Yearly Archives: 2010

Wednesday night – Not at Burning Man

I am not at burning man today…

I’m in Richmond VA at a work meeting

 for most of the past 365 days of the year I had thought I would be. Burning Man .. for those of you who may not know.. is an annual festival in the Black Rock desert of Nevada. It draws about 50,000 of the most wonderfully eclectic freaks, artists, techis, hippiess, nudists, vouyers and all other sorts of folks that defy classification. (In fact.. Burning man has taught me that most folks defy classification)

I first went to Burning Man in 2008.  I also went last year. Last year, Homer lead our group to build an amazing device called the TimeCycle. a 20 foot diesel driven ferris wheel car  (i did the lights) . Building that thing, getting it cross country and keeping it running was a herculean feat… and it exhausted us all . . .. I’ll never forget riding that thing into athe sunrise one morning after riding around all night.. 

First time I went it happened as something of an accident. I was talking to my friend Ben about something else and he invited me to come along to the burn. What I found there rocked my world on so many levels. What hit me first was that I’d never imagined that there were so many folks like me that were passionate abou mixing art and expression with science and technoloigy .. There were folks with computere controlled flames that pulsed to music, giant animated dragons ,  giant floats of every shape covered with dancing people. lasers of every color crossing the sky.. and every where people covered in blinking, strobing a lights.. Strings of lights, halos of light.. whole light up costumes.. There were explosions of one sort or another all through the day and night.. and music everywhere.. I felt surrounded by kindred spirits.  The event ends when all 50000 folks gather around a 90 foot tallk wooden ‘man’ which is buildt in the center of the circular ‘playa’. The man is loaded with explosives and then torched.. It is an awesome spectacle.. indescribable, really.

The longer I stayed, tough, the more I got to feel the spirit of the place.. The whole event is cash free.. you can’t buy, sell or trade.. Everything is based on gifting and self-reliance There were very few rules.. the one I remember most is “label your flammables and explosives “..    The moto of the place was “safety third !”

While ome of the festival is just wild good time..  some of it was incredibly serene and peaceful. Every year the organizers also build a wooden building called ‘the temple’ which is a memorial to those who have passed on.  there were hundereds of people in the building at any given time.. making tributes to their loved ones.. I will never forget walking into the temple in 2008 with a bag of 300 Samstones..

Anyway.. I’m not there this year.. I decided for good reasons, that I had too many things goign on in my life here to be able to dissapeas for the week in the dessert without sleep.   It’s been a good decision. I’ve been able to get many things done these past couple of days.. I feel rested and peaceful.. That’s good. I’ll be back with my family after this short trip.. that’s good, too.

Today I’m in a meeting in Richmond VA.. there are no dancing naked people here, no explosions timed to music.. but.. the folks here are nice.. I had a good-though-complicated set of technical meeting today with some smart people.   None of them were covered in lights, but they were very good folks just the same. I made a good choice in not going to Burning Man this year.. At the same time, a little of my heart is there this week. I am sending out good times wishes to all my freinds on the playa..

Remember..folks.   ‘safety third” !

 

Nite all, nite Sam
-me

Monday night – happy last day

Happy last day of summer.. or the real last day.. not the ones that the astronomers measure.. but the last day of sleeping in, staying up late, playing video games till 3am.. That end of summer/

I remember when the kids were really young any sad departure was rebranded the ‘happy last day’… a kid was moving.. it was his/her ‘happy last day’.. the end of the school year was also a ‘happy last day’.. because I think teachers assumed that their pupils would miss them so much..

So it is sort of with the  end of summer.. . We’ve had a really, really great summer. Gabe had a ton of fun doing traveling lacross at the beginning of the year.. Max had soem good visits up form the city, The four of us had a really fantastic trip to Cost Rica and we met up with all my family at my dad’s 80th birthday..   All in all the weather was good, we spent time with many good friends.. we got lots of outside time and the tomatoes and basil were awesome..    so.. it was a pretty happy summer

I’m a bit sad for it to end.. at the same time I’m excited for all the stuff happening in our lives. Max is starting his last college year.. living in a cool new place.. getting some nice  gigs in his chosen profession..  Gabe is starting high school.. playing soccer .. he’s got two jobs and is driving.. I’m liking the stuff I’m doing at work.. and feeling good about the outreach stuff I’m doing.. and Diane’s yoga practice is going really well.

So.. happy last day folks.. I hope your summer was fun and fullfilling, too..

Today was actually Max’s first day of classes.. he sent us this picture at 8AM on his way to his first class..on his first day  of his last year at college.

Gabe doesn’t start unitl tomorrow.. but he did have soccer practice. I picked him up after practice and took him to dinner with Max b, Jean. Char and Jane to Joe’s Snackbar.. a traditional summer haunt.. we loaded up on friend stuff to get the year started right

Then we headed to the high school for an intro class on the laptops they were giving the kids.  

Gabe took advantage of the night visit to scope out his locker…The

school was all bright and clean and ready for students tomorrow..  It felt both good and weird being back in there.. I remember this ‘just before’ time for both Max and Sam.. many years, many memories.

We got home to find that Diane had a cake waiting to celebrate end of summer, begining of school and our 24th anniversary (tomorrow)

OK.. that’s it for the day..

Happy last day….
Happy first day…
Happy every day

nite all, nite sam
-me

Sunday night – hiking weekend

I’m sitting here with my legs up resting after about 16 miles of hikling this weekend. Diane and I decided to celebrate our anniversary early and spend the weekend together side hikioutng.. It’s been wonderfull.. Doday we did about 9 miles from Bolton Mountain back to our house.. ..

More on that after a quick flash back to last night.. As part of our extended anniversary weekend, Diane and I were heading out for Sushi round 8PM.. as we headed through the flats before French Hill We saw the car in front of us swerve at 50 MPH to avoid hitting.. a .. was that a dog ? Nope.. it was a cow.. several cows !!!

We ulled over and switched on the emergency lights.. Diane jumped out an shoo-ed the cows back off the road ..

The two of us tried to shepard the 20 or so young and confused bovines

back to their pens.. but .. there were too many of them.. and too few

of us.. I drove off for help.. I picked up neighbor Daryl and his

family.. then we called Kin and his family.. the cows owner’s.. they

weren’t there.. but their farm hands were.. Then the P’s across the

street showed up.. at that point we had enough folks to make a human

fence. we were then able to move the cows into the pen.. it was fun and

funny.. but it could have ended really badly..

Flash forward to this morning.. at 8:30 we met our friends Lisa and Mark and their labradoodle Elroy in the Bolton ski area parking lot.    They’d offered to walk with us up to the long trail.. we didn’t have a trail mp.. and besides.. we like their company..

Mark and Lisa took us up the maze of  nordic trails to get to the ridge where the Long Trail crosses .. I photographed the trail signs to remind me of the way (Google is my freind here because I can look up things I’ve blogged about later… to remind me.. )

It was about an hour and 10 minutes up to the long trail crossing.. and only a few hundered metes to teh entrance to Harington’s view.

What a beautiful view it was.. it’s a sheer cliff with views of Mansfiel to the north, Bolton to the east and Camels hump to teh south..   Satori jumped up on the rock before we could stop her !. She jumped down safely before I could do anything.. it was a hundered feet down into the forest on the other side.. OMG.. was that close !

We placed a SamStone here to replace the one that Owen and Ben left.. and a through hiker named Sam then found..

Here’s Mark making himself popular with the doggies..

After soem ooohing and awwwing.. we said good bye to mark , lisa and elroy.. they headed back down to bolton.. and we headed south on the long trail. It was all in all about a 9 mile hike.. We locked into the white blazes and surrendered to the pleasant monotony of the trail…

We talked about all sorts of things..solved many of the world’s problems..  around mile five we started making stuff up to talk about..   It’s fun to think about folks who hike the long trail all the way.. I’ll bet their conversations after 3 weeks would be pretty bizarre and funny !

We came across some fresh moose tracks.. but .. we never saw the moose.. we’ve seen them up here before.. but we made enough noise to ensure that we couldn’t run ainot anything with hearing.

I kept up the tradition of seeing faces in the trees.. .. what do you think.. natural.. or man made ?

About 5 miles in we stopped for a light lunch.. Food is so good on the trail !

Just after that we came out on Bolton Notch road.. This is where we often start our hike.. We crossed the road and tucked back into the woods again.

We did find this little guy slithering across or path.. He even posed for us.

Hey.. does this look like a… ? .. This is graffiti we pass all the time..

The trail had lots of up and down.. mostly dry with good packed trail.. Eventually we came down to a large beaver pond..

The girls too advantage of the mucky water to cool off.. it was about 85 degrees down in the valley.. not much cooler up here.

We scrambled over the beavers dam and continued our trek south.

Right after the beaver pond there’s a another nice lookout.. we put our last Samstone there overlooking Camels hump .

We noticed a large number of downed trees all across the trail .  There had been some extremem weather.. microbursts I guess their called .. that knocked down lots of trees earlier this week.  Mark and Lisa and their son Rusty and his girlfriend had come up earlier to clear some of the trees that were down across the trail

Eventually we came up to Duck Brook lean too.. and their pungent privy..

it came prestocked with libertarian reading material

Diane checked up on the action that had come through  by reading the shelters logbook. .. and added an entry for us.

From there it was about a mile and a half home.. Finally we did the last hike up

And then we broke through the woods to catch a view of the valley and our house below.

From there we followed the powerline down to stage road..

Diane rewarded the girls for their great hiking.. they were so tired..

then it was abotu a half mile home..

All in all we did about 9 miles today and about 7 miles yesterday.. between both days.. we saw 3 other folks on the trail.. and this is the busy season 🙂

I love vermont.. I love my wife..
and I’d love ot go to sleep now…

nite everybody… nite sam !
-me

Saturday evening – Catamount trail

Nice to sit… Diane, the dogs and I just got back from an awesome  hike. We’re taking some longish hikes this weekend in early celebration of our 24th anniversary which is this Tuesday.   Today we chose to hike the catamount trail from the Huntington side over to the duxbury side. The catamount trail is a primitive cross country ski tail that spans the entire state of Vermont north to south.. We’ve always heard about folks skiing this section..but we never have.. so today we set out to do it on foot

It’s not a widely used trail.. especially when there’s no snow .. We had to explore a bit to find the trail head by hiking around the trails in the old camels hump nordic ski area.. We used to go to this place 20 years ago.. it’s no longer a comercial ski area.. but is run as a cooperative.. The trails were pretty overgrown.. but most of the trail signs… not all… were still in place..

Our five fingers are great hiking shoes.. though you pick up some ferns between your toes !

After about 45 minutes of tromping around we finally found the catamount trail .. we were just about to turn back because of the high brush when diane spotted the blue blazes..

We hiked up about an hour to the ridgeline where we crossed into the camels hum state park land..  then the trail started to descend steeply towards our side of the river.

We put a samstone near the ridge..   it’s always a nice moment when we do that..  we try and place one or two every time we hike..

As we placed the stone.. DIane noticed this great bearded  face in a nearby tree.. do you see it ?

We rambled down the beautiful trail for about 45 minutes until we came to familiar sites.. the gate on the honey hollow road.. one of our frequent hikes near our house..  

We then cut over to the catamount road by winding through the forest..the road was lined with  wild hemp.. .. or at least that’s what I think it was 🙂

The dogs were good and tired as we approached the car.. they deserved a treat !

We got down to the van, we’d dropped it there around noon, then drove home, dropped the girls.. and headed back to hunigton to get the other car.. maybe 10 miles away..

I dropped off the map at the nordic center and left another samstone for good measure..

I was thinking as I drove home how lucky i am to live in this abeutiful part of the world .. and how lucky I am to be married to Diane..

Speaking of lucky.. we’re heading out for sushi.. the end of a good day.. more tomorrow..

nite all.. nite Sam
-me