The Decemberists 4.22.07

I have long been a Decemberists fan, so when Meg got us tickets to see them for my birthday, I was extremely excited!

Meg and I left for Denver around 3:30. The drive was nice since there wasn’t much traffic. We made it to Denver in record time and found an excellent parking spot on the street just one block away from the Fillmore—a wonderful surprise, since Joe and I had to park about 4 blocks away when we saw the Shins a few months ago

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We waited in line from 4:30 until the doors opened at 7:00. The security guards patting people down at the entrance took away Meg’s switchblade and her flask of whiskey, both of which she retrieved after the show. Once inside we ran to the stage and claimed spots at the railing (my favorite place to be at a concert). From previous concerts, I knew how painful that location could become once the music began and the crowd surged forward, so I was a bit concerned for Meg. I was amazed, though, that during the whole concert only a couple people so much as bumped into me. Perhaps that had a lot to do with the overwhelmingly young crowd (couldn’t buy alcohol).

The opening band, My Brightest Diamond, was actually pretty good. I wouldn’t necessarily buy one of their albums, but they were still one of the better opening bands I’ve seen. It was their lead singer’s birthday, and she sang “Yankee Bayonet” later with the Decemberists.

A few highlights of the show: they performed my favorite song of theirs, “The Engine Driver.” On the drive over I had told Meg that I could die happy if I heard that song live, haha.

During “16 Military Wives,” front man Colin Meloy separated the crowd into two sides and staged a humorous mock battle and stare-down contest. Quite amusing. He then pointed to areas of the crowd and told them to open up a circle for an impromptu dance contest. We noticed a long-haired, massive guy—at least 6’3”—wearing a cape and a dress and having the time of his life “dancing” (writhing like he was having a seizure). *shudder* Multiple times I had to restrain Meg from crowd surfing and starting fights.

For the encore Colin Meloy came out onstage alone and asked some people in the front row for requests. One woman yelled into the microphone, “take off your pants!” and threw her bra onstage. A few minutes later she asked for it back.

The biggest highlight of the show was The Mariner's Revenge Song, the final song during the encore and—oddly enough—a song I have never really liked and tend to skip over on the album. The song began softly, with only Colin on guitar, then the rest of the band came in: accordion, cello, drums, and an instrument I was unable to identify that appeared to be a cross between a miniature piano and a jack-in-the-box (I’m sure that clarifies it for you, haha). The band got crazier as the song progressed, with the drummer knocking one of his toms around the stage while still playing it (incidentally it fell into the pit near the end, nearly clipping a security guard’s head in the process. I’m glad he had good peripheral vision and was able to duck in time). Finally some people with a giant papier-mache whale came onstage and proceeded to “eat” the band members. At the end three of the Decemberists jumped the rail into the crowd and began crowd surfing. The security guys looked shocked and began panicking as they tried to get them back onstage (they have a strict no crowd surfing policy at the Fillmore).

Overall, it was an excellent concert. I have never seen a band that not only sounded great but managed to entertain and make me laugh. They are superb musicians and performers.

Setlist:

• Crane Wife (1, 2, and 3)
• The Island
• The Infanta
• July, July!
• Yankee Bayonet
• Shankill Butchers
• The Engine Driver
• On the Bus Mall
• O Valencia!
• 16 Military Wives
• The Perfect Crime #2
• Sons and Daughters

Encore:

• Bridges and Balloons (Colin Meloy solo)
• Red Right Ankle (Colin Meloy solo)
• The Mariner's Revenge Song

Birthweek 2007

My birthweek this year was quite enjoyable due to a few wonderful surprises: On Friday morning Meg came over and made breakfast for me. The day before she had made a massive cinnamon roll, which she brought over along with eggs for breakfast. The cinnamon roll was so large, in fact, that I had to take it into work later that day to ensure that none of it was wasted. My coworkers enjoyed it very much, making me the hero of the day (I'm sure Meg's tired of hearing about it by now, haha).

That evening Joe had planned a little mini-birthday party for me. We got Chipotle and rum (interesting combination, eh?) and headed over to my family's house, since my mom, dad, and sister were out of town for a Chris Botti concert. Soon after we arrived I got a call from Josh, who happened to be in town for spring break. I invited him over for the evening so we could catch up and watch a movie. Meg came over for half an hour and we chatted for awhile. After she left we watched one of my favorite comedies, The Jerk. It was great to hang out with Josh, if only for a couple hours.

Saturday (my actual birthday) was equally enjoyable. After spending the night at my family's house, I came back home and took a long nap and lazed around much of the day. In the afternoon Meg came over and gave me my birthday present: two tickets to see the Decemberists at the Filmore in Denver on April 22nd! I was completely surprised! About a month ago I had mentioned to her that the Decemberists would be in Denver soon, but I did not think I could come up with the money (due to a rather expensive speeding ticket--my first ever), so I dropped the idea of going and reluctantly tried to forget about it. I'm so excited! Meg is amazing!

That evening we met up with my family (minus my Dad) at church for the Easter show called the Thorn. As always, it was a lot of fun, though the usually excellent sound seemed poor this year.

On Sunday I went with Meg to her church downtown. My April Fool's joke on her failed, however; I arrived at her house to pick her up a few minutes early and decided to call her from the parking lot. I told her that I had slept through my alarm and had only just awakened. Unfortunately, she had seen me drive up and immediately knew it was a joke. *sigh* At church I met her grandmother and her aunt and uncle, who were all incredibly nice. Later that night my dad was speaking at church, so we went to support him. He did a superb job, and I was very proud of him. If only I had such great public speaking skills...

Last night my family, along with Meg, went to Red Lobster for dinner to celebrate my birthday. For a few years now it's been a tradition to go there for my birthday. Oddly, it's usually the only occasion I ever eat seafood. The waitress saw me opening birthday cards and asked, "hey, is it your birthday?" I reflexively yelled--at a higher volume than necessary--"No!" Ever since I was a kid I've had a phobia of strangers singing happy birthday to me at a restaurant. Right before we got the check I asked for more of their cheesy biscuits. The waitress looked at me funny, knowing of course, that I planned to take them home. I think I have about 7 of them in my fridge now. Woohoo!

A Strange Dream

I had a rather strange dream last night of the high-anxiety variety.

Josh and I decided to snow climb a fourteener, so he came over then I drove us to some kind of sports equipment store downtown. After we'd been there awhile, I realized that I had forgotten to pack warm clothes for the trip (I was wearing sandals and shorts).

I left Josh at the store and told him I'd be back soon. As I drove home I got a call from my mom about how our office staff was planning to do some skydiving tomorrow and that it was a mandatory bonding event. I began panicking since that ruined my plans with Josh.

By this time the beautiful warm day had turned into a blizzard and the roads became very icy. At the Union/Dublin light I slid through the intersection when the light was red and almost had a wreck. A mile beyond that light I crashed into a snow drift and had to abandon my car.

I knew that Josh, meanwhile, was still at the store downtown waiting on me, so I pulled out my brand-new cell phone to call him. Every time I began punching in his number, the phone would fill in the remaining numbers automatically, yet the number always dialed up some Pakistani family.

So I was freezing in my sandals and shorts, trying to walk up Union to my house. After messing with my new phone some more I was able to call my dad, who grudgingly came and picked me up. This part was extremely out of character for him, because he said something like, "well, why can't you just walk home?" and I had to spend 10 minutes convincing him to come get me. Once I made it home I woke up.

Back From the Dead

It appears that I have not posted in quite awhile. Let's see if I can recall all the major things that have happened since August, haha:

I graduated with my BA in English (hooray!)
I have a new girlfriend named Meg (who is wonderful in every way)
And now I'm looking for a full time job.

I'm not especially excited about the latter, but I guess it's necessary. I'll begin posting more soon!

Wetterhorn Peak
(14,015 ft)
8-06-2006

Josh and I set out from Colorado Springs in the afternoon on Friday the 4th. On the way to the Lake City area, we stopped by Pueblo so that Josh could see a friend, then we continued on, arriving at the trailhead / campsite after dark. With the light from our headlamps we set up our tents a few feet away from the car in a surprisingly flat area (though once in my tent I discovered an impossibly sharp rock right under my hip, haha). I set my watch’s alarm for 4 AM and went to sleep.

I’ve never been able to sleep well in a tent, and that night was no exception. It rained pretty hard during the night, knocking a few of my stakes over and soaking through my rain fly a bit. At one point my watch beeped once, but when I tried to check the time I saw that the battery must have just died. I decided to head back to the car and check my cell phone’s clock. Josh heard me exit my tent and asked if it was 4 AM yet. Looking at the black sky, I told him that it wasn’t even close to 4 AM. Two minutes later after I had retrieved my cell phone from the car, I informed Josh—with some embarrassment—that it was actually 4:15 already, haha.

After a quick breakfast of Lara bars and Little Debbie cinnamon rolls, we packed up our soaked tents and set off down the trail. We decided to leave the bulky Fourteeners book in the car and only brought some printed directions and a rather pitiful topo map I found on the internet. The directions told us that we would walk up a 4x4 only road for 0.6 miles before coming to the trailhead. We walked for some time in silence until I finally mentioned, “this seems like way more than 0.6 miles.” Josh agreed, but after all, it was just after 4 AM so we were still not awake enough to judge such things. We came to a gate, just as the directions said, but this gate had a sign reading “Uncompahgre Base Camp—Private Property.” Ignoring the sign, we hopped over the fence and proceeded down the trail. The area was soaked from the previous night’s rainfall, and within a half hour of hiking our boots were completely soaked through.


Day 1: Andy stares pensively into the mist

By this time we began to question if we had accidentally taken a wrong turn; the trail looked overgrown and unused, and we didn’t see any other people around. The sun was up by then, though, and we saw a peak that we believed to be Wetterhorn. Examining the topo map led us to believe that we were still on track. Clouds soon started descending and obscured the tops of all the nearby peaks. At about 12,000 feet or so the trail leveled out for a very long time, which was most certainly not what the map showed. Added to that oddity, we found a couple ominous piles of bones right in the middle of the trail. We hiked for hours until we decided without a doubt that we were on the wrong trail.


Bones! (yes, this should have been a big hint to turn back)

Now, we were certainly disheartened at losing an entire hiking day, yet the area was quite beautiful, and I have always loved hiking on overcast days. We saw at least 20 varieties of mushrooms along the way, including one type that looked like a large golf ball, and another that looked like a bunch of bread rolls stacked on top of each other (no, we did not eat any). We also got to see a lone female mountain goat. Well, we think she was a mountain goat; she could have been a big horn sheep. Josh and I are not zoologists. At one point as we headed back down the trail, we heard a loud crashing in the trees nearby. Josh jumped back a couple feet and I think I might have, too. I thought the sound was thunder at first, then I thought it might have been a large animal, until through a gap in the trees I saw a large pine tree fall. Josh was excited, saying that he had always wanted to see a tree fall in the woods.


A confident mountain man: Josh knows the way to go (haha, just kidding)!


Andy also knows the way (even more lost than Josh).

On the way back, we searched for any turn offs we might have missed in the trail due to the darkness and fog, but we didn’t see anywhere we went wrong until we reached our car. Fifteen feet away from where we camped, the road branches, and we missed the sign saying that the trailhead was on the right, haha. I was so amused that we had missed an obvious trail 15 feet from where we began!

That afternoon we drove into Lake City. If you’ve never been to Lake City, you really need to go. I have never seen a town so eager to cater to all of your T-shirt buying needs! Every shop sold T-shirts! Hundreds! Thousands! Blues, reds, greens! Key chains and shot glasses abounded, as well.

We were hungry by this time and walked around to see if the town had any good restaurants. A&A’s Steakhouse looked like the best bet, but we found out that they were closed for a private event. The Cannibal Café (yes, seriously) also looked pleasant, despite the name, but it was closed due to “personal reasons.” The next restaurant we checked was also closed. Finally we stopped in a coffee shop for some icy beverages, and a girl there recommended a restaurant called Charlie P’s. We waited until the place opened at 5, diverting ourselves with a game of cribbage in the town’s central park (I’m terrible at figuring out my score after each hand. *sigh*). At Charlie P’s I ordered a hamburger and a large glass of Avalanche Amber draft (soooo good), and Josh ordered the “Gristle Missile,” the world’s least-appetizingly-named steak.

We returned to the campsite and decided that we really didn’t want to set up wet tents, so we slept in the car. If camping is a guaranteed bad night’s sleep, sleeping in a car is a bit worse, especially since Josh had hiccups for a significant portion of the night (coming in 8 –10 second intervals. And yes, I timed him), and I had some, uh, “gastrointestinal fulmination,” to use a pseudo-scientific euphemism (I appreciate your understanding, Josh, haha).


Early morning light on Wetterhorn Peak

Once again we awoke at 4 AM, ate some Lara bars, then hit the trail. The correct trail. Hiking in the dark by headlamp is a lot of fun, especially since we were the first people on the trail. Near treeline we spotted a herd of 6 or 7 deer grazing near the trail. Soon after, we saw a herd of bighorn sheep, the first time Josh had seen them in the wild. Josh took some nice close-up photos of some marmots.


Wetterhorn!

Around this time my right knee began to ache badly. I think it was just strained from the previous day’s hike and two uncomfortable nights of sleeping curled up in awkward positions (as I write this over a week later it still hurts, though not nearly as bad). I would have enjoyed the hike far more if not for this painful irritation.

We finally reached the class 3 portion of the trail. Until Wetterhorn, I had never done anything above class 2. I’m happy to report that I not only survived, but I had a wonderful time on the class 3 areas! Working my arms and other muscles in my legs gave my knees a break. Much to my pleasure, we met two experienced women at the beginning of the class 3 section who guided us much of the way up. One woman had climbed all the fourteeners, and the other had only two remaining. The class 3 section took us awhile, but it was not as difficult as I had expected. The experience of testing hand and footholds and the prospect of falling down the mountainside in a few places were new to me, and quite a thrill.

When we reached the summit we took a break for a few minutes and admired the valleys and nearby peaks, including Uncompahgre, another fourteener. The ladies who helped us on the ascent had broken their camera the previous evening, so I took a photo of them, and they gave me an e-mail address (unfortunately, I think I lost the paper, haha).


Andy & Josh on the summit (note descending clouds)


Uncompahgre from Wetterhorn

Our timing was perfect because after we had rested the clouds began to descend. These clouds were not dangerous, black clouds; they were light and fog-like when they covered us. Two teenagers who were coming up after us believed that they were storm clouds and began a panic among the other climbers close to the summit; the teenagers, only 100 feet from reaching the summit, ran down recklessly, yelling about a “storm!” Josh and I, both having hiked in Colorado for years, knew that the clouds posed no danger, but they sure fooled those other guys. We met a few hikers on the descent who were really irritated by the needless alarm the guys had sounded.


The roughest class 3 part on the way down...


Actually, this part was harder (*shrugs*)


Matterhorn, a 13er connected to Wetterhorn by an evil-looking ridge


Clouds on Wetterhorn

To make this part shorter, we made it back to the car and set off down the road without any weather trouble. For dinner we stopped in Canon City at Wendy’s and made great time on the rest of the drive back to Colorado Springs. Wetterhorn is one of my favorite fourteeners so far, and I can't wait to try more class 3 climbs!

Mt. Shavano
(14,229 ft)
7-01-06

Wow, it took me a long time to post this! For our first fourteener trip of the season, my dad and I chose Mt. Shavano and its neighbor, Mt. Tabeguache (though we did not get to summit Tabeguache for reasons you’ll see below), due to their proximity to Colorado Springs and the relatively good conditions of the dirt road leading to the trailhead.

I woke up at 2 AM, finished packing, and drove to my parents’ house to meet my dad. Predictably, my dad was still asleep when I arrived, which made us about 20 minutes late (yes, some things never change). The drive was peaceful and relaxing once we left the city limits, and I had a chance to doze a bit.

Around 6:30 AM we hit the trail. We met few people for the first hour or two, a nice surprise considering it was Independence Day weekend. Due to our slow pace, multiple groups passed us before we reached the tree line.


Dad!

On the ridge leading to the summit, we met a German named Fritz who became our companion for the rest of the hike. He was an interesting fellow; 72 years old, a search and rescue volunteer at a ski resort, and a former gourmet pastry chef. We spent about six hours in his company and learned his life story (multiple times, in fact, haha). He has climbed 30 fourteeners since he turned 62 and told us that he hopes to climb them all within the next couple years. His knowledge of hiking and the outdoors in general greatly impressed me.

Fritz is the only reason we were able to summit Shavano, actually; if not for him, I would have turned back when I spotted black clouds forming over the summit. I pointed them out to Fritz, and he said we would be fine. Minutes later it began hailing, then snowing, then raining, alternating a few times. Looking at the worsening condition of the sky, I wanted to turn back, but Fritz pushed us onward, telling us stories of some terrible storms he had been in recently (not especially comforting).


Nearing the summit

About one hundred feet from the summit a group of teenagers passed us on their way down. They stopped and began pointing at Fritz’s hair; it was standing straight up. They told Fritz so, and Fritz, with childish delight, begged them to take a photo of him. “Lightning is close! I feel it on my fingertips!” He said cheerfully. I was far from amused. He urged us the last few feet to the summit, telling us to throw our trekking poles down.


Note the nasty clouds...

When I reached the top, I could feel every hair on my body stand up; I never knew that I had so many hairs of the tops of my ears, but I felt them all quite distinctly. I heard crackling in the air, and when I tried to speak, my words sounded like buzzing. I yelled down to my dad, who at that point was about 40 feet behind me, to hurry up and summit so we could get down as fast as possible. He pushed on, barely touching the rocks at the top before turning around, then the three of us raced down the mountainside.


Andy + Shavano's summit

At one point before we even reached treeline, Fritz—much to my simultaneous irritation and amusement—halted our descent to call his son on a cell phone and wish him a happy birthday. “It’s very dangerous here, so I’ll call you later!” He finally said, and we continued on.

The rainy descent proved exhausting; I had not prepared well for Shavano, and as a result I began aching terribly. At one point I felt so awful that I began thinking, “Why do I climb fourteeners? I’m not having fun, this is not fun at all. I think this will be my last one. I don’t want to get struck by lightning…” (and of course, two days later my feelings changed, and I planned a trip with Josh for August, haha). I did decide, however, that making it to any summit is not worth risking my life and that in the future I would turn back if weather conditions became dangerous. The signs of extreme lighting danger were plain, and it was very foolish of us to have summited with such awful weather.


Dad and Fritz

When we finally made it back to our car, Fritz and my dad exchanged cell phone numbers, hoping to hike together again in the future. Fritz wants me to go with him on some of the more technical climbs, such as Crestone Needle. Hmm, I think I’ll pass…

Reading News

It's been far too long since I've listed the novels and plays I've been reading, so here they are!

The Defense (Vladimir Nabokov): 82%

A Passage to India (E.M. Forster): 89%

Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf): 97%

The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne): 69%

The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald): 74%

Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri): 93%

Why Not Me? (Al Franken): 72%

Einstein’s Dreams (Alan Lightman): 83%

Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain): 70%

Volpone (Ben Jonson): 71%

The Awakening (Kate Chopin): 62%

Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe): 46%

Endgame (Samuel Beckett): 56%

The Dumbwaiter (Harold Pinter): 61%

The Basement (Harold Pinter): 63%

Homecoming (Harold Pinter): 70%

The Real Inspector Hound (Tom Stoppard): 81%

Dogg’s Hamlet & Cahoot’s Macbeth (Tom Stoppard): 73%

Travesties (Tom Stoppard): 89%

Arcadia (Tom Stoppard): 90%

Shakespeare plays: (And no, I will not rate them because I'd rather not have Jared accuse me of blasphemy!)

Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest.

Excuses...

As the title suggests, this is yet another post explaining why I have not updated this site recently. To be honest, life has been rather boring lately; no overseas trips, no strange happenings at work, nothing at all out of the ordinary. This summer I've spent my time working, taking summer classes (which are now over, thankfully), and preparing for the SCE, the Senior Comprehensive Exam, a test all UCCS English majors must pass to graduate. It involves five hours of in-class essay writing next semester over five novels I am reading this summer. Fun!

My dad and I climbed Mt. Shavano on Saturday, a trip that proved painful and scary at times. I hope to post my customary trip report and photos within the next couple days.

Spring Break!

I remember when spring break used to be fun. *sigh* This week I'll just work extra hours and catch up / get ahead on homework. I will also begin moving in the next couple of days.

Why am I moving again, you wonder? I like my current house and my housemates just fine (though one of them woke me up at 4 AM this morning stomping around in the kitchen above my room and I couldn't go back to sleep for hours). My brother is transferring to another University soon, so I am moving into his house with the eventual goal of taking it over. Once he and his friend Mike are out of the house sometime mid-summer, I'll post ads looking for people to move in. Should be interesting. I'll post photos of the house once I move in.

He's Back!

Indeed, I have returned---to the blog world, that is; I haven't actually gone anywhere physically (*sigh*). Classes and work have---as always---been keeping me busy.

I gave in to peer pressure and began a Myspace page. Don't judge me! Check it out (or not) at http://www.myspace.com/saturnine9950.

Similarly, I've made a http://www.facebook.com account. It's a great way to keep in contact with my college pals around the nation.

With any luck, I'll post more soon.

Christmas Break Movies

A Passage to India
(1984)
87%

The Third Man
(1949)
91%

Strangers on a Train
(1951)
90%

Russian Ark
(2002)
84%

Spider
(2002)
92%

Road to Perdition
(2002)
95%

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
(2005)
89%

The Man Who Wasn't There
(2001)
93%

Fun with Dick and Jane
(2005)
64%

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
(2004)
69%

Forrest Gump
(1994)
97%

Bottle Rocket
(1996)
76%

Old School
(2003)
58%

Hotel Rwanda
(2004)
90%

Bad Boys II
(2003)
51%

Defamation of Character...or, The Burning Flesh Lady Strikes Back!

Tonight I was wronged. Greatly wronged. And I'm still really, really angry about it. After work I walked my female friend to her car. We had been talking for a few minutes when I noticed a coworker of ours (let's call her Cathy, since that is her real name) sitting in her car nearby staring at us through her windshield.

I have known Cathy for about three years and have not liked her at all. She's 60+, a high-up in the circulation department at the library, and extremely, unbearably nosey. For example, I had not come into work one day because I was sick, so the next day she said, "Dude, it's way too early in the hay fever season to be getting sick like that, you need to come to work..." and proceeded to lecture me about sick days, though she has no authority over me or any reason to address me at all, for that matter. She does not know my name--nor has she ever attempted to learn it, so she simply calls me "man" or "dude." Then there was the whole "burning flesh" incident. She's a very excitable sort, I realized one day when the fire alarm went off. She ran everywhere yelling at me and a couple other coworkers, all of whom were standing 10 feet from the exit and not concerned at all, to "get out! Get out! You have never smelled burning flesh before, but I have! I have smelled burning flesh!" She must have repeated the phrase "burning flesh" a dozen times.

Back to tonight: as she watched us, I pretended not to notice and continued talking. A minute later Cathy drove up to us, rolled her window down, stared at my friend sternly, and asked her in a grave voice if she was "alright." My friend responded that she was, which seemed to satisfy Cathy, who then drove off. Clearly, Cathy was intimating that I was somehow harassing my friend--perhaps even intending to attack her, her tone suggested. Once Cathy was gone I tried to laugh it off with a joke about my personal policy to wait until after midnight to begin attacking women in parking lots, but I was quite embarrassed and annoyed at the whole absurd incident. My friend told me not to worry and that Cathy manages to offend almost everyone.

I've decided that I am going to confront Cathy the next time I see her. I will tell her how she greatly offended me, and then I will talk to my supervisor and report her.

My House! My House!

A few of you requested photos of my new place, so here they are!




Pikes Peak and the Front Range from our backyard












My room

"I've eaten a bag of green apples, / Boarded the train there's no getting off. "**

Whew, strange times, my friends—strange times, indeed. Since my brother and I no longer live at home, my parents have rented our rooms to two college girls, both of whom moved in Monday evening. I guess I expected this to happen, but it is still odd to know that my room will never be mine again. My parents have assured me that Joe and I will be welcome at any time, but I suspect that I will never feel completely comfortable in my parents’ house again.

-----

**Sylvia Plath, "Metaphors"

Christmas Time Has Come...Again

We spent Christmas Eve as we usually do by attending the candlelight service at church and opening presents. I received a digital camera, a sweatshirt from a highly-trendy store (*sigh* my sister picked it out with the goal of forcing me to conform to American concepts of sylishness), cologne, and some gift cards for various stores. I gave my brother my old digital camera, which works fine but cannot take very high-resolution photos, hence my reason for asking for a new one.

On Christmas day my brother and I went over to my parents’ house for a traditional turkey dinner and stocking emptying ritual. While everyone in my family took an after-lunch nap, I finished reading the excellent short story collection by Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies. Soon after awaking, my brother decided to head back to his place, leaving me alone with my parents and sister (at that point, I was also ready to go home but did not want to offend my mom).

In the evening we played Scrabble. It has been quite awhile since I've played a board game, and oddly, it was actually pretty fun. The fun was only decreased slightly by the fact that Mr. Webster's fine dictionary does not include the words “Goosestuba,” “Cravestaxis,” and the Scrabble rules do not permit--due to a typo or editing oversight, I suspect--the use of common but archaic words such as “trofler” (old English word that means, er, something I can't recall), or words that are clearly foreign sounding, like “Lautreisee,” “Volgsrun” or “Corantoli”. My Dad's main tactic consisted of forming words like “was” and “go,” and though I skoffed at his inability to form words with more than 3 letters, his score was ahead of mine for most of the game. My Mom kept scoring 50 points per turn using X's and Q's. And yes, I lost.

Afterward we watched the always entertaining Hitchcock film Strangers on a Train, then I went back to my house to mess around with my digital camera. So this Christmas holiday turned out well. For the rest of Christmas break I plan to read a few books, watch some movies, and work, of course. I found a temporary job in the daytime in addition to my evening job at the library. Fun, fun.

Wow, it's been so long since I've posted that it took me a moment to recall my login password. This semester has been hectic, but finals will be over by next week, and I'll have time to relax.

A few weeks ago I moved into a new house with a couple guys. So far it's working out quite well. We just got internet last night, so now I don't have any reason to return to my family's house--well, except to see my family, of course, and maybe for the occasional home-cooked meal. My brother recently moved out as well and is living in a new house a few miles north of my house.

I'll post more in the coming weeks...hopefully.

School, again.

School started...sometime in August. Dates are once again irrelevant. I wake up, go to class, go to work, do some homework, then sleep. I'm taking five literature classes this semester--a rather heavy load in terms of reading--but everything is going well. I have a few friends and acquaintances in my classes, including a girl I work with at the library.

I'm enjoying all my classes at this point, especially Shakespeare II and Literary Criticism. My American Literature I class is difficult to judge. The professor makes the class entertaining; he's originally from New York and bears a frightening resemblance to Woody Allen in voice and mannerisms. The first day of class, however, he made it clear that he hates teaching literature survey courses and especially hates American literature surveys. Hmmm. The class seems more like a history course than a literature course, since we're reading mostly non-fiction documents, such as the journals of Christopher Columbus and John Winthrop, Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, etc.

Another class that I'm not sure about yet is British Literature III. I love the time periods we're studying (the Romantic period and the Industrial Revolution), but the professor's approach to studying the works we are reading irritates me. She has reduced our reading of the poetry of Coleridge, Shelley, Blake, Wordsworth, etc. to a hunt for Romantic themes. Exclusively. That's all we do. Every class, we "close read" (by our professor's definition) for glorification of nature, the supernatural, individualism, and "the sublime!"--the latter a theme which no one is clear on. Still, when called on in class it's easy to point out a line and yell, "look! This is the Sublime!" That answer always seems to satisfy my professor.

*sigh*

Lazy, Lazy

Well, summer is over, and I did not post as much as I had planned to. I attribute this lack of posting to my laziness. Here are a few things that I should have mentioned (or at least elaborated on):

My brother graduated from high school, and I attended the ceremony at the Air Force Academy.

Josh and I attended Yvette's wedding.

I experienced jury duty for the first time.

.... And I went to Nepal. This last event, especially, would have made a really nice post if I hadn't put off writing it. I will eventually post some photos and stuff (once school slows down, i.e. around Christmas break).

The Dancing of My Soul, or, Life in the Gulag

At work the other night I had an odd experience:

I spent a long time in the audio/video section and noticed a girl wandering around. This rather attractive female approached me multiple times, and each time she hesitated. Perhaps she was unsure whether or not I was an employee, or maybe she was just very shy.

Finally she came up to me, said hello, then whispered so softly that I could not understand her. It sounded like, “Could you help me find a video on sholryplodsm?”
I said, “Sure! Um, sorry, what is the name of the video?”
Still whispering, she repeated more clearly: “Souls of Dancing.” . . . or perhaps she said, “Solzhenitsyn.” I really couldn’t tell.

I had two options: take her to the 792’s (dancing section) or take her to the 891’s (Russian authors section). Either option could have been disastrous. Suppose I had shown her the Russian authors section:

“Well, here we have videos on major Russian authors, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, etc. I bet Solzhenitsyn is around here somewhere.”
She would have, potentially, given me an odd look and said, “I’m actually looking for a video on dancing called ‘Souls of Dancing,’ not a video on Russian authors.” I would have looked like a fool.

The other scenario could have been equally awkward:

“Here is our dancing section: ballet, belly-dancing, ballroom dancing, and um, other dancing type things. Souls of Dancing will be right here if it’s not checked out.”
She, hypothetically, would have scowled before informing me: “Solzhenitsyn is a Russian author, not a ballet dancer.”

My final option was to act clueless and refer her to a librarian, which I eventually did. Okay, I guess I had a fourth option—to ask her to repeat the name of the video again, which might have averted this whole confused episode, but I didn’t want to embarrass her.

Mt. Elbert
(14,433 ft.)
07-31-05

For our second fourteener of the summer we chose Mt. Elbert, Colorado’s tallest peak, and one of the easier fourteeners to summit.

My dad and I woke up at 2:30 AM, tossed our gear into the van, and drove to Dan’s house. Dan accompanied us on our trip up Gray’s and Torrey’s Peaks last summer.















On the 2.5+ hour drive, I dozed and listened to a book on CD (Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: a Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, by Al Franken—awesome book, by the way). We had a great view of Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive from the highway right as the sun was beginning to rise. At 6:00 AM we started down the trail. The hike was nice and easy at first, if a little cold. A couple hours later we left the treeline and had some great views of nearby fourteeners, including Mt. Massive.














(Dad and Dan, with false summit #1 in the background)
I have nicknamed Mt. Elbert “the Mountain of Vile Deception and Trickery.” Elbert has at least two false summits. Just when I thought, “There’s the top! I can see it! We’re so close!” I realized that we still had a long way to go. Dan attempted to snowshoe up Elbert last year. A few hundred feet from the summit, he and his group had to turn back because the trail became impassable without crampons and ice axes. Because of his last attempt, Dan was able to warn us about the false summits. Even knowing that there were false summits didn’t help me much because I was still fooled by them.





























(High-altitude insects bothered us most of the hike. They seemed content
to fly into our ears and nostrils instead of actually biting us, oddly.)














About a mile from the summit we noticed that clouds were rolling in. They did not look especially evil until we were half a mile from the summit and they turned an evil black and coalesced in a decidedly evil manner (oh yes, very evil). Dan, with his altimeter / barometer watch, didn’t think that the clouds would pose much of a lightning danger for at least another hour, so we continued on.















(Noon on the summit with evil clouds)
I was not convinced that we were going to be safe, so I ran on ahead of them. That last sentence sounded a little odd, so let me clarify: Since the trail was very steep at this point, Dan and my Dad had to stop often to rest. I was much faster than they were and desperate to summit, so I went on ahead. I pushed on and summitted about 20 minutes ahead of them. The clouds continued to build as I waited. Finally, they both made it up, we rested for a few minutes, took some photos, then headed back down.














(the actual summit)














La Plata's distinctive side seen from Elbert's summit

As always, we made excellent time on the way down. We rested in a shady area immediately inside the treeline and ate lunch. A few birds watched us as we ate, and one even ate out of Dan’s hand. The rest of the trip down is a blur of intense pain. My left leg did not want to keep going, so it often decided that it would stop for a rest while the rest of my body continued on. Of course, this was a bit of a problem. Without the aid of trekking poles to support me I would have fallen face-first a dozen times.














(Dad and I on the summit)
An important note: As any mountaineer—or even a casual hiker—knows, water is the remedy for many ailments while on the trail. Headache?—drink some water. Blurry vision?—drink some water. Falling down a crevasse?—drink some water (then get help). Water also prevents all of the aforementioned ailments, excluding falling down a crevasse, obviously, so I always drink as much as I can while on the trail. Unfortunately, that means that I have to go to the bathroom very often. “Find a tree” is a favorite suggestion of my Dad’s. Finding trees is quite easy while still in the treeline, but rocks give very little cover above the treeline. At one point I had to go so bad that I didn’t care if an entire troop of Girl scouts passed by.

Another note (of less importance): Dan and my Dad always use trekking poles when they hike. I used to think that using poles was a sign of weakness—like an old man having to rely on a cane or a walker to move around. During recent hikes, however, I have seen numerous twenty / thirty year olds using poles, so I thought that I would give them a try. Trekking poles can cost anywhere from $50 to $200 per pair, depending on how small they can telescope and the number of features they offer. I bought a $15 pair of ski-poles on sale at REI in March for our snowshoe trip up Quandary, and they work very well—even if they can’t collapse for easy storage. The poles help transfer some of the strain off my legs to my arms and shoulders. They were particularly useful on the way down from the summit; I would have fallen multiple times without their support. Poles are also great for poking things. I poked rocks, shrubs, odd-looking objects along the trail, and my Dad (to signal that break time was over). I will never do another fourteener without my poles.