From the Grey Fort

Clear Air Turbulence

2012-01-09T05:00:00.000-05:00

I would presume that any of you who have had the occasion to fly very much have had the disagreeable experience of finding a nice rough pocket of sky in the middle of a cloudless blue day. No rhyme nor reason for it, and I don't think there's really a good scientific explanation for them. Just a rough ride masked by over-lying calm. I feel like maybe 2011 has been like that. A veneer of calm and success when what's really going on is a damn bumpy ride.

I'm ending this year much the way I felt at the end of 2005. That year was a tough; lousy job situation, rough year at home, nearly got killed and spent half the year recovering. Just ended up feeling exhausted and totally sandblasted. Also at the end of the year I changed jobs, much as I am doing now.

This year, it's been the same tough job situation, same drama at home, except there's two spawn instead of one, same trying to find my way in life. I guess I managed not to try to get myself killed in 2011, though I guess I did a few kinda dangerous things, and had a few close scrapes, but just didn't end up with any good scars to tell the tales.

And all of it looking like it's flying through nice calm skies. It gets old after a while, things looking good, but being jarred about, white knuckling the arm rests. Or worse, just sitting and waiting, knowing that there's that air pocket sitting out there, invisible, waiting to slam the plane down a few hundred feet in the blink of an eye, and ruin my barely managed sense of calm. One way or the other, you get off the plane feeling like you've been put through the wringer.

2006 managed to be a pretty good year. I liked what I was doing for the first time in a while. I started to find myself a little bit. But it's certainly different now. I've reshuffled myself once, maybe twice since then. I am certainly not the same person. So I guess we'll see. I'm going into this with a sense of anticipation, but also trepidation. Am I on the path?

As I come back to this post some days later, I chuckle to see my typo. I meant to write "Am on the right path." Perhaps I should have should have capitalized the "P". Am I on the the Path? Frankly, I still don't know. I become less certain of all but a very few absolute rights and wrongs every day, so I'll just settle for the Path, wherever it leads, as long as I'm on it. I've got a decent pair of boots, a pretty good compass, and I can read a map. I guess I'll just start walking.

Forgive me. I'm not all the way awake, and now I'm mixing metaphors, or some such thing, and just writing the words as they fall out of my head. Flying, walking. Sitting and waiting versus plotting my own course. Here's what I think I really need to do: stay off of metaphorical airplanes; sitting, waiting, fearing. Keep my feet on terra firma; use my tools, forge ahead on a bearing of my choice, select my own terrain instead of trying to fly over it.

The weather isn't always good on the ground, but at least you're not strapped into a chair watching it happen. That's fine, I'll take my ability to deal with it over somebody else's. One week to a way-point. If there's not a cairn there, I will build one, shoot my bearing, and start walking. Forget airplanes. Time to move under my own power.

-Grey

The Death of Mainline Churches

2011-12-25T13:22:00.002-05:00

So Christmas morning was pretty pleasant. Got up early, opened presents. The kids are happy. I got a few things myself, and none it crap for a change. Then we got everyone dressed and headed to the church for a Christmas service.

Now, it had been made known that this would be a casual service, Called knew it would be sparsely attended, and that there would be no child care; both Spawn would be in the sanctuary. They were suitable wound up, as kids are want to be on Christmas morning. Spawn II was pretty spooled up, so I took her out and went back to one of the empty rooms to play. After a short while, one of the older members of the congregation walked in and says to me "I heard you're getting a new job." I replied, "I am." He then proceeds to tell me "You're going to have to look for one for your wife too. Your daughter is dancing in the service. She is letting your kids ruin the church." In a spectacular act of self-control I replied "Then let me go get her.", which I did.

Shortly after that, I rounded them up and left. And I'm never going back. Ever. I don't want the kids to go back either, but I'll let Called make that decision. I've related this story to her, and she seems a little more laid back about it than me. I'm furious.

These people wonder why the churches are dying. I'll tell you why, because they are killing them. They simply refuse to see that society is changing around them, and that people are looking for a church that will help them and their families be seekers on journey, not a place to be told what to think, where their kids are ignored, and where there is no room for openness and exploration.

Maybe it'll change when all these people pay the ferry man. Maybe one day it'll be a place where someone like me can be accepted. Maybe, but I won't hold my breath. Until then, the church will be an obstacle on whatever path I'm on.

Should you happen to stumble upon this post, I hope you and yours had a pleasant day, whatever your faith tradition, or lack thereof. I'm going to simmer for a while, and then work on cleaning up the debris of the day.

Peace out.

-Grey

Risk

2011-12-17T21:01:00.003-05:00

I moved into Katherine-Parker Hall at Hanover College on a Saturday morning. Mom and Dad had left by noon. By the middle of the afternoon I had met a guy named Sam Krieg, who lived in the Fiji house across the street. Sam knocked on my door and asked if he could run a zipline out my dorm window to a tree in front of the house. My answer: "Of course". So we ran the zipline, and I met the Dean of Students within my first couple of hours of as a college student.....

But I digress, Sam was something of a character around Hanover. He had a climbing wall in his room, ran around campus naked, crashed junk cars into appliances on the Fiji lawn, and still managed to find time get good grades, and be involved at school. Much to the consternation of the administration, he was elected to give the keynote speech at his graduation (my sophmore year). He walked to the podium, pulled a Rolling Rock beer out of his robe (Hanover is dry), popped the beer, and much to the relief of the administration, fully clothed, began his speech.

He recounted traveling to Argentina to climb a mountain, and how the expedition nearly went fatally wrong. During that speech, he said something that is with me still, and brings me to the real point of this post: "A man who risks nothing, gets nothing. A man who risks nothing, has nothing. A man who risks nothing, IS nothing."

I find myself at a cusp where this is very relevant. Within the next few days, I will be receiving a job offer that will afford me an opportunity to leave Bush League Consulting; something I have have sought from about the fourth hour after I walked in the door. And now I find myself hesitating.

As much as there are days that I hate HATE working there, I am well compensated, appreciated, and generally speaking, good at what I do. If I decide to move to the Fifth Floor, I will be putting myself at tremendous risk. I will have to stretch myself personally and professionally, and unusually for me, I don't have the gut feeling that I know I will be successful.

So now I have to figure out how much risk I am willing to tolerate. I've done plenty of hard things in my life. I've never ever been afraid of hard work and exertion. But as I sit here contemplating this decision, I have come to wonder if I've ever risked myself, have I tried to do anything I wasn't pretty sure I could succeed at? As a scientist, I am forced to admit that there are no certainties, but generally you can constrain the variables, and with some thought, have a pretty good feel for where you're going to end up. This time I cannot; and it is very uncomfortable.

Relative comfort versus unknown challenges. Continued success versus an unknown set of problems. Leaving my Anchor for waters unknown.

However, there exists Potential: Building something of my own, recognition for what I'm good at AND like, long term success.

So now, over the next few days, I must explore, think, challenge, weigh.

Who am I?

What do I have?

WHAT am I?

-Grey

Transition

2011-11-20T18:38:00.001-05:00

I cannot take credit for these words - they are by Iain M. Banks - but for some reason I am drawn and must share.

"Perhaps we all find such coincident place marks in the books of our lives reassuring.
Still, it seems to me that that such congruencies, while useful in fixing what one might call one's personal eras within our shared history, are effectively meaningless. Lying here, during all this time after my own small fall, it has become my conviction that things mean pretty much what we want them to mean. We'll pluck significance from the least consequential happenstance if it suits us and happily ignore the most flagrantly obvious symmetry between separate aspects of our lives if it threatens some cosily comforting belief; we are blindest to to precisely what might be the most illuminating."

2011-11-14T22:12:00.001-05:00

Grey. Grey, Grey, Grey. Grey is in a negative place right now. If you're looking for some philosophical musings, or recounts of a good adventure, get bent and go some place else.

I am so fucking sick of it all. Sick of Bush League Consulting. Pissed that the bright light I had to do real consulting may be trying to build someone else's dream. Again. Can I get a chance to work in a thriving practice again, with people as smart and driven as me? Is that too much to ask? Is this my future if I choose to follow Called around?

I'm sick of 0445 mornings. Sick of feeling like being half an hour early to work is late. Sick of the Administrator making me feel like I do shitty job, even when I'm already grinding myself to the end of sanity and health. Sick of the clutter in this hell-hole. Sick of be unwilling to have someone else in my house. Sick of living with a business partner with no interest in more. Tortured by want of more.

I want nothing more than to get in the truck and start driving. I'm sure I could get three days before Bush League killed my gas and credit card and put an APB on the rig. Leave that fucker at a rest stop, make one last call on Bush League's electronic leash to tell those assholes where it is, and then begin walking, becoming Grey. Into the night and fog. Disappear well enough to cash out my insurance so that Spawn of Grey can have what they need.

Perhaps some of you know. Perhaps the Writer. Perhaps the Anchor. Me; I'll contemplate becoming Grey. Contemplate the lure of the Void; drifting in a present existence. Maybe I'll be here again. Maybe I'll just be Grey.

Millions of Tiny Bubbles

2011-10-26T22:01:00.000-04:00

It's been just about three years even since I started occasionally writing in this space. My first post was about presence, and a white water rafting trip. I just got back from another similar trip, and somehow it seems appropriate for me to write again. I don't have any more profound thoughts about presence, but I surely know that I continue to desire it just as much as it seems elusive.

So this weekend we rafted again, but this time we took along some old friends. I've been wanting to go again since the last trip, but the fact that the river was going to be running at at least 115% of its normal capacity, making for some really big water, pretty much decided that I was going even if I had to go alone.

We did the same trip this time, a Lower Gauley run on Saturday and an Upper Gauley run on Sunday. If you're not familiar, the Lower is kind of a warm up, and the Upper is the biggest commercially run white water east of the Mississippi. On Saturday we had a very small trip, the seven in my group, and three total strangers who turned out to be from here on the Coastal Plain with me. The outfitter wanted to break up the groups evenly into two boats; not an unreasonable idea. Something possessed me to say I would ride with the complete strangers.

This was not the best choice I could have made. I was joined in my endeavor by The Writer, who has a mile of guts, but only one (after this weekend) rafting trip under her belt. To make a long story short, the three people from the Coastal Plain might as well have been paddling with tennis rackets. We didn't spill, but I don't think I've ever had to paddle so hard in my life. It made for a long cold day. Good company with my family and friends, less awesome on the river. Which leads us into Sunday, which really, was much more interesting.

The day started cloudy and cold. It was sleeting on me when I walked out to my truck. That opening makes it seemed like at some point the day ceased to be cloudy and cold. It didn't. We checked in for the early run, loaded on the buses, and headed for the put in. We ran our first class V with no problem, and I think the group was feeling pretty good. Which brought us to the second big rapid, and the primary subject of this post, Pillow Rock.

Pillow is the most violent rapid on the river. It's big, it's fast, and sometimes it will punish you even when you do everything right. We ran a perfect line in, went high side on Pillow Rock, and then time slowed down. I very clearly remember the raft being vertical underneath me, and thinking "Shit, we're swimming." as I dropped the 8 feet or so into the river. I hit the water and had time to think about how much warmer the 55 F water was than the air, and that it felt pretty good. You can see the white of the froth, and the green of the surface water, and feel the waves on your head. It's almost pretty if you can get past being in the middle of a giant rapid. I surfaced, had time to get about half of a breath, at least some of which was river water, and then got Flushed.

Just river right of Pillow is another rock, named The Volkswagen, which I can only assume is because it is kind of Beetle shaped. In between the two is a hydraulic called the Toilet Bowl. You go in, and you're getting Flushed. It's 20-feet straight down and about carries about about 100-yards or so downstream. Underwater. You see, in this order, and in very rapid succession, white foam, green water, black.

Down there its strangely quiet and warm, though the warm I would imagine was a result of the coldness of the day. There is very little sensation of movement, because all the water is rushing along with you at the same speed. And you're down long enough to think a bunch; notice that you still have your paddle, become aware of the amount of breath you still feel like you have in your lungs, wonder if there are any rocks at the bottom waiting to grab your ankle. And then, as you're beginning to think to yourself "Grey, you have been down here a long time.", you pop up. By some happenstance, I popped up near my boat, which was upside down. Our guide was trying to roll it back over, and a few of use were trying to drag our compatriots back to shelter. About that time, I noticed another damned rock, and realized we were going to hit that one too. You don't want any part of rocks while you're swimming, so I chose to abandon the raft, swim back out into the river, and ride the next rapid au natural also, though I did get a good view of the guide heaving the The Writer back out into the river, so she didn't have to eat shit on the big rock.

I swam the next rapid, got to another raft, and the rest of the scene was pretty much me hollering for a paddle and exhorting the people in the raft to "Paddle, God damn it!", so we could round up the rest of the crew. Afterward was interesting. I don't get the adrenaline shakes very often. I had them then, though I couldn't afford to show it to my crew. I needed the next two big stretches of water to get all my confidence back.

What did I take from it? I dreamed of the swim for a couple of nights after. Clearly it got into my head. And I'd do it again. I was just talking with The Surfer about that today. I think there's a spring trip in the works. Really, I think it comes full circle again to presence. Those visceral experiences that tell you you are alive, and can be made not that way in a terribly short instant. How much more in the moment can you get than wondering if that one is your last? I'm not sure if that's really a good way to live your life, but there for a few moments, it is exhilarating. Priceless. Present.

All Points Converge to Here

2011-04-20T19:20:00.001-04:00

I was recently talking with a friend who is going though some big changes in life. She was sort bemoaning the size of the decisions she was making, the far reaching impact on her life, and being scared by the potential of screwing up. While assuring her she was on the right track, I developed another train of though in some parallel neural paths.

I got to thinking about all the really little "nothing" decisions that irrevocably changed my life; the passing comment that probably ended my relationship with my high-school girlfriend, stopping for Chik-Fil-A putting me on a collision course with the sleepy driver who almost killed me, and probably a million others that I don't remember.

It occurred to me that while you may be able to more easily predict SOME of the downstream consequences of a "big" decision, you can't really see very many of them at all. And most of us don't usually consider the downstream flow from what you did or didn't miss from the time you decided to stop for the extra cup of coffee on the way to work. Might have missed being hit by a bus crossing the street. Might have missed holding the office door for your soul-mate.

What it comes down to, in my opinion, is that all your decisions are really the same size. They lead you down into a web of interaction with everything else that is far too complicated to ever predict. The sum of all of those decisions leads you to where you are right this very second, and where you'll be the next, and so on.

That being said, what I am trying to take away from all that is to not belabor the stuff that looks too big to deal with, and to not marginalize the hundreds of small decisions that I make every day. I need to keep that in mind as I sort through things right now. Move forward. Act consciously, but decisively. Everything I have ever done leads me to typing this post, right here, right now. And so will the next keystroke.

I Remember

2011-02-13T10:59:00.000-05:00

I remember when the aches were caused by something I did to myself having fun;
I remember that perfect moment backpacking;
I remember the overtones of 12 voices in PERFECT tune, and the air in the room turning to crystal;
I remember when I KNEW exactly what I wanted of life;
I remember when my spousal unit was a cool girl I knew, not my spousal unit;
I remember liking to fly;
I remember when I decided I didn't like to fly;
I remember the first time I knew I would die, though it didn't scare me then;
I remember a sky so big looking at it gave me vertigo;
I also remember being amazed that there were so many stars in that sky;
I remember missing my friends when I moved, and realizing I would probably never see them again;
I remember thinking about the times I don't remember, and wondering what that means;
I remember when a church was a place that I could go to seek spiritual clarity, not a place I hate;
I "remember" sleeping through the night;
I remember driving the car by myself for the first time;
I remember several moments of great scientific realization that now amaze me that I was the one who thought of them;
I remember every detail of the couple of times I have nearly died in 1080p surround-sound detail;
I remember realizing that being a parent meant I was now responsible for making sure that another human being becomes a good and contributing member of the world;
I wish I could remember more of my to-do list;
I remember that I like to do this writing thing, if for no other reason than writing words pleases me;
I don't remember when I stared this "I remember" exercise, or why, but I'm going to finish it and post it today.

Peace out

-Grey

Reflections on an Oily Mess - Pt. II

2010-07-06T20:26:00.006-04:00

So the first time I ended up down here, I had a whopping five-hours of notice. My boss called me about 2PM while I was standing in a clinic with one of my supervisors who had just managed to hack a pound a flesh out of his arm on the job. I had been expecting a trip down here, so I wasn't surprised to hear from him, but the answer "How's tonight sound?" when I asked him when he needed me there was a little surprising. My admin then made my flight for 7PM. Nice. I had to get all my stuff from the office, get home, load a bag full of dirty clothes, kiss Called and my Spawn goodbye, and get back out the the airport to catch a 7PM flight. Have I mentioned here how much I hate flying? Like how absolutely petrified I am of airplanes. So I got hammered on airport liquor and then took off into a thunderstorm. I suppose in that seeing lightening from an airplane is cool in theory, but honestly, never having that experience again is too soon. I got in safe and sound and went to the site next day, where i found a yard full of more vacuum trucks than I ever knew existed, and 1100 people with no organization, no mission, and no clue.

So fast forward to the here and now. I'll give a little more of the back-story later I suppose. Today I had a conversation with a guy who is not exactly my client, but at the very least someone I work for. This gentlemen had the misfortune to spend some time in central command and called it one of the most top heavy, bureaucratic, not efficient operations he had ever seen.

If someone from the press were to read this, I'm sure you would find a way to misquote and misrepresent it, but here's the thing, IT'S YOUR FAULT.

The mainstream media is constantly running stories and interviews of people clamoring for more government involvement, more this, more that, want, want, want. Nobody seems to understand that all this clamoring is doing is getting in the way of the people who can make a difference. I would posit the question - What do you want the government to do? Do you think the government is an expert in offshore oil drilling? Do you think they have they expertise to be out here running these operations. The answer to that is no.

Some of the Coasties are a pretty sharp lot, but I have had an OSHA inspector on my site checking that the food that I just had delivered is cold enough. Like somehow I might imagine is better for me to feed the people who are about to go and and work for me food that will make them chuck all over the beach. Damn it. Imagine the good that person's salary, hotel, and per-diem could do elsewhere in the world. We could let the people who know what they're doing run this operation and get it done better and cheaper, but what the hell, lets build a monster.

So think about that next time you're watching the news and wondering why the government hasn't taken over the clean up and made it all better. Your tax dollars are being spent making sure that my sandwiches are cold, among other things, which is time spent away from my doing what you all want to see; cleaning the spill.

Reflections on an Oily Mess - Pt. I

2010-07-04T21:57:00.002-04:00

It had occurred to me that I ought to blog about what I've got going on here in the Dirty South before, but honestly, at the end of most days I'm too beat to really type. I was kind of taken aback at how long it's been since I wrote anything here, since I do actually enjoy it when I think about it. Not to mention the fact that Christmas 2009 just kept getting longer and longer after I wrote that post.

At any rate, I think those of you who know about this blog already know where I am, but if you're an errant traveler who's happened to stumble in here, I am writing this from the balcony of my apartment in Gulf. This is a strange place for me to be, since I normally hail from the great Coastal Plain. Bush League Consulting, often the bane of my existence, is also an OSRO (that's Oil Spill Removal Organization), and a pretty damn good one believe it or not. And that ought to give you a pretty good idea of what Grey is doing in the Gulf of Mexico on the 4th of July.

This is my third trip down here, but the first one where I've actually got some sort of idea about how long I am going to be here. It looks like I am going to be half the time here, and half the time at home, until this project is done. I think that'll be eight to nine months after they finally kill that God damned well, which by all counts is another four to five weeks away.

My goal, while I am "in country", is to write here at least every other day. If nothing else it will be something for me to look on later. Especially since I really hope this is the first and last time I am involved in an operation like this one. I promise nothing spectacular to my future self, or any of you, just an un-spun account of what it is like to have your boots on the ground here.

As for today, it was pretty quiet here today. I took one of the other two PMs (I need a good name for this gentleman. I have yet to come up with one. Soon.) to the airport and then went to my yard. It was very quiet. Far quieter than I was used to or liked. The reason for this is politics. I have nearly 1200 people on my yard. Some of them are no good, but other want nothing more than to come and work and draw a paycheck. I don't think it's made the media in a loud and clear way, but the Governors of the States impacted by the SPILL only want people for their State involved in the clean-up operations, particularly on the beaches. It would seem the Governor of my fine State also has a favorite contractor too, and it's not us. It was quiet because, for the last several days, we don't even get out crews off the busses. We sign them in and out and send them home with part of a day's pay. But here's the thing, and this kills me; we have made the Governor's contractor look bad at every turn. I am to tired to type all of it out, but by every metric I can conceive, we have done more, better, with less. But I don't have my people on the beach. It's bullshit. It makes me so mad I'm getting riled about it sitting here.

Really, I just want to go to bed now. 0430 is early. You can't cut it any other way. But alas, fireworks. Now that I'm a little caught up, tomorrow, there'll be a little more.

Until then , all of you be good, or at least good at it.

Christmas 2009

2009-12-25T23:56:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, which seems a rather long time ago, the words "I fucking hate Christmas" left my lips for the first time on record. Not sure if it was prescient, or if it caused the fates to frown upon me.

So last night we left the Coastal Plain after Called's Christmas Eve service. Earlier in the day we had an argument about whether or not we should attempt the trip to Tennessee to see her family on account of rough weather throughout the Appalachian Mountains we had to cross. I argued no; that there was no good way to make the trip, and that we were going to be fighting the weather the whole time. However, Called really REALLY wanted to make it for Christmas Day, so in what is now clearly a boneheaded move, I capitulated, and we got underway.

The first six hours of the trip went just fine. The route I had planned that looked like it would avoid the worst of the weather seemed to be doing just that. Until about 0230 this morning when we descended out of the Pisgah National Forest. It was like a line in the sky. Rain turned to mixed precipitation and more importantly, the air temp dropped from about 34F to 31F. And when we found that frozen overpass at mile marker 66 on I-40, the truck (which is [was] owned by my employer) turned into a bullet, caromed off the center divider (backwards) and into the other side (forward). Just in case you've ever wondered, those concrete jersey barrier can take a hell of a shot. My truck weighed 8500 lbs empty. Didn't hit the barrier hard enough to pop the air bags, but hard enough to total my truck.

Nobody was hurt, which is the most important thing, but now I was stuck in the pouring-ass freezing rain, 30 MPH wind, with no heat, and my family. I had tossed my sleeping bag and a heavy blanket in my toolbox against such "unlikely" occurrences, and I ended up getting them out. The police and wrecker were able to get to us within an hour. I can't speak highly enough of the Black Mountain, NC police officer who was on the scene. He took great care of letting the kids and Called keep warm in his truck and help unload Christmas out of the bed of my truck into the lobby of the hotel we got taken to.

By the time we got into the room it was near 0400. Spawn II was totally awake, and I took her to the lobby to hang out for a while Spawn I and Called tried to sleep. She fell asleep around 0530 or so, so we went back to the room. I tried unsuccessfully to sleep until 0700 when Spawn I woke up ready for Christmas. Santa came to visit me while I was in the hotel lobby and left a stocking under the hotel's lobby tree. That helped things a little as Spawn I was pretty upset about not getting to spend Christmas with her grandparents.

After making a few phone calls to family and telling them what was going on, I then had the pleasure of calling my boss on Christmas morning and telling him that I had demolished the company truck. He took the news rather better than I had expected, which was a relief. After that we worked things out to have Called's dad (The Reverend) come and get us in the hotel and take us back to TN, though that would leave us with about five hours to kill; not too bad all things considered. We walked next door and had a wonderful Christmas meal at Denny's.

Right after we got back from Denny's we called to get an ETA on our rescue and transport back to TN. The prediction was about 1.5 hours. About an hour after that we got another call. The Reverend was broken down a little more than an hour from us, waiting on AAA, and had no idea about what was wrong with the van. So now we again had no transportation and no plan. I did a bunch of calling around and discovered that if I could get to the airport, the Avis at the Asheville airport was open for another couple of hours and had a car that was going to be large enough to get us, all our crap, and The Reverend back to Nashville. I went to the hotel lobby and asked if there was a local cab that could get me to the airport. Sure enough there was, and they even had a business card.

I called the number on the card and got hold of the driver. When I asked him if he could get me to the airport on Christmas Day, he told me yes, but that his car wouldn't start and we'd need to see if he could get a jump-start before he could tell me for sure. Seriously. I went ahead and made the reservations at Avis and went to the hotel lobby to wait. It took about half an hour, and i was beginning to think I was screwed again, but the cab finally showed up. It was a 1980s vintage conversion van that I wasn't sure would make it up the road to Asheville, but sure enough it did, and $60 later I was at the airport getting my car.

The rest of the day actually went as planned. We picked up The Reverend and made the rest of the trip to Nashville. I am writing the post from my in-laws couch. We've opened presents, and I am "enjoying" the sounds of this year's crop of ungodly loud Disney Princess merchandise. I am not sure how the rest of the trip is going to go. Not sure how we're all getting home, how I am going to get the rest of the stuff from my truck, how work will be when I finally get there. I have a few ideas about what I need to do, but they are all going to be very unpopular with Called since they mean I will have to miss our anniversary and New Years. Some things are what they are I suppose.

Last time the fates fed me a shit-sandwich in the form of a car wreck I managed to follow it up with a year that was really really good. Maybe I can work the same thing again. At any rate, there's Christmas 2009. I'm hoping it's done.

Desert Adventure II: Separatists at Sundown

2009-12-22T18:48:00.000-05:00

After getting a good night's rest we went and saw the rest of Arches NP. What this entailed was hiking a short seven-mile loop through the back side of the park. Arches is a pretty cool place. Any description I try to give to it will be far eclipsed by looking at the pictures. Of note however, is the out and back trail to "Dark Angel". WTF? We hiked out to it, found an oddly phallic rock spire coated with desert varnish. Really, not unlike every other phallic rock spire coated with desert varnish in the park. Not really sure why this needed its own trail, or what was supposed to be attention grabbing about it, but there it was. Should you find yourself in Arches, you can skip it.

After spending a little less than half the day it was time for the car trip to Escalante, the main reason we were in Utah. The drive out was excellent. As with so many other things in that part of the country, words aren't really adequate. Unless you're Coleridge. And I'm not. We drove through country where you could see more sky than land. We ran our little Toyota well up over the speed limit while straddling the center line because there was nobody for miles. Which was verifiable. We passed through millions of years of geology.

You have to cross one mountain on the way in. I won't forget this mountain. On this mountain we got stuck behind a truck pulling a boat, pulling a trailer, and lacking sufficient power to get the job done. We got stuck behind this truck three times for pulling off to try to get some photos. From the top of the mountain you can see down into the canyonlands, which is an other worldly experience. Standing on top of a mountain surrounded by hardwoods, where it's 40 degrees out, you're freezing because you're wearing shorts, and looking 4000 feet down into a slick-rock desert incised with a maze red and yellow slot canyons.

We headed on down the mountain and towards our trailhead. And wouldn't you know it. It started to rain. It would seem that I have the same wayward ability with the weather as an old Scoutmaster of mine, "Rain Maker" Colby. Now, it wasn't too cold, so this wasn't really a concern; and both of us were equipped for the weather. Please note above where I mentioned this is a slick-rock desert. When rain falls in the slick-rock, it has nowhere to go but down. Mainly into all those slot canyons. And from there into the main river canyon. Escalante Canyon. Our destination.

We arrived at the trailhead and had a look around. After a brief inspection we decided to head into the town proper to see what we could learn at the ranger's station. After making the twelve mile trip, which takes half an hour on account of all the switch backs, we arrived at the ranger's station only to find it closed and the end of the day getting closer. Having possibly more adventurous spirit than common sense we decided "Screw it, we're getting a couple of miles in tonight." So we arrived back at the trailhead, donned packs, and headed on.

You immediately come to a crossing of a small tributary to the Escalante. The nice thing about this particular crossing is that it has a little foot bridge over it. The disconcerting thing about this crossing was that the flash flood waters were up high enough that the bridge was nearly underwater. Again, exercising more adventure than common sense, we pushed on, walking along the Escalante, realizing that if we come to a proper crossing this evening, we're screwed.

At this point it becomes relevant to mention that the first two miles or so of this trail are an easement through private property, and that there are a couple of pretty explicit signs stating the you are to stay on the trail, and that there is damn sure no camping allowed in the easement. Hike about a mile in and you fill find a sign that says "No Trespassing! Stay on Trail". This sign is gussied up to look like a NPS sign. However, owing to the lack of the NPS logo that is on every other sign out there, I don't think it is. About the time we come to this sign, the sun is going down. The sign makes me think "Man, what a bunch of grouchy bastards." It makes my brother a little leery.

Maybe a quarter-mile or so down from this sign, you come to your first major crossing of the Escalante, which was still up at least four-feet from all the rain. In the light, with a rope, maybe. In the dark with no belay, not happening. So now we have a problem. We are still in the easement, the sun is pretty much set, and we damn sure aren't crossing the river. As we weigh our options, I tell my brother that we're in the middle of nowhere, there's no way anybody is going to come across us this evening. Let's pitch the tent, eat dinner, and sack out. He agrees, if somewhat reluctantly. We break out the tent and start to get it set. About the time we're getting finished he turns to me and says "I just saw the lights from a four-wheeler cross back where that sign was." And about the time he tells me that, I start to hear voices back to the north of us. We walk a couple of yards back towards a break in the woods to look for the owners of the voices, and lo-and-behold, we are fixing to camp about about 100 yards from a compound.

Now, I use the word compound intentionally. This compound is cut into a rock face, and is meant to look like it isn't there. I'll be happy to show you the aerial photos of where it's "not". There are flood lights on this compound. And there was a lone dude hunkered down on the roof looking out over where we were fixing to sleep. The Boy turns to me and says "[Grey], this is one of these [separatist] compounds. We need to leave. Now." For about 30-seconds I was dubious. Then I decided that, yeah, we needed to leave. So we set some sort of camp breaking speed record, getting the tent, pads, and stove re-packed, and on our backs.

By now it was dark proper, and we're both pretty hesitant to use headlamps on account of not wanting to be seen. Both of our lamps have dim red LEDs in them, which aren't great for unfamiliar ground, but seemed to be the way to go. We trucked off towards the trailhead, hauled ass across the crossing where the Boy saw the four wheeler, and presumably set a new record for making it through that section of trail back to the car.

Once back to the car, we had no supper, and no place to sleep. We decided to head back to Escalante and hopefully find a bite to eat and a public campsite for the evening. It has also gotten pretty chilly by this point, and we are soaking wet from pushing through the wet brush. On the way into town we run across a gas station with a Subway, which becomes dinner our first night on the "trail". After that we managed to find a sign for a public campground, but there doesn't look to be anyway to check-in. We pulled into the adjacent coffee shop to see if we could get some help. It turns out the the local coffee shop/outfitter (because you clearly can't buy boots if you're not well caffeinated) also owns the campground, and they have one space left. Finally the fates are smiling on us. We pay for our site and proceed to throw down the tent. We chatted with the couple next to for a little while. I don't remember what we talked about or where they were from, but I do remember they gave me a Corona, which makes them eligible for sainthood in my book. Finally, still wet and cold, we crawled into our bags and crashed.

So from Arches to Escalante, to certain capture, torture, and eventual death, and back to Escalante in a random coffeeshop campground, we ended our first day on the trail. Not really as planned, which would come to characterize much of the rest of our time.

To follow - Desert Adventure III: The River is Badder Than I Am

Desert Adventure I: Arrival and Southbound

2009-10-10T16:47:00.010-04:00

I love Ativan. Seriously. I am seriously terrified of flying. Like once, I walked onto a plane to board, realized that it was a cylindrical aluminum coffin, walked off, rented a car, and drove the nine hours to where I was taking a class. Needless to say, the four hour flight from the East Coast to Salt Lake City was causing me some anxiety. So, after answering my doctors question "What seems to be the problem today?" with "Airplanes.", I got myself nice shiny prescription for Ativan, which I hope might enable me to visit some far away friends without having to worry about spending the duration of the flight in sphincter-puckering terror.

My brother and I arrived at the airport about 0515 carrying huge duffel bags containing our packs, food, boots, and everything that we would need for the trip. It'd been so long since I had flown I had not seen the automated check in kiosks. We checked in there, paid for checking out bags, then went and turned them in. My bag weighed 49 lbs., one pound shy of an additional fine. Once we checked in, I took the first of my Ativan. It went to work fairly quickly, as I remember singing stanzas of operas as we waited to pass through security. After clearing security went to the gate and waited for our plane. As we were waiting for the plane, I realized that I was still pretty uncomfortable, so I took another Ativan (I had two for each way), which was a good decision. Our plane finally taxied in and we boarded, though about 20 minutes late. As we stowed our stuff and buckled in, the Captain came on, made some disparaging remarks about the crew that apparently forgot to bring him his airplane, and then announced "We're running about 20 minutes behind, but fortunately we have a jet plane, which can go fast, and we're going to do that. I'm not worried about the fuel burn. Everyone will make their connections." Nice! This cut the 4 hour 45 minute flight down to about 4. Sounds good to me. And then we took off. The Ativan did its job, because frankly, I don't remember very much at all about the flight. Except thinking that the little TV thing on the back of the seat pretty much kicked ass because it had a Google Earth like display on it that I could use to see what part of the country we were flying over.

Once we landed, we got our stuff, got the car, and headed south towards Zion, UT and Arches National Park. Upon leaving the airport, you know you're not on the East Coast anymore, and thank God for that. There are mountains, and sky. Big sky. And geology. And it's just good. We made one stop on the way out of town to pick up some stove fuel that we couldn't take on the plane and were on the way. We angled southwest on a state road for about two hours, though we had to pull over and get a nap a little ways in, me getting over being stoned, and both of us pretty damned tired from the hour we left.

So we finally got to I-70, which is, somewhat ironically we felt, just outside the town we went to high school in, 2,100 miles to the east. What made this particular stretch of road way better is that the speed limit is 75 MPH. Which pretty much kicks ass. And about the time you hit the interstate, the road opens up into valley and mesa country. And it is incredible. So we drove through the desert with the radio up, trying to keep our maintain our lane while we were busy ogling the scenery. We finally arrived in Arches, which was a far different experience that I was expecting.

Here in the east, not many people seem like they go to the parks. I never have a hard time to find a parking space when I want to go backpacking or hiking, even at a popular place like Old Rag. Arches is more like a museum than it is what I think of as a park. There is a road through it, and almost all of the "attractions" are within a couple of hundred yards of that road. And there are people. Lots of them. Most of whom would be naturally selected if they went into a real wilderness. At first the structure and the people really bothered me. What the hell are all these people doing in what should be my backcountry. But then I kind of came to the realization that the infrastructure was really doing a good job to preserve the park, and that without places like that, there are a lot of people who would never see some of the incredible things that you can only see when you haul your duff off the couch and get out of doors. And maybe a few of those people might one day grow up into real outdoorspeople.

We saw a couple of things, then decided that we were hungry and tired. After examining the possibilities for camping in the park (zero) we decided to head into Moab, get a hotel where we could get a good nights sleep, and find some dinner locally. We checked into a decent place then went out for food. Moab is a pretty cool town. There always seems to be something happening there; bike races, or four wheeler races, or rock climbing, something. And they make damn good pizza. After eating our fill, we returned to the hotel, loaded and organized packs, then turned in looking forward to the real start of the trip the next day.

One Piece at a Time

2009-05-21T21:38:00.003-04:00

Three months. Doesn't seem like it's been three months, but I suppose it has. I've stolen the title for this post from Mr. Johnny Cash. Not so much because I'm doing something big one piece at a time, but because I like the line "One day I devised myself a plan that would be the envy of most any man." I don't know that this is totally true in this instance, but it appeals to my own personal sense of drama.

So the other day I was riding back from work at Bush League Consulting, thinking about how much I really hate working there. Not because it's such a terrible place to work per se, but because I hate what I'm doing, or maybe not doing. I'm so miserable that it keeps me from doing a good job sometimes. I need to insert, as sort of an aside that will be relevant shortly, that I have been considering joining the Coast Guard Reserve. There's a few reasons for this, but they're not really important at this point.

Anyway, I was hating work, and thinking of the absolute dearth of other jobs that I would actually like doing around here, and the idea struck me: If being a reserve officer pays enough, I can just QUIT my job, and not have to take another one; i.e. be a stay at home dad. I did the math, and between the savings realized by not having child care expenses, paying off a couple of bills prior to my quitting, and the Reserve pay, which I have tentatively verified, in terms of cash flow, we might even be a little better off than we are now. Win all the way around.

Now, I suspect that the five of you who actually see this blog are thinking that Grey has finally stepped off the deep-end he's been flirting with for the past year or so, but I actually don't think this is the case. There are a number of potential positives that I see:

I get to stop hating what I'm doing;
Maintaining the house, which I have to do anyway, becomes my job. This is positive in that I hope it might alleviate some of the bitterness I direct towards my spousal unit (who is a mobile disaster) if I'm not having to be house keeper after already working 50 hours a week;
It would give me more time with my kids; particularly the new one, whose beginning and arrival have been particularly "traumatic", for lack of a better way to put it, and;
It'll give me some time to lay out the economic storm until I can find something i really enjoy again in a couple of years, while still contributing positively to life.

So I'm going to go talk to a recruiter next week. See what sort of needs they have, where I might fit in. I'll know a lot more after that. I've rambled a bit here about needing to effect some sort of change in my life, and I'm hoping that this might be a place to start.

Inquisition

2009-02-16T20:00:00.004-05:00

I have often wondered about the seeming loss of inquisitiveness, of self awareness, that seems to be the state of many of the hominids around me. Sheeple, as my brother might call them. I was having a conversation with a buddy of mine (who doesn't read this blog), who, in spite of being a fairly bright guy, is pretty much a lift wing hippie.

- Before you tune out, this is not going to be a political rant, even if it seems like it's going to go that direction. -

I pointed him the direction of an interesting essay I had read that gave a quantitative approach to how our taxes are broken out. I gave him a while to read it, then asked him what he thought. He replied, and this is damn near verbatim, "I though it was OK until I saw the numbers, then I pretty much stopped reading. It's just easier for me to hate the upper class."

I was stunned. Really. Now, his political inclinations at this point are pretty much irrelevant. What pretty much stopped my heart was his refusal to dig into an issue he found challenging, and his willingness to just march on blindly carrying his prejudices. And he's a smart hard working guy who I have a lot of respect for. And he's not the only one. Not even close to the only one.

Talk to your average person about religion. And again, I am not trying to attack any particular

view point, but a mind set. When asked "Why do you believe...?" the response is often "Because my pastor said so." or "Because the Bible says so." Well crap buddy. I heard your pastor say that you need to buy me a steak at Ruth's Chris. Let's hit the road.

But really, where did it all go? Where did the

drive to inquire, and discover, and seek truth, go for so many of my "colleagues"? Am I imagining that it was ever even there in the first place? Are there no longer Mallorys around saying "Because it's there."? Or if there are, are they all employed by NASA or CERN; and there's no room for your average dumb geologist to try to be something a little more than a bipedal sack of water going unquestioningly and unflinchingly through life?

God, I hope not. If this is the only chance we've got at this thing, shouldn't we all try to make it be as rich and full as we can; up to and including digging into the challenges, seeking the truths even if they stretch us or surprise us. Maybe do that thing simply because it is there and needs to be conquered. And I can't imagine doing it the other way. In fact, it appals me. The need and ability to stretch ourselves is what got us off the savannah in the first place, and has brought us this far. Now, standing at a cusp, it'll be what carries us onward, if we choose to keep looking.

Anyway, if you want to talk about this with me, I'll be over there, looking over the edge of that horizon.

Request the Pleasure of Your Attendance...

2009-01-20T08:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't felt particularly "writey" the last few weeks. A combination of work busy and general lethargy towards this pursuit I suppose. I should make myself feel worse about that, but really can't. I keep telling myself that this blog has to be about something, but really, it doesn't. Just a pursuit towards something to try to make myself a little broader. Not that I need any help with that!

But I digress.... I was driving in to work at Bush League Consulting (actually, that's an excellent name, I will keep it) on Friday morning, and I noticed one of our overhead traffic signs reading something to the effect of "Heavy traffic on I-95 and I-66 in DC on Feb. 20 for inauguration traffic." OK. You have to drive an hour and a half to get to I-95 from that sign, and then another hour and a half to DC. To me this is not unlike announcing on the aforementioned sign "Montreal rush begins at 1400, eh."

What this got me boiling about early in the morning is that I can't listen to, or read, the news without some mention of the damned inauguration. Now, and I don't really care about your political affiliation, hear this: THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THIS COUNTRY IS NEITHER RESPONSIBLE FOR, NOR ABLE TO FIX, ALL OF ITS WOES! OK, caps lock screaming completed.

We have elected a President, not a messiah. We also have three houses of government, so news flash here, the President can't do anything without the assent of Congress. So please, enough with all this. Would it be possible for us to understand how our government works well enough for us to move the hell on and get with the business of of running the country? And give me my NPR station back.

Thanks

Question of the Day

2009-01-11T10:53:00.002-05:00

When I have a little bit of a buzz on, I can play guitar like Eric Clapton. At the same time, GN'R sounds just as brilliant as a Bach cantata.

What does that say about my guitar playing?

Cult of Personality

2009-01-04T19:25:00.001-05:00

I left college with a decent handful of psychology classes under my belt. Part of this was a genuine interest in psychology, though I admittedly took all of my classes with the cute pysch professor who could sing the hell out of some blues. But I digress...

One of the things we did early on in one the classes was a Meyers-Briggs analysis or our personalities, which I suspect most are familiar with. I am an ISTJ. That's introverted, sensing, thinking, and judging. Typical scientist. And there isn't much wiggle room in the analysis. I tend to peg the extreme ends of any personality test I take.

The other day while chatting with a friend I was introduced to Typealyzer. The hook of this website is that you drop in your blog address and it will make a Meyers-Briggs type analysis of your personality type based on your musings. Being one for an experiment, I dropped in this address and out came ESFP. That's extroverted, sensing, feeling, perceiving. Seriously? Seriously.

Now, truly, this thing could be full of garbage, but there is at least some base level of interest in that it must queue in on words, phases, or styles that suggest personality types. This got me to wondering why, at least in the "eyes" of some random web analyzer, I write in a style that is reflective of a seriously different personality.

I know I use this blog to mull though things out loud, as a chance to wrote something that isn't a technical document. You know something that (attempts) to speak with metaphor, reflects maybe a little of who I'd like to be.

And that, right there, is the rub, and what occurred to me after a while. I write who I want to be. Clearly I write what I want to do, where I'd like to be, but who I want to be is maybe a little bit of a different story. I've always been one to think that I am pretty comfortable in my own skin. After all, at this stage in my life, my personality is unlikely to change, except possibly to get a little stranger, which is probably bad news for the people around me.

Really, as I think many of my past posts have reflected, it's not really the personality style, but the idealized life style of an ESFP that I've been writing about, and that is making the Typelayzer get a little mixed up. Maybe I should feed it a Compliance Status Report and see where it goes from there.

So maybe this little thing is meaningless; maybe it adds a little more weight to the argument that I need to make some changes in the heading of my life.

GenderAnalyzer just can't decide on me. What does that mean?

The Year in Review

2008-12-31T16:53:00.002-05:00

I typically would rather say more useful things here, but sitting here alone in the office, having endured a couple of more parting (hopefuly) pokes to the eye, I'm afraid I only have one thing to say:

Fuck 2008.

Solstice

2008-12-21T17:18:00.003-05:00

I find it somewhat ironic that now that the days will finally start getting a little longer, it's still going to keep getting colder yet. A trick of perihelion I suppose.

I've never been one to think that I have any problem with seasonal affective disorder, or any such thing, but I am really looking forward to spring this year. I see a day trip somewhere in my future, shortly after the turn of the year. The scenery around here is drab enough without having winter blow in a continuous mix of dreary damp days, with temperature and pressure swings fit to make your sinuses leap from your skull. I need some mountains with some cold sharp air and a view where you can see for a couple of miles.

But really what I'm looking forward to is spring. The early part of it when he trees just start to bud and leaf out. That green is different than the green of summer. More awake. Carries more promise. But more than the colors I think is the smell. It still gets pretty cold in the spring, but even in the mornings when you can can see your breath, the air still carries a sweetness on it that you can smell up in the front of your nose. It's a smell you just don't get any other time of year. Maybe it's just me being a little nuts, but that smell makes me smile, even thinking of it now. It's the smell of a new day and a new season. I don't really think I have much to say with this post. Except maybe to "torture" myself for another three and a half months or so. I'm just jonesing for that early morning light and that great alive smell.

'Tis a Season

2008-12-15T12:08:00.012-05:00

I find myself with an interesting conundrum this "holiday" (extreme derision intended) season. With the conclusion, if that is the right way to put it, of the faith crisis (this may be a future entry) I was in pretty much all of my self-aware life, I am trying to figure out what to do with this time of year.

As a person who was struggling with faith, I always deplored the secularization of Christmas. There was something I found very distasteful and disrespectful about taking the observances of a faith tradition and twisting them into an exercise in marketing and profit margins. I hate the canned "holiday" (see above) music that plays even before Halloween, the advertisements suggesting a new car as an appropriate gift, corporate "holiday" cards and "parties", tacky decorations, the list could go on for a page. In short, I HATE the "holidays". But I loved Christmas.

Now, I still hate the "holidays". Letting go of the seasons of Advent and Christmas is a little harder, but I can't honestly say that to celebrating wouldn't be just some hollow shell of a routine. And it my eyes that would make me just like the people up the street with 27 air powered Santa Claus' in their front yard. I believe that I would just soon drill a hole in my head as willingly be that person.

Called knows where I am at and is as OK with it as someone in her profession is going to be, though she was not happy when I said I wasn't going to Christmas Eve service. A few close friends are aware of my struggles, if not the conclusions. But I haven't had the heart to tell other friends and family "don't get me anything and don't expect anything from me." So I'm just not sure what to do at this point. I like the warm feelings of Christmas with friends and family. I like to give and get gifts. It's just that Christmas has lost its spiritual meaning, and the thought of profaning someone else's sacred season makes me ill because I remember how much it used to piss me off.

So I haven't figured out how to put these things together, and I haven't yet developed the strength of (non) convictions to make it known to some of the others around me. Maybe I'll figure it in the next 10 days. Maybe I'll just continue to be a shitty person. Put another notch in the bed post.

2008-12-14T19:42:00.000-05:00

I wish I could write. *shakes head*

Connections

2008-12-14T16:20:00.004-05:00

So I was at my little brother's Christmas party last night. Before dinner he offered a toast to the end of a good year and the beginning of a new, and hopefully successful one. I cheered his toast all the time thinking this year has sucked. Out loud even.

On the way back down here today I was listening to music and mentally cataloguing the wreckage of the year when it occurred to me that it would maybe be a good mental exercise to come up with something positive on the year. I am healthy and employed and there is much to be said for that.

My microwave just died. Like right now. You have got to be fucking kidding me. Maybe I should start to put notches in the bedpost I don't have. It's not getting notched for anything else. But I digress, I'm supposed to be generating something positive.

So I pondered this question, and was actually able to come up with something. This year I have been reconnecting with a number of people who meant quite a lot to me in past lives. I think this is probably pretty forward on my mind since I ran into an important one last night and it's another friendship I really hope I can renew.

So this has been a good thing. These people have been walking through this year with me, putting up with me, and generally keeping the ship from sinking, even if they don't know it. My entry into the world of Facebook and IMing seems to have done me some good, even if it has occasionally lowered my productivity. So there it is. I've got a bright spot on the year. I'm glad for it, and glad for y'all.

Directions 4: North - Unknown territory

2008-11-29T19:00:00.000-05:00

Did you know that Germany is on the same latitude line as Newfoundland? I guess maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. I bring this up because I was considering the statement that I haven't lived any further north that just above Washington DC. That's not strictly true. My father, so by extension, me, was stationed in Germany during the good old days of the Cold War. I was curious to see just how far north that was. And crap, it's pretty far north. But not that much further north than Montana or North Dakota. There's a lot more north that here in Virginia. I'm sure that sounds like a really asinine, well "duh", sort of statement, but unless you sit down and take a good 10000 ft view of a map, I think it's really easy miss the forest for the trees. I do it, and I'm supposed to be knowledgeable of these sorts of things.

So anyway, I'm driving north, or sort of north, since I don't really want to drive into the Chesapeake Bay. So I'll go maybe a couple of points west of north. Now, if you've been following these posts, (all two of you that know this blog exists), you may have noticed that I was surprised by how far I could go on one tank of gas, and this was the one that really surprised me. On one tank of gas I can go damn near to Toronto.

Looking back at my old posts the clear detractor from driving other places is that I've been there before. That certainly isn't the case here. I've spent some time paddling a canoe around some of the places I would pass as I burn up my one tank of gas, but really, I've never BEEN there.

I think this is where I would head, out towards Toronto. If I run out gas before I get there, then so be it, I have a good pair of boots (the question never said I couldn't walk the last couple of miles).

The last month or so of blogging has actually been a good mental exercise for me. In some ways, it was solidified some of the things that have been in my head for a long time, which is good for me, even if it's boring, or was already very clear, to you the reader. I think I have arrived at the place where I am able to consider the practical aspects of striking out into unknown territory. This is a patently terrifying thought in some aspects, but liberating in others. Perhaps in 2009 (yes, I know I'm not quite there yet) I'll regain some sense of self, some compass bearing on life, maybe even get a firm(er) grip on Life (capitalized on purpose), and take a little of it for what it's worth, which may indeed be everything.

2008-11-24T16:35:00.004-05:00

Well, I don't think this is going to be about anything in particular, more just me droning on, and since this is my blog, I guess that's really OK. I conlcuded this weekend that I think I'm getting a little nutty.

I've been alone but for the people I see at work, i.e. I've been alone, for the past week. Called is out of town and has the Offspring with her. Now normally this is time that the house is clean and blissfully quiet. I can go to bed when I want, get up when I want, workout when I want, eat what I want.... You get it, I imagine.

This time has been a little different I guess. I've been pretty lonely, which is off for me. I've cleaned, though not to excess, and, at least this weekend, drank to serious excess. The latter I don't really interpret as a good thing. I went bed on Friday furious at no particular thing and woke up Saturday morning still so angry I was shaking. I guess for a variety of reasons, though I can't put my finger on any particular one of them as the main culprit. I am just so restless, so discontent, with everything right now. Want to be with different people, in different places.

I think that's a lot of the Directions posts, and the Outlets post. Where can I change, what can I simplify. I think I have a lot of ideas, but just need to grow a spine and get on with some of them.

Anyway, enough of this whiny crap. I have class to get to, hopefully the chance to vent some aggression on some poor heavy bag.

Outlets

2008-11-01T09:49:00.010-04:00

I apologize for the profligate use of mindbumps in my writing process. I'm hoping I can use them to fill the gaps as I generate my own blogging materials. So the mindbump was "If you were limited to having only one electrical outlet in your home, what device would you plug into it?” I kind of liked this question because I am almost continuously "plugged in" to something, as evidenced by my sitting here streaming iTunes to the stereo while I write this blog. Now, I did decide not to take it quite so literally. I am not going to choose between the fridge and the oven. Yes, I could dig an ice cellar in the backyard, or cook over a fire, but come on. I think the interesting thing is in the choosing of the superfluous objects and aspects of our lives.

I am lucky in that I can sit in the chair and examine the choices in front of me. The clear items are the TV and assorted accouterments; DVD player, satellite, etc..., the stereo, this computer. Ditching the TV et. al is a pretty easy decision. Most of the time that thing is just a babysitter. I know that makes me a bad parent, but sometimes that's what it takes to get the house clean. That might be be a pretty good reason to keep the thing, but really, if all I can plug in is the TV, it's not really worth having around.

The stereo is a tougher choice. It's going right now, and in fact is going most of the time I don't have people around. I guess most just can't understand musical taste that is as developed as mine :P. The computer is also a tough choice. I probably spend too much time on it, but it is the main way I keep track of quite a few people, write this blog (for the whole two people who read it), and get a great deal of the information I process. As sorry as this might sound, without this computer plugged in, there would probably actually be quite a significant hole in my goings on. I can't believe i just wrote that to be published out there on the intarwebs. I take consolation that there must be people out there who are worse than me.

Looking over here beside me, I also see my guitar amp. It's plugged in. When I did the mental exercise for this blog entry, I actually kind of though I would keep the guitar amp. But now I'm really torn between the computer and going out and buying a six string acoustic guitar.

Well, it's time to publish the post so I can move on. It's taken me far to long to write and this exercise has become tedious. I'm keeping the amp. Really, it makes me happier than this computer. So there we are. I don't know what I'll blog on next. Mindbumps appears to be effed up so I am going to be stuck dredging my own thoughts for a new post.

Directions 3: West - The homeland?

2008-10-22T12:18:00.008-04:00

Westward ho! Something like that. In all seriousness west takes me through and towards a part of the country that I really, really like. I love the mid-west. I like the people; I like the mostly neutral accent; it's kind of flat, but I love the bright green of the fields when they come up in late spring and early summer.

I have to ask myself a question as I consider this direction. Am I going to drive until the car runs dry, or can I stop in the middle? This drive will take me right through the heart of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and really the Appalachian Mountains. These are place my boots know well, places that speak to me. If I want want solitude and peace, this would be a place for me. Sometimes I wonder, in my more philosophical moments, if a person knows where they are from, as I often feel drawn back to this part of the country. It is where my family is from; deep in the kaintuck. But pardon my digression, I think I can't be allowed to stop in the middle somewhere, it takes the interest out of the exercise. I've no doubt I could find somewhere I want to be within the driving radius of a tank of gas, so keep going I must.

I went to college in these parts. I think, to a certain extent, I feel called back because of that. It was a simple time in my life. Nothing to do but learn and meet people, none of the responsibilities of families, jobs, and houses. I think the association with that simplicity calls me back as much as anything else.

I think the question I need to ask myself as I examine a westward path is what is the weight of all this history. No doubt there are things that speak to me, but in returning, would I simply not be returning for history and familiarity. This is the reason I have chosen not to return south. How, if at all, is going for history different than going back for ease?

It's not actually, but as I think about it, I think it's a little more than history and familiarity pulling me back, I do think there is a sense of call. Something in the hills and mountains speaks to a part of me that I can't describe in words, something that can only be experienced in the smell of rock and forest, and the sounds of the woods under your boots.

So I think I've answered my question, I could stay there, though i think it would be a rather ascetic existence. Though it would be simple. So beautifully, blessedly, simple. Thoreau would be proud. Northward next.

Directions 2: Southwest - The life left behind

2008-10-17T12:48:00.010-04:00

I think I have chosen heading southwest first because it is the most immediate in my mind; someplace I was recently, someplace where there were a few roots.

I found myself in that part of the country purely by accident. My spousal unit (Called), then fiancee, choose to attend graduate school in the hot city. Since Called's vocation is a a little more specialized than mine, it made sense for me to find a place for graduate school based on where she was. I ended up at the North Avenue Trade School. My degree took two years, Called's took three. On account of us wanting to eat and have a roof over our heads, I started my career.

Getting out of school and into the real world was the beginning of my laying down roots in the area. People and places began to blow across my path the meant something to me, in spite of my general dislike of places so large.

-As an aside, I am an Army kid. When asked where I am from, I still tell people that I'm from "where ever my pillow is that night." The hot city (unless you count college, which I don't really) is the first place where I found myself of my own volition. One day, I may elaborate on this whole Army kid thing. As I examine my adult life, I find it has influenced me more than I would ever have thought.-

So while I was there I met some people I cared about and found a career and job that I felt fulfilled doing. I was, in fact, about as happy as most people who really think and strive in their lives are ever going to be.

So, back to the topic at hand.... The hot city is right on the edge of my 500 mile radius, but it is somewhere I could definitely find myself? Could I live there? On the surface, I think that I could. There were things I didn't like about it when I was there. A lot of them in fact. But there were also good things, and frankly it was the first place I really ended up by choice, so it some ways it feels like home, both personally and professionally. It is the easy choice of my options.

But the easy part being said, is this what I want? I feel unsettled where I am now, so familiarity sounds good. Real good. I just don't know that I can sit still, go back to familiar experiences. It seems a good idea at face value, but now as I think it through as I write, it's not really. I've found that the easy things are seldom truly worth doing. Satisfaction usually comes from work, and possibly risk. I've other options, and I'm afraid I'm not going to settle for a sense of familiarity.

So, southwest is out. I'm left with west and north. Ideas for both are bouncing around. As usual, more thought is required.

Directions 1: Options

2008-10-14T19:31:00.011-04:00

So I'm kind of interested in this whole blogging thing, but as a general rule, creativity, unless it applies to physical problem solving, is not my strong suit. I flipped through 20 mindbumps or so and found this one: "If you got into your car and drove until you ran out of gas, where would you find yourself? Could you live there?”

I found that this question fits neatly with the sense of restlessness I have felt lately. The first thing that came to mind was "where could I end up?" Well, I drive a 98 Saturn SL1. To make the math easy, it has a 12.5 gallon tank and gets 40 miles a gallon on the flats with a fresh oil change and no headwind, meaning I can go 500 miles. Being a geologist, I needed to see this on a map. So there it is.

My first thought is to be struck at how far I can really go in the 500 miles. There are some real options there, assuming I don't assume a more easterly tack than nor' by nor'east. Within that circle you can probably find every socio-economic class in the country, and examples, for lack of a better way to put it, of most of the physical terrain.

In considering which way to go, I think there are three broad possibilities; southwest, west, and north. Each of those directions holds quite a different meaning for me. I think more rumination is necessary before I am ready to answer the question to myself, much less here...

Presence

2008-10-11T20:36:00.006-04:00

I spent last weekend whitewater rafting on the Gauley River, in West Virginia. For those not familiar, it is the largest whitewater east of the Mississippi that you can have a commercial guide take you down. It is also not all together safe. Two people died on the river the day before our first trip. I put this bit of information out there for context, not as an attempt to make myself seem some sort of adrenaline junkie / badass.

I found myself in a strange place out on the river. Maybe not strange, but at least seldom visited these days. I was present. Gone were the parallel trains of thought I always run, to do lists, the condition of my house, the state of my marriage, everything. Gone. In the crystalline moments I really remember, only two things mattered; the commands of our guide, and getting my paddle in the water as I was told. As frantic and visceral as it was, being present in that situation was the most alive I have felt in a long time.

Which brings me to the real point of this entry; why is that? What has happened to our lives (or mine anyway) that I have to engage in an activity that involves more than just hypothetical risk in order to feel present? Are trappings of "civilization" so suffocating that this is the place where we've arrived? I've had a pretty fair amount of windshield time the last week and have pondered this question a fair amount. I'm afraid that I have been unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. All I know is that the thought of leaving that presence and coming back to my job and my house was literally nauseating, and that now even a week later, I still feel it. The wanderlust that has been building in me for the past year or so grows stronger.

I used to not understand these people who free solo multi-pitch climbs, or toss themselves off bridges. I don't know how that come to peace with the things they might leave behind, but I think I know a little better why they do it. The risk brings focus and presence. The presence brings simplicity and peace. And I want more of it.