure about the bear situation. No one wants to run into a grizzly while trying to get camp set. We decided to just use Two Medicine as our base camp as there had been no reports of bears in the campground, and, well, they had electric bathrooms. (No showers, however)

2) Woke up fairly early on Saturday intending to do… something. One thing we had wanted to do while at the park was to hike a 9K. So we stopped by the ranger station to ask about some of the trails and whether we could hike Mt. James. The ranger, a kindly fellow with a pot belly, pony tail, and thick glasses said "sure, you can hike it. Do you have ice axes, crampons, and winter weight gear? Everything with a base elevation of over 6K is still in winter right now. One hike that will get ya some miles and great views is the Scenic Peak trail. Of course, if you are peak bagging, your outta luck this early in the year unless you got the gear." (My transcription of the conversation might be a bit off, as that was four days ago.) We hiked Scenic Peak and it was, indeed, a scenic hike. 6.2 miles roundtrip with a bit over 2K in elevation gain. It wasn't a bad trail at all, other than showing all of us how out of shape we are. We completed the trail around three or four, time kind of got away from me there for a while, and then decided to drive the east portion of the Going to the Sun road.

While on that road, we took a short side trip to the St Mary falls, the most amazing blue of any water I have ever seen. As we were standing there, it was all I could do to keep from stripping down and jumping in even though I knew the water was just a smidge over freezing and the sheer pressure of the water falling and roiling would have killed me. It was that inviting. We have pictures, but even as amazing as they are, they do not capture the pure beauty of this place.

After our time on Going to the Sun on the east side we decided to run up to the Many Glaciers area on the advice of a gate attendant who told us that it was a good place to see bear and moose. We did not see bear nor moose, but had a nice dinner and watched some mountain goats through the telescope. We also found a wonderful lake to paddle: Swift Current. Given the late hour, we decided to wait until the next day to meet the water face to face, so to speak. We headed back to camp weary, but content.

3) Sunday morning we headed out for West Glacier and the western portion of the Going to the Sun Road. The views both along the highway before getting to the park and once we were on the Sun road were amazing. Flathead river is an astounding river of a similar shade of blue as the St Mary falls. I hesitate to say too much about the Sun Road, as words will always fail to capture the magnitude of this place. Of course, everything is big in Montana, but this was just ridiculous.

After a long morning on the Sun Road, we decided to head back to Many Glacier to get our paddle on. Of course, about halfway back to East Glacier Village it started raining. And it kept raining all the way to Many Glacier. We puttered around Many Glacier, waiting for a break in the clouds so that we could comfortably put our craft in the water. In the end, it looked as if the rain would not quit, only lessen, so we donned our water resistant gear, cast our anchors to shore and paddled. Now, Swift Current gets its name from the two creeks that flow into the lake and the one that flows out. The two incoming both create some nice movement in the water at their inlet. In fact, G-man and I had a bit of fun with each inlet in the kayak. Neither inlet was more than a class II, if even, but it was certainly exciting to us flat-landers. The outlet to the lake was another story completely. We did not venture close to this as it terminated a good thirty feet below the lake, bursting on VW Beetle (new, not old) sized boulders.

As we paddled, the rain picked up, making for a really lovely cruise. While it was anything but warm, the rain gave the entire scene an amazing sense of perfection. I can't describe it any better than that. The scenery surrounding the lake also added to the fairytale quality of the trip: a mock Swiss Chalet to the east and mountains rising all around the other three sides, some covered with dense evergreen forests, some bare igneous rock with glacial sheets still clinging and slowly moving and changing the face of the rock. Apart from the slight dampness, it was a perfect paddle.

After the paddle we decided to hike a bit into the woods, in search of bear. We had read about another lake where wildlife was often spotted around sunset. Of course, there was nothing. We saw the tracks of moose in the lake bed, but none currently inhabited the place. We likewise did not see any bear along the lakeshore, so we followed a few game trails away from the red-bus tourist paths, clinging ever so tightly to the can of bear spray the entire time, only to find…nothing. Not even bear scat. Plenty of other, but no bear. Of course, as the sun started to really fall below the mountains, we got a bit more nervous about being in the woods with the possibility of bear and mountain lion and decided to high tail it out of there. We got sandwich materials at the local store, ate a nice dinner in the car on the way back to the camp, where we were subjected to a slightly damp evening, given that it had rained on our camp all day and even the best tents eventually let a bit of water in.

4) Monday dawned dry and we decided to start meandering back to SD, hoping to avoid the midnight arrival that so often accompanies our return leg of any trip. Two things to keep in mind: First, if you find yourself in Northern Montana, drive by Flathead Lake. It is amazing in scope, if not beauty. Second, keep in mind that it can and does snow in June in Montana. We were surrounded by rain clouds much of the drive from Glacier to Missoula to our eventual campsite near Anaconda. As we were pulling into the park for the night, a wall, a literal wall of water erupted from the clouds. However, by the time we got to the campsite, the clouds had broke and the sun came out so that we could dry our gear and set up a comfortable site for the night. We even had a fire. Off and on throughout the afternoon clouds would flow over the nearby ridge and sprinkle us with water and snow. By the time the sun set, it was likely in the mid forties. Sometime past midnight the temps dipped low enough that my wife packed here and the two younger kids into the Jeep in an effort to keep warm.

I stayed in my tent and J stayed in hers. It seems that neither of us have a problem snuggling into a sleeping bag, covering our heads, drawing the hood cords, and generating our own heat. I woke up rested and to a warm, sunny morning.

5) We meandered through Montana and Wyoming, making our way to Devils Tower (Grammatically, yet legally correct) to camp at the quite nice, if somewhat cozy Belle Fourche campground. Nothing much of note occurred here. it was blessedly warm all night and the stars were amazing overhead. We enjoyed an interesting presentation on the history of Bear Lodge, later known at Bad Gods Tower then Devil's Tower, and finally Devils Tower.

6) Wednesday we broke camp fairly early and headed up to the tower itself for a Ranger guided hike around the base. The hike was nice as it gave us a greater sense of the history and geology of the tower. Granted, I think that we all knew a lot of the fact presented, but it was nice to have a guide pointing out those things we did not previously know.

After the hike we head out of the tower area and back to South Dakota. We did not want to get back to Pierre too early, however, so we thought about going to Bear Country so that we could at least say we saw bears, even if they were captive. However, I suggested that we hike Bear Butte instead. While the hike is a fairly steep ascent and there is precious little shade, it is worth the time and effort to wind one's way above the prairie to see the view from the top and to begin to understand why this is a sacred place. On our way back down the butte, two Native American gentlemen were engaged in a ceremony involving one playing a wooden flute. The sound of this instrument played in the natural ampatheater created by the butte was the perfect venue and there were moments when I thought that I would cry because of the beauty of the moment.

After our hike up and down we crossed the street to Bear Butte Lake to get our paddle on again and have a bite to eat. The lake was a lovely little diversion and a great way to cool down after baking in the sun of the butte. The lake also afforded us a wonderful view of the peak we had so recently ascended. The lunch was good, the lake was good, the pelicans were good. The gulls were a bit annoying, as gulls are wont to be. Now, right now, I am 59 miles from Pierre and the responsibilities of our day to day lives. All in all, it was a wonderful experience. The only let down? The let down is that now I have to go back to work and will not have the same freedom to roam and will be sleeping under a permanent roof structure for the foreseeable future. Of course, there is always next weekend and the Badlands…

Talons

2009-06-18T12:30:00.001-08:00

Just a quick check in to say that the open road awaits me. Yes, yet another long weekend is ahead. This go-round will take us to Montana and Glacier National Park. G-boy wants to hike a 9000 footer, so we thought GNP might be the place to do it. There also looks to be some awesome canoeing, kayaking, and general hanging about to be had there. I am looking forward to it. The trip will be a bit more adventuresome as we are heading out with only dried food and a minimum of gear. At least a minimum compared to our normal car camping experiences where we bring everything but the kitchen sink. We are trying to slowly move into backpacking, so the first thing we need to do is get comfortable with less "stuff" than what we normally take with. We'll see how it goes. I just want to be away from everyone and everything for a week in the woods, watching the stars, and hopefully not meeting any bears in dark alleys.

Untitled Hidden Track

2009-06-12T12:31:00.001-08:00

I was just thinking about running and how when I ran before I was always so serious about it, setting distance and pace goals, feeling like a failure if I was not able to run the distance I had intended. As I think about it further, I did the same thing with biking. Why is it that as adults we tend to lose the will to do something for the sheer joy that comes from the activity? Are my sub-three mile runs at a ten plus minute pace in some way less valuable/important/healthful than a ten mile run at a sub-nine minute pace? I don't know. I can see a change in my body already from running ten-plus minute miles and taking only a half hour to dedicate to running a couple of times a week. In that regard, both are the same. Both improve my health and make my clothes fit better. I suppose in some ways it is inevitable that one enters into competition with one's self in this realm because once the weight starts coming off, it is easy to try to push to make even more come off. It is easy to really try to hit that 8:59 or 8:58 or 8:57 or whatever slight improvement. Yet that is what, I think, ultimately drove me to stop running the first time. I could not continue to compete with myself as I did in the beginning. Who knows? Maybe this is all psycho babble anyway.

Lady of the Flowers

2009-06-10T10:43:00.001-08:00

Hit the water this morning at 6:30, breaking the calm of the inland side of Farm Island. Jo and I paddled to the tip of the island and explored a small number of the channels that cut through the reeds and rushes. We were able to view the remains of old buildings and older trees, watching the fish jump and feast and the beavers glide with black noses barely breaking the surface, creating wakes of bubbles. We ended up putting in just over 4 miles on the excursion and by the time we turned to head back to the car, the wind had picked up, causing waves that would break over the bow, getting Jo a bit damp in the process. Overall, a morning paddle is about the greatest way in the world to wake up, I think. Of course, in SD, paddling is a sport with a limited engagement. I'm not sure that I would want to wak e up on the water come February. Maybe it is just me.

From the grandest of beginnings the becomes yet another seeming waste, eaten by meetings and small dramas that prevent me from focusing on what is immediately due. Maybe if things go the way I want them to I will actually get something accomplished today. If not, there is always tomorrow. There is always tomorrow.

Closer (Precursor)

2009-06-09T08:52:00.001-08:00

How does one define child abuse? I am sure my oldest child would define it as being forced out of bed at six in the morning to go for a run in the rain. Of course she drug her feet the entire time, but I think that in the end she was glad that she stuck to it and came out with me. I know the final half-block sprint race we engaged in was a moment of joy for her. The way she was giggling and really kicking to make sure I did not get by her made me wonder if the earlier foot dragging was nothing more than an act of petulance performed more out of sense of pre-teen rebellion than actually being a real reluctance to get out into the day. Of course, I had to bribe her with the promise of taking the kayak out tomorrow morning, so I guess I will have to deliver now.

So Real Live aus dem Suedbahnhof, Frankfurt

2009-06-08T05:33:00.001-08:00

So, I think I posted before about the Archos 5 and how awesome of a device it is, boasting a huge screen, amazing picture, nice storage capacity, true WiFi capability, and other snazzy features inside of a touch-screen controlled package. Yes, the thing was pretty cool. Unfortunately, after only four months the touch screen went on the fritz. Fortunately I had spent the extra thirty dollars for the replacement warranty, allowing me to return the product to Best Buy and procure a suitable replacement. I have to say, I am back in the Zune cult. As I spent time trying to decide the best course of action, it became apparent to me that the Zune is the best option for my use style. Yes, internet connectivity is nice, but it is not something that I ever used after the first few days. I also like having actual buttons so that I can control the device without needing to look at it.

Enough about gadgets. Instead let's discuss cold, slimy, dead-fish filled waters. Let's discuss how on the first night in the Hills this weekend I took an unexpected dip in Center Lake and that set the tone for the whole weekend: wet. It was a damp weekend of camping. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing. Sometimes it is good to get out of the comfort zone. The challenge was that we had my daughter's friend with who was not real use to camping to begin with. At least camping in Blockhead fashion. It's all good, though. Nobody melted and we all made it back safe, which is the important thing.

The next adventures? Bike camping, a trial backpacking trip from our house to Farm Island to start getting the kids and ourselves acclimated to that type of roughing it, and canoe camping. I can't wait.

So, if you have never listened to Jeff Buckley do so now! For years I have said that the man was a genius. The things that he can do with his voice are just astounding. His estate just released Grace: Live Around the World, a collection of unreleased live recordings from just prior to the release of his one and only true studio record, Grace. There are a number of package options, one including a brief documentary film on his tragically short life. It is well worth it. Watching him perform really shows just how serious he was when he said that, and I paraphrase here, playing live was his life and everything else was just in between time. Like other great performers, other genius musicians, painters, poets – the music so overtook him that he, at times, appeared to be in such pangs of physical anguish and physical joy that it is hard to watch. Yet this is what makes his music connect with so many people (particularly the French…). Listening to the albums or even a poor quality live recording is such an emotional experience every time.

Strange heights of joy

tempered with the very dregs;

swings of such beauty. I cannot say

in simple words how the universe shivers

at the sound of a gentle refrain, the

vibrato of perfect feeling.

Logic has no place

in these waters.

It's a start, anyway. I might revisit, though I have such trouble making written tributes. They all sound cheesy to me. Time to work …

Mindless Thoughts in an Empty Room

2009-06-04T05:35:00.001-08:00

Fleas eat canned ramen

and a kazoo blows the blues,

this is the world created when conjoining

match sticks and elephant trunks.

Swimming naked in cottage cheese thoughts

move like goats across the sky.

Our clouds form babies, giraffes, and quilted

jackets in chartreuse.

Wednesdays seem so long when

there is too much to do. Too much to do,

one lump or two, period space space, dot com bomb,

blah-dity blah. Even my email is not talking today,

leaving me to tend to my own devices, hiding under the desk

drawing stick figures in the carpet nap

making house plans on temporary white erase boards, recording images of multiple

computer screens to prove that I was here and interacting with nothing again.

What kind of tree is it that smells of honeysuckle and rains its white petals

on the passing peddlers and drips pollen into swollen eye and noses?

Northern Catalpa, elm, dogwood, oak.

Spruce, cottonwood, lodgepole, dead.

Stick figure fingers spread against a summer sky,

a child's drawing of a tree in winter,

sometimes authentic reproductions of reality

leave nothing to the imagination – CDs, digital images, HDMI, Blue Ray.

What landfill piles vinyl, celluloid, coaxial?

Gold is extracted from the machines before they are laid to rest,

just like Germany 1943. We extract cash from the fed

and laugh like androids would laugh. Mechanical.

So, I went for a run this morning again. I am going longer and farther and it is encouraging. I am starting to feel much better, if slightly tired and sore all the time. It is all good though.

I find myself surprised by the number of pelicans that are hanging around the rive this year. I don't think there were quite so many last year. This morning they formed a floatilla, moving in formation, diving for the occasional fish. It really was quite a sight – a number of these huge white birds that look more like dinosaurs than birds floating high in the water, large warts on their beaks. Gotta love spring.

Looking forward to a weekend in the Hills camping. Hopefully at the Center Lake campground. Good canoeing/kayaking there and it is in a nice central location for doing other things in the area. I suppose we will likely just hang out around the campground, which will be nice, as the last few weekends camping have been more adventuresome. Sometimes it is nice to just relax a bit. Maybe I will get some more of Infinate Jest read. The book is killing me. Wow. Anyway, off to work I go.

An End Has a Start

2009-06-02T05:57:00.001-08:00

What does one call a collection of pelicans in the water, gathered for warmth in the chill morning air? One would call this a pod of pelicans. Thus, this morning as I paddled around the tip of La Fram Island on the inland side I came upon a pod of pelicans gathered in less than a foot of water. Given the 'yak's shallow hull, I was able to maneuver up close and personal. What a wonderful thing.

It was lovely being on the water this morning, if somewhat brisk. I had my coffee, my paddle, and the river all to myself. I'm finding kayaking to utilize a different set of muscles than canoeing does, but I think that the weaknesses in my stroke will be resolved soon enough.

Last night was the first night of the summer semester and let me tell you, four hour classes are going to be difficult to manage. It is not like an hour long class where one can wing it. It is not like a three hour class where one inevitably plans too many activities. It is a beast unto itself. I am excited as I have a rather interesting group of students. Some traditionals looking to get a jump on the next school year, a couple of guys who have not yet started their official college experience, but who want to get some of their cores out of the way before they start. I have some nursing students who have put off their core classes till the last possible moment (For some reason it seems that nursing programs push students to do this quite often for some reason. I am sure it has something to do with money and attrition rates, but really, give the students a chance to take those core classes right away and explore options other than nursing. Maybe there is a great poet, chemist, mathematician, biologist, or computer scientist waiting to break out of the nurse's white Croc clogs…). Yup, it is going to be interesting. I can't wait.

A.I.M

2009-06-01T05:35:00.001-08:00

So, today was the second run back after earlier mentioned hiatus. It felt so good, though now my legs are a bit stiff and I am sure my back will hurt tomorrow. Of course, as I was out running <Chris Farley voice> down by the river </Chris Farley voice> all I could think about was that I should have taken the 'yak out as the water was so perfectly still and the pelicans were thick, the fish were jumping, and I wouldn't have been struggling for breath so much.

I really hate mornings, which is why I find it so hard to run or bike or even get up in the morning, but there is something that always amazes me when I do get my hind-end out of bed and enjoy the outdoors for a while in the morning. Whether it is the silence, the wildlife, or the mixture of cool night air and warm morning sun on my skin, I find the mornings just amazing.

And that is the rest of the story.

Wind and Computer Whine Intermingled

2009-05-31T16:52:00.005-08:00

What a long strange trip it's been... I picked up a Pamlico 135T tandem kayak this weekend (Thanks Craig's List) by Wilderness Systems and just got it out on the water tonight for a few short cruises taking out the different members of the fam as well as taking a solo tour. I have to say it is different than the canoe, faster and wetter. I am looking forward to now taking a float trip somewhere soon, setting up the kayak and the canoe with the gear and food we need for a day or two in the wilderness. I think we may head down to Niobrara to do a two day excursion soon and then move to some other water ways. We will see. Green River Utah, here we come.

Now, I must sleep and hoe that I did not forget to load anything I need for tomorrow night's first meeting of 101.

Lament (Flexi-Pop Version)

2009-05-28T05:44:00.001-08:00

Ok, quick break from the crazy amount of work I have to do in the next two days so that I can take the weekend and go to the Badlands…

Moab Utah is the place to be. The more time I spend in the south western-ish part of the country, the more that I find I am inextricably drawn to the desert landscapes. The red soil, the power of the Colorado river, the towers of sandstone. I did not want to come back from the weekend away. But now I am back and in the thick of things, as usual.

A co-worked just stopped by my office to ask me about Grand Tetons and if I thought he would enjoy going there over the 4^th of July weekend. Of course I said of course. I also got to thinking about how I need to make another trip there. The last time we went, it was amazing, even with the rain and lack of sleep.

That is it for now. Maybe pictures will follow. Maybe not. All I know is I need to get busy now.

A Modern Myth

2009-05-21T07:21:00.001-08:00

So, today was my first "run" after a multi year hiatus. I put run in quotation marks for a reason. See I could call it running, though it was really more like a half shambling, half stumbling slow motion pseudo jog. I would likely equate the way I looked trying to run to what one might look like trying to run through a viscous fluid like honey or used motor oil while having a heart attack. Yet there are things in life that are horribly wonderful. This run could be described in that way. Horribly wonderful. I was alone, as far as I could tell, which is important to me as a runner as I am not a big fan of having folks watch me put myself through the associated contortions that come along with my attempts to move a mass that has grown a bit larger every day for too long.

I think that I really wanted to get out there and put my toe into the running life again not as much to get healthy again, but rather to work towards cleaning out some mental cobwebs that have been building. I started blogging really as a result of running and, later, biking. When I first started running I hung out at CoolRunning.com and would post about my run each time. Later I found Blogger and migrated there. If one looks at the archive here, it is clear that anytime I returned from a run or bike ride that I would have a wealth of words. Even the simple act of describing wildlife or the beauty of the rising or setting sun became an almost daily exercise for my mind. I found some of my best poems while running or riding. I could often work through difficult questions about work or life while have drowning in my own sweat and lack of lung capacity. I find that I want that again.

But I have limited will power or self control. I allow the little voice filled with excuses that resides in my mind to direct me too often. Early in the morning when the room is cold from the moist night air respiring through the window and the bed still maintains warmth in the shape of two bodies, it is far too easy to listen to that voice, reset the alarm and sleep a few more minutes, simply prolonging the inevitable. Don't even get me started on winter and my near-hibernation… I always have the greatest intent of staying active, hiking and biking and such, but in the end I always opt to sit on my behind. Of course, I think I find so much work to do in the winter that it is like I am trying to ensure that I don't get outside. This cycle of active/inactive is truly killing me. I'm fat, I have high blood pressure, my back is a constant source of pain, and I get winded just walking up the stairs at times. I have the body of a man much older than I really am. Sedentary jobs, sedentary lives… they catch up with a person.

Enough of this for now, I have work to do. The glut is clear for a while. Now the challenge is keeping the momentum going, both literal and figurative (don't you just hate it when the author places so little faith in you, the reader, that he has to spell out the punning he was just doing…I do). Ahhh, the joys of a coming summer.

Delorian

2009-05-03T19:16:00.002-08:00

Just a quick note tonight.

Today my son learned the true beauty of a canoe. While having some fun on the river we were able to float around and watch from a close proximity a beaver as it played in the water near some submerged trees. Given the calmness of the day (the water was a mirror) and the ease and silence of moving through the water in a human kinetics powered vessel, we were able to see something that none of us had ever seen before. No zoo walls, no binoculars, just three people in a small boat and a beaver doing what a beaver does. Too bad the two girls were not with us this morning.

Just sayin'...

2009-04-26T19:25:00.002-08:00

Which Rocky Horror Picture Show Character are You? (A pointless quiz that serves to take the place of actually coming up with something intelligent to say...)

You are Riff Raff, and you are one bad motherf**ker. You've been hurt so much before, you've lost all faith in humanity. Your bitter and self-righteous and you hate everyone and everything except your sister/brother, who is also your lover. You plan on killing everyone day, and the majority of you time is spent planning how you'll carry out your dastardly plot. You are the creepy kid everyone picks on who's going to take a gun to school someday. This is probably not a good thing, but if it works for you, just make sure you don't bomb the building I'm in.

Maybe the results would be a bit more intriguing if some grammar and spell checking had been done...

The Reader

2009-04-19T19:47:00.002-08:00

Finally today, after a winter too long, I was able to get out on the river in the new canoe with the kids. It was a decent day for it with only a moderate wind. The water was cold, but not bitterly, and the pelicans were flying round and round above the water looking for mates or fish. I forgot how much I love being on the water.

New Orleans... what can I say? It was an amazing trip. We really played most everything by ear and just enjoyed the time. We strolled the French Quarter and road the ferry. We toured the city by bus and looked for Brad Pitt. We peered in open tombs and open bars. I presented a good paper, I think. Will it change the world? No. Will it change how one or two scholars approach the reading of adaptation in film? Likely not, though I think it is important to address and accept that we can not privileged the written text even if it is the chronologically first text.

So much happened during the trip that it is hard to recall everything (the Bourbon Street slushies don't help much) and the week I have had at work since being back has not given me the time to reflect on the experience. However, I am starting to think about possible topics for next year's conference in St. Louis.

I'm looking forward to more time on the water soon. I am looking forward to getting back on my bike and putting in some serious miles. I am looking forward to reacquainting myself and my family with the stars as seen through the fly of a tent pitched somewhere dark and quiet. In short, I am looking for a good summer, though it will inevitably be shorter than I will wish it. As I am teaching two courses over the summer the trips will be short, sweet, and close to home, but even a weekend in the Badlands is enough to recharge the batteries.

Hmmm...I wonder if I am up with the new technology now....

2009-04-05T20:54:00.003-08:00

http://twitter.com/blockphi

Yup...I have joined the borg.

The Last Baron

2009-03-30T17:11:00.002-08:00

So, I have been listening to a lot of Mastodon lately as I just purchased their newest album off of Amazon.com. The album is great, blending the heaviness of previous outings with much more melodic passages. As with other albums by this Atlanta crew, this one has a concept running throughout. It appears that the album is about Czarist Russia. Yeah, I know. Odd.

But that is beside the point. There is a snow storm going on, thus the reason that I am not teaching right now. My son is running around in his underwear and rubber gloves checking people's heads for lice, which is comical, yet a bit frightening. Be it the gloves or the undies, I am not sure.

Maybe it is that we wished for it
too much, tried to hard
to influence the weather with the power
of positive thinking. Maybe we get what we
deserve in March when the wind
can’t decide whether it is coming
from the north or the south. Spring
is a time for lovers Hallmark cards continually
proclaim with bold letters, dying peonies
painted violet almost black, yet it is spring
that continually tears us apart, the wet
waxed fast food wrappers buried all
season long under drifts of snow now set free,
torn asunder by the fickle wind.

It is spring when the trite lines
form regiments in
this diseased mind, making witticisms or
snark from the banality of daily office life.

This closet (called by some office) hides no secrets.

Blizzards never slog through
where I am when they are most needed;
where is the day to spend curled up in bed
with a book or a lazy dream? Where are the dreams?
Where are the dreams? Where are the stupid
dreams of idyllic youth?

This is wasted on me.

Columns of figures counted, recounted, verified,
invoiced, and paid. Forty hours hath each week, we die
in forty hour increments, tick tock, tick tock, tick.

And still the snow does not come.

And still the snow does not come.

And still…

I watch the radar in motion showing the blue and green mass,
a sea in the middle of
the atmosphere, I watch this mass sit perfectly still over Midland,
Martin, Wall, Faith; reaching fingers of promise
to Buffalo, Lemon, Hayes; I wonder
when is it my turn to be buried?
And still the snow does not come.

And still the snow does not come.

And still…

Arguing kids and half a phone conversation

2009-03-06T16:31:00.004-09:00

Now, to elaborate on the whole B with a broken nose thing. We went to Farm Island on Tuesday night to go for a hike/jog and the girls were playing around, having a race, and B ran at full tilt into a horizontal bar that runs across the entrance to the Island, hitting her nose directly on the bar. She has been looking like someone who got into one doozy of a fight. She is tough though, and now maybe the boys will leave her alone for a while...

She reminds me of me...

Archorooney...

2009-03-05T16:52:00.002-09:00

I am blogging right now from my new internet tablet/mp3 player/video player thingy, It is called the Archos 5. I like it. Lots of storage, touch screen, full internet and email access. I am a gadget geek.

In other news, pics will be coming soon of B and her broken nose. Long story, tell all about it when I have a real keyboard. My fingers are a bit fat for this kind of typing. Maybe I should get a twitter account to keep things up to date while I am poaching interwebs around town.

Out

So, ummm, like, yeah...

2009-01-30T19:57:00.002-09:00

I was just watching The Rocker and snooping through some blogs of old acquaintances and thinking about how disconnection I feel most days. I mean, it is hard to talk about Marx to a bunch of fervent capitalists, Derrida to a bunch of folks who thing The Art of War is a management style, and Jameson is first and foremost a brand of whiskey. I miss the days of sitting in the dungeon talking about anything and every tangent that would spring from the odd choice of words we made. I miss being able to say I am taking a stab at writing a short story and having folks say way to go instead of looking at me like I done lost my mind. Wait, I have never told anyone I converse with now that I am trying to write a short story. In fact, I doubt any of them know I write (used to) poetry and when I commemorated Updike on my white board, I most often received the question: What did he do?

Yes, I am a bit nostalgic tonight. Who knows why. Maybe the spring feel in the air is messing with my normally non-neurotic neural synapses. Maybe I am feeling wistful as I did actually start a short story inspired in large part by the coverage of Updike's death on NPR. Maybe I am just needing some conversation that does not center of large dollar deliverables and scheduled tasks, lessons learned and the way of the goose (or whatever passes for the newest management philosophy these days).

Now look at me...

A fan blowing the scent of black beans 'a cookin'

2009-01-29T16:20:00.003-09:00

I have never been much for ebay. Generally speaking, my need for instant gratification precludes my involvement with any purchase transaction that takes more than half a second. However, as some of you may recall, I purchased a record player a while back and, shortly after procuring an amplifier, my children lost the needle. Well, the other day I received a new Shure needle. Of course, I am now back to listening to records and I thought it might be nice to pick up a couple of new platters. However, it is hard to find some albums in new pressing on Amazon or other locations. Like Disintegration by The Cure. I mean, good luck finding that one new.

Then it hit me: ebay! Yes friends, ebay. I mean, where else can you find anything? Of course, the copy of Disintegration I bid on did not work out, but I have, as soon as I paypal the guy, a copy of the original pressing of Kiss Me X3 in the gate-fold two album pressing and a gently used copy of Let it Be by the Beatles. The seller is Canadian, which makes me wonder if the albums will have a Canadian accent. I can start to see how people can get addicted to online auctions. Me? I think I will continue to strive for instant gratification and buy my records in person when I can. Though I may just keep a look out for Disintegration in SS condition, metal pressed with the exclusive photo-vinyl platter...

In happier news...the world has not come to an end.

Inauguration on TiVo

2009-01-20T17:47:00.002-09:00

I am just now getting around to watching the inauguration and I am trying to figure out the best way to put into words the emotions that I feel. It is such a strange mix of hope that things will indeed be different in our great country. That no longer will we define a person by skin color or socioeconomic background or the actions of his or her father or mother. Instead we can start really define people by their actions and deeds. The cynical side argues against this hopeful view because it seems in my personal history that every time a new president has appeared to embrace and put forth the idea of change, he has turned out to be the same old philandering, war mongering, profiteering politician that he railed against during the campaign.

I hope beyond hope that my cynicism is not rewarded and that my hope is. I hope that we see a real and positive change in our nation, and a change in how our nation interacts with the rest of the world. We need to move from police force to partner throughout the world. To quote the great, if somewhat dour Morrisey, "America is not the world." The sooner we embrace this and enter into equal partnership with the rest of the world, the sooner we will be able to crawl out from under the shadow of terrorists and enemies.

Yes we can. Yes we can. I have a dream, yes we can.

Radio Free Europe

2009-01-13T15:05:00.002-09:00

So, I've been holding off on saying anything too specific, but I have received a promotion at work from technical writer to training manager. There is a huge jump in responsibilities and pay, but I think that it will be a good challenge to take on. I've been hesitant to mention anything as it is still not 100% finalized. My wife has been giving me grief, saying I only got the offer because I knew, when asked by the project manager, why the water moves around in the toilet on a windy day. (Because of the venting system for a building's plumbing and the creation of high pressure in the system due to the movement of air into the vent stack on the top of the roof.) See, it is good to know lots of facts, even if they seem useless at the time.

In other news, my first 201 class last evening went well. Hopefully we can keep the momentum going...

I just don't know...

2009-01-11T16:42:00.002-09:00

Say goodbye to our good friend big red. Say hello to our new friend Jolly Green. Today we ended up getting a Mad River Explorer 16 Triple Tough canoe from Scheel's in Rapid City. The store is moving, so they are having a clearance sale to get rid of stuff to keep from moving it. I had been looking for some time for a bit bigger boat to haul the family around with. Now, of course, I have to find a new home for Red.

Tomorrow I start the Spring semester. Frightening. This will be my first time teaching two different courses at once. Good times, good times. I suppose I should get my behind in gear and come up with a lesson plan for tomorrow.

I'm out.

Feel the Pain

2009-01-04T14:42:00.003-09:00

"Red beans and rice did miss her..." That darn line has been running through my head all day, as I am making red beans and rice. But that is neither here, nor there.

You know, I love teaching. I find it painful, however, to put together a syllabus. I completely understand the need for it, but it often feels like busy work to the Nth degree, particularly the course schedule portion. I always start the semester with the best laid plans for a course and have it scheduled out for the entire semester only to realize about three weeks in that the students are not ready to progress at the same rate as my schedule calls for or that there are concepts I am simply not covering in enough detail. Therefore, I am only scheduling my two courses until spring break and then I'll figure out the rest of the course. I think I have a good flow for my courses and should be able to engage the students quite well. I hope so at least...

Of course, no one really wants to read me whine about my syllabus problems. Instead, I am sure that my faithful readers would like to hear about the epic racquetball game I played today with S and S. S1 had been out of town for a week and a half, so he had not played for a while and it showed a bit. However, all three of us went all out in the "old man game," as my mom calls it, and we ended up playing for over an hour and a half. Maybe this is why I am having such trouble writing my syllabi, because I am S. O. R. E. In a way it is really nice playing with guys that are so much younger than I, because I have to work quite hard to keep up. However, there are real problems with playing with the young guys. Exhibit one: the toe I broke a few weeks back. Exhibit two: the pain I am in right now from pushing to win that last point in each game. S2 is a hugely competitive person, so it can get intense at times, but most of the time it is all good fun.

That's it. I am off to play Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam on the Wii with G-Rooney. Yeah, I know where my priorities lie.

Rock Lobster

2008-12-28T07:09:00.002-09:00

Maybe I am just getting older and more mellow or something, but Christmas does not annoy me as much as it used to. I remember years past when I would do anything I could to avoid even thinking about the holiday. Don't get me wrong, but I still find Christmas carols to be the most nauseating things in the world and the idea of completely redecorating my home for two months is beyond me. However, I think that since I have had children and I can see their faces light up when they open that one gift that they had been asking for all year...well, it is a good feeling.

Guitar Hero, Band edition is a pretty cool thing. Interpol is on the soundtrack and my kids are rockin' it. I just can't figure the game out though. On drums I try to actually play drums using the limited knowledge I have of the instrument picked up through years of hanging out with drummers and beating around on their kits. On guitar I am just too slow to hit both the strum and the fret keys at the same time. This explains, to an extent, why I am so horrible on the real guitar. Singing, well, I don't sing... Cats go into a frenzy when I sing.

I am off. I have to get to grading. I have correspondence papers to take care of yet. It is funny, but the majority of students in correspondence didn't seem to exist until the last week of class, then they all suddenly wanted an extension. I suppose I was the same way when I took my correspondence courses. But then again, maybe now. I do know this as fact, the writing assignments for correspondence 201 are exactly the same as when I took the course in 2003.

The sound of one hand clapping.

2008-12-20T06:19:00.002-09:00

You know what is the absolute worst part of having a job? The worst part about having a job (in the corporate world, anyway) is feeling like one is stealing from the company when inspiration strikes and five minutes are taken to draft out a poem. You know what the best part about having a job is? Getting paid.

Speaking of jobs, I have to say that mine is going really well on the whole. In fact it is safe to share some information with the world at large now. My teaching experiences and my love for teaching will see some action in the trenches of the IT industry.

Lake Effect

I spend too much time thinking about
standing on the shore of a great
man induced lake,
the one that would look like an ocean
save for the distant rising of shore
just on the other side.
I like watching the water create mist
in the winter air, rise, freeze, fall,
melt back into itself, and repeat
until the north wind creeps
too much arctic across the water's surface.

I spend too much time worried
about the state of my future and the past
embedded in my present. This causes
snow to drift in the folds of my mind,
television static muting every color
to a dull pallet of browns, grays, whites, and blacks.

I look too often at words
until the letters become as meaningful
to my western mind as the ornate strokes
of Japanese kanji figures tattooed
in neon anytime a film director wants to invoke
the land of the rising sun without
actually saying so. I move the letters
like tiles in a board game, trying to find the recipe
needed to make sense from
the individual parts.

I too often write words that are too aware
of themselves and what they are trying to convey,
which, clearly, reduces any power they once had
over the imagination.
This is like Superman and his
aversion to green mineral
of extra-terrestrial origin.
Somehow, I too often pepper these words with
the course salt of popular culture, trying to
distract from the bitter taste self-reflexive-ness brings.

N'awlins is nice in the spring

2008-12-04T15:47:00.002-09:00

So good news good news. I just received confirmation that I am going to New Orleans in April to present at the PCA/ACA national conference. If you're going to go, go big, I always say. I had a great time last year in San Fran that I thought I would do it again. I am presenting a paper about adaptations, specifically Fight Club, and there will be elements of how adaptation fits into teaching. I think. I have not written the paper yet. I have not researched yet. I have only had the idea. Ideas are good things, I guess. I suppose I have to get serious now and figure out what I am going to say, huh?

I'm excited about the trip. I should have plenty of vacation time to be able to make the trip more than a simply there and back. In fact it will be the first time the kids have been down south, so we might just have to do some exploring.

I gotta go now. Have to get started on my research...

Of Vinyl and Records

2008-12-02T15:52:00.002-09:00

Just some moments stolen here to say that I love the richness of vinyl and that I found an awesome record store in St. Louis. I could have spent far too much. But I didn't. I did start a poem this weekend that I think might be good to share. Here we go...

I want cancer to lick my bones
so my eventual suicide appears less than such.

Maybe you declare the above
in a fit of reverse psychology, reverse osmosis
a kind of talisman against a combined fate, against
movement back and forth.

I want the river mud and debris
flowing from Montana to Missouri
to scour my skin away, leaving me naked.

Maybe we can all become part of the river
through meditation and thinking river-thoughts.

You flow through me like a needle
reading the vibrations calcified in the vinyl
of my favorite record. L.P., long play,
the perfect length for just about…
anything.

I want to scratch my skin away to the bones,
scrimshaw mundane scenes of everyday life,
office cubicles, FAX machines, PCs,
daily commutes in snarled traffic.
These are the images that define modern man.

Hunter-gatherer societies seem idyllic
when you are on the outside
and I am looking in.

I’m waiting for my man…

Reading notes on the whiteboard of life
scrawled in the shaky hand
of my inner junkie.

I’m saying nothing again.

Clearly, it is not finished, but there is something about the lines that keep drawing me back to them. I think this one will either one day be a really excellent poem or will end up in the dustbin of Ned. (I love obscure references to obscure band. Look up Ned's Atomic Dustbin...)

Bad whistling--mine

2008-11-23T16:44:00.003-09:00

I should be grading papers, but instead I am concerned about fixing my iPod shuffle dock so I can have some tunes for tomorrow as I am still without my Zune and the one I stole from my son, the one that I bought almost two years ago when the first came out, the one that he had broken and I had fixed, has broken beyond repair and thus, until my 80 gig returns via FedEx from the repair center I am at the mercy of Apple.

Supposedly I tried to kill my wife today with an errant racquetball ball speeding towards her wind pipe. Thems the breaks when you step into the cube o' death that is court 2. I've been playing quite a bit of RB lately and I have to say that it is hugely fun, if somewhat dangerous. I've the broken toe to prove it.

Rifle reports reverberate,
regenerate, then dissipate
in this echo-chamber scented of
rubber, leather, sweat,
defeat. Orbs of electric blue
follow defined trajectories,
where projectiles do not deviate --
the near miss and the impact.

We never figured out the ribbon
of mirror bounded by dun hills
was nothing more than the captured
river of myth, the river that opened
the idea of the west. We thought
it was just the Missouri.

Geese flock the lawn
of the capital building,
gray and white fake Christmas snow
eating and shitting,
shitting and eating.

It's all the same to me.

I bought a new (insert fondest desire here)
because I thought I could
only to find out that working for a living
is a lot harder than it seems
and now I've shackled myself to it
for a minimum of 46 equal payments
to be paid on the day of the month of my choosing;
for my convenience.

I lost my breath this morning.

I was a poem made of vowels,
I was an ugly face,
I was a verb of inaction,
I was pretending this whole time.

And with that, my dear friends, I must go, I must do something that will benefit someone. I must help one to see why one does not use a plural pronoun to refer to a singular noun, though I must refrain from using that dread word antecedent, as I am tired of trying to explain that all an antecedent is is the word that a pronoun takes the place of. And don't get me started on tenses, because we could spend too much of the future in the past and the past in the present. Yeah, existential.

DVD Menu for Tropic Thunder

2008-11-20T17:15:00.003-09:00

So, last weekend was a Macbeth weekend, even though I didn't entirely intend it to be. I ended up watching two very different adaptations of the tragedy, both with rather interesting, but wholly different takes on the the witches. The first, Macbeth, an adaptation from Australia set the play in a modern context, much like the Alameda version of Hamlet, but with fewer surprises. It was clearly a low budget film, but it had its high points.

The second adaptation was one that I did not expect. Christopher Walken as MacDuff, Andy Dick as one of the witches, fledgling fast food restaurants as the the kingdom to win or lose. Yeah, it was awesome! Scotland, PA is the name of this film and well worth the rental fee. I would have to say that this rendition was much more of a comedy, if Macbeth can ever be said to be a comedy, than any version I have ever seen. Good stuff.

What's on tap for this weekend? Raquetball with S, a bit of swimming with the kids, papers to grade, books to read, movies to watch, and internet research on how to fix my old Zune so I can use it till my new Zune arrives from service. Yup, that's my life, slacking as usual.

Tumbledown--Strange line breaks to approximate a high school poet

2008-11-16T17:53:00.003-09:00

It has been some
time since I have written and
what can I say? Things
are not as mentally
stimulating out here in the
real world.
Indeed, much of my time is
spent trying to retain
consciousness
refraining from yawning at improper moments.
Even the quagmire that is my construction
vehicle plowed driveway is
less than worthy of any real
thought.

I might equate this sense of purposeless-
ness with floating on the prevailing
currents, but that is
too simple of a metaphor
for where I swim. No, it is more
like swimming laps,
down and back,
down and back,
down and back,
down and back,
then down again, you get the picture.
Always moving. Never
going anywhere.
Yet there is a
strange sense of contentment
somewhere in this ineffectiveness.
What more could I actually ask for?
Home, love, progeny?
I have these and more.

Maybe I am just that proverbial post-
modern male,
satisfied never with my actuality.
I follow blogs
create lists of wishes at Amazon.
I covet the nostalgia of my past,
when the music of the 70's
was far superior to anything
on the radio today,
when Brittney (Bitches) would go the way
of the dodo or Tab in
the shorter side of six months.

The blissful ignorance,
my own malaise seems so faraway.
I can't even listen to sad songs.
"It doesn't matter if we all die..."
Lines hold little power
as I sit on my slowly molding couch,
waiting for something to kick me away
again, pop complacency like a balloon
again.

Speak my Language

2008-11-08T12:25:00.005-09:00

How lame am I? I go to play racquetball this morning with S and S and I think I broke my toe. I know, how does one break a toe playing this innocuous game? Well, being somewhat clumsy, I was running crosswise for the ball and actually kicked the wall. Good times. Apart from that, the actual play was pretty darned fun and we have agreed to play every Saturday morning so that S2 cannot again tell me that I am looking good as I have put on weight. I guess there are some cultural differences yet. I am sure there will be some pictures coming.

OK folks, go get The Cure's new album today. It is well worth the wait that was involved. 52 plus minutes of bliss. Good stuff. I particularly like Siren Song.

Good Stuff

2008-11-02T07:47:00.001-09:00

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