This will be me:
This may also be me:
Which is cooler?
28.7.10
LESS INTROSPECTION! MORE INTENSITY!
As I check BBC for news from Bolivia, I dream of high mountain passes and morning soggy oatmeal euphoria. Today I biked 16 miles to work. Next Monday I will bike across countries, and I'm convincing myself that my absolute lack of training/biking/doing anything other than enviously gazing at Andy Schleck's calves is absolutely irrelevant. Andy Schleck has absolutely nothing on my borrowed maillot jaune and our slackline.
This will be me:
This may also be me:
Which is cooler?
This will be me:
This may also be me:
Which is cooler?
27.7.10
Today on the metro
I saw a man wearing rubber toe sock shoes with a three piece suit.
It was beautiful.
It was beautiful.
22.7.10
A well-respected man about town
Armed with a cardigan, a lanyard ID, sensible shoes, and a perfunctory knowledge of the DC metro, I have entered the (unpaid) workforce! I have a job that doesn't involve drinking terrible beer, spandex or chasing bears! Currently my job description is broadly to save the world but essentially to poke a model of Andean hydrology and watch it refuse to do as I say and read articles about other models that may cooperate more. My new favourite socioculturally appropriate acronym is FIESTA: Fog Interception for the Elevation of Streamflow in Tropical Areas. Meanwhile Gary and I bike the many socially responsible bike paths and marvel at the ingenuity of suburban planning. In a little over a week I will be in Prague and setting off on another epic failure/adventure (cross out which doesn't belong).
The Rio Magdalena has a beguiling watershed.
The Rio Magdalena has a beguiling watershed.
16.7.10
Napoleon in rags
The second to last day of treeplanting in a region called Temagami, desperation was starting to show. Bad money, no sleep, no booze, weird headspaces, drizzling rain. Bodies starting to wear after what would be a seven day shift. Days spent tapping rock, exhaustion, anger, and in everyone's eyes a burning desire to just go home. I was closing mental doors and steeling my head towards new circumstances, so for me it was a case of balls, meet wall. We slouched off the bus at the end of the day and threw our gear out of the way of the pickup trucks. No one cared enough to put it where it belonged. Trudged into the mess tent, ladled soup, drank our last few beers, sat around and stared, cracked a few cynical jokes. Half the camp was still planting and wouldn't be back till midnight. Someone put on Like a Rolling Stone. The harmonica wailed and suddenly everyone, with dirt on their faces and blood on their knuckles, ragged and haggard, really just Napoleons in rags, sang along to it. It was heartfelt and defiant, and it would have been clichéd anywhere but the Ontario wilderness.
Photos of misery:
Photos of misery:
14.7.10
Intensity!
I was unable to walk for a whole week after that, so much did the race take out of me. But it was the most pleasant exhaustion I have ever known.
-Emil Zátopek, after winning the 1952 Olympic marathon in Helsinki
Fun Fact! Did you know? This guy won the 5k, 10k, and marathon at the same Olympics, the only person ever to do so.
Look at him go. Those ears. That struggle. I needed a reminder of what intensity looks like, as my only intensity has been in destroying the relics of my childhood as I clean out my room, and even that has been perfunctory at best. I should be thankful that my family has moved nine times in my life, as the clutter would otherwise be far worse.
13.7.10
Fire no guns, shed no tears.
Weeks of wilderness give a unique perspective on things like the importance of PhDs, the Internet, and showering. Back in the real world I'm a bit at a loss - no bears? no Alberta Premium? My problems can't all be solved by screaming "ON YA BIKE!" and planting harder? Oh.
The end of treeplanting involved hitchhiking to Montréal, cooking a large amount of bargain seamonsters, biking while singing sea shanties, tea, guitars, the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Dollar Cinema and in general one of the happiest weeks of my life. I'm currently in Philadephia tying up loose ends and my life is relatively calm, which allows for the blag.
Sometimes treeplanting isn't very fun. Luckily, my crew and planting partners were pretty cool, and when things got annoying, we sang songs. Favourites were I've Just Seen a Face by the Beatles and various old Maritime songs, so I learned more sea shanties in the landlocked province of Ontario than ever on the coast. Barrett's privateers was a perennial, if only because it has eight verses and features cannons.
The end of treeplanting involved hitchhiking to Montréal, cooking a large amount of bargain seamonsters, biking while singing sea shanties, tea, guitars, the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Dollar Cinema and in general one of the happiest weeks of my life. I'm currently in Philadephia tying up loose ends and my life is relatively calm, which allows for the blag.
Sometimes treeplanting isn't very fun. Luckily, my crew and planting partners were pretty cool, and when things got annoying, we sang songs. Favourites were I've Just Seen a Face by the Beatles and various old Maritime songs, so I learned more sea shanties in the landlocked province of Ontario than ever on the coast. Barrett's privateers was a perennial, if only because it has eight verses and features cannons.
19.6.10
2.5.10
WR: But what they do they will do without me for I have gone to the mountain trees
So about this time last year I was in a very small, very shitty car with people I loved, driving on small shitty roads to a small shitty town with a large shitty log pile. There was euphoria and sadness and quintessential summer, you know the kind, in movies with blurry soft lenses and popsicles and sand under feet and all that. And we listened to this song and for me at least, (there we go with the Americana again), it was a fitting backdrop to all the sun and the rain and comings and goings. Two of us were starting an extremely difficult backcountry job, one of us was emigrating to France or East Africa or Kashmir or something, two of us were breaking up, all of us were kind of freewheeling at least a little bit.
I've since developed a pretty strong relationship with the Greyhound, which is good because it looks like we'll be continuing that liaison this summer, starting tomorrow, when I go plant trees again, this time alone. So see you later blog, civilization, bike lanes and butcher shops, all that, I'm out, to be resumed in a few months' time.
I've since developed a pretty strong relationship with the Greyhound, which is good because it looks like we'll be continuing that liaison this summer, starting tomorrow, when I go plant trees again, this time alone. So see you later blog, civilization, bike lanes and butcher shops, all that, I'm out, to be resumed in a few months' time.
25.4.10
W.R: In which it becomes obvious that I'm a math nerd
Right now I'm spending hours at my desk studying for my last exam, which is math, because I'm partly a math major. I've liked math all my life. Like pi. And pie. We played this song in ninth grade I think, and math is on my mind:
Related: It irks me when professors use π for anything other than the concept 3.14159. Yes, it's a greek letter, but there are others. Pick xi or something, I think it feels neglected. Also using the letter t as a variable, because with my handwriting it looks like a plus sign, so you get something like ∫t2 t t ttt tt 89 d/dt. Stop that shit.
I need to get out more.
Related: It irks me when professors use π for anything other than the concept 3.14159. Yes, it's a greek letter, but there are others. Pick xi or something, I think it feels neglected. Also using the letter t as a variable, because with my handwriting it looks like a plus sign, so you get something like ∫t2 t t ttt tt 89 d/dt. Stop that shit.
I need to get out more.
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