Shire Shenanigans

Mt. Rushmore Monument Updated

2011-09-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

Well it's about time they updated the Mt. Rushmore Monument to reflect the future rulers of the country.

Irene and friends...

2011-09-10T11:52:00.000-07:00

Below are photos of the bank of the Connecticut river right after it crested just above flood stage a couple mornings after tropical storm Irene lashed interior New England. Whately and the northern pioneer valley were lucky to be spared the worst the storm had to offer in wind and flood damage, while our neighbors to the north were not so lucky.

Lots of interesting tracks were left in the fresh mud revealed by the receding waters. Click on the images to see them in better detail.

Traffic lights being knocked out or going wonky was about the most exciting casualty of Irene in Northampton and Whately.

To go or not to go. That is the question.

And now onto the main event... Rufi!

Well, are you going to pet me or what? I'm not just here to look good.

Truman Show grocery store

2011-08-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

My mate and I were driving to get some dinner and he's like "let's check out this new grocery store" so we take a right turn off the main road and follow this plaza drive which goes a bit before getting to an isolated parking lot for this one store, Aldis. It's very hard to see from the main road and the fact that it's set away and by itself was a bit strange. There are only a handful of grocery stores where I live and I know them all pretty well, so I was like.. where'd this new store come from? never heard of it.. weird. We go inside and as we enter we see a poster on the door advertising $23/hr manager position. The aisles are strangely minimalist and there are cardboard boxes everywhere with food in them. There's hardly anyone in the store... no one is at any of the cash registers. A man with a distant, isolated expression on his face pushes a floor cleaner around the store. Fruit is stacked on cardboard boxes. A container of grapes rests haphazardly and half opened. There's hardly anyone in the store (did I mention that already?) The few people there seem a little too ordinary and comfortable in this strange place. Are they really part of the same town? Are they even part of the same universe? I can't tell if I've entered into the future or the past. Even the attractive lady with nice legs seems to have a veil of doldrum about her. The prices seem really low. We go up to one of the referidgerator doors to get some milk and as I pull out a gallon of rBST free whole milk for only $3.19, I see a giant, unlit, cold, industrial and completely empty concrete room behind the minimalist milk shelf. Giant fans are blowing on the far wall facing me.

We get to the check out line and James notices there are no plastic bags. Only empty cardboard boxes near the entrance to the checkout line. We grab some and while I've always been in favor of reusing cardboard boxes to plastic bags, the whole setup feels very cheap. We start asking the checkout girl where the store came from. Apparently it's only been here since December. It's owned by Trader Joes but until recently was only in Germany. I mention that the store has a very temporary feel to it. The cashier gives me a quick look like I'm way out of bounds "temporary..." she odles. James asks if the managerial position is really $23/hr.
"That's just for training", she says. "It then goes up after that. Training is a year, tho."
I then ask if she thinks the store will be around very long. She's quick with her affirmative response: "Once we open a store, we never close it. We've been opening about two stores per week."

She gives us instructions on how to return our grocery carts. Give a quarter, get a quarter back.. or something. I didn't fully understand the process; was still trying to get my bearings on how we suddenly stepped into the Truman Show.... James isn't able to figure out how to chain up the grocery cart to the rest of the carts. I give it a try--clip in the dangling clip to the one in front, and we go back to my car, very bemused, but eager to get back to the real world.

The Fury of Mount Washington

2011-01-28T04:24:00.000-08:00

McDONALD BARR
August 1986
By Nicholas Howe
A QUESTION OF LIFE OR DEATH

I edited some details out for improved pacing. For the actual article in its intended form, click here: http://www.ohcroo.com/pdf/spring2001.pdf

Don was acquainted with the White Mountains. He’d taken Tavis
on a hike up the Southern Peaks and they’d stayed at Mizpah and
Lakes of the Clouds Huts. Planning for family hikes was careful
and enjoyable. They began thinking about this year’s White Mountain
hike before they went west, and while plans were afoot Don called the
AMC to see which one of their huts would have room for a party of
three on the night of August twenty-fourth. Madison Hut
would, and he made the reservations. Heather Barr was in Germany
that summer.

The three would be Don and Tavis Barr and Christian
Steiber, a German exchange student living with friends of the Barrs.
Don and Tavis didn’t know him very well, but he was added to the
roster so he could see another part of American life before he
went home. Don was fifty-two, Tavis was thirteen, and
Christian was sixteen. They got an early start from Brookline
on the twenty-fourth and reached the parking lot at the
beginning of the Valley Way Trail at about noon. Don knew
that the weather report was not promising, and he and the
boys got their gear organized under lowering clouds.

Up on the heights, the weather was treacherous. On the
twenty-third, the Mount Washington Observatory recorded
mild southwest winds in the teens and 20s rising to a peak
gust of 53 a little after 6:30 P.M., but the temperature ranged
from 47 (degrees) down to 39 (degrees). This is the kind of
summer weather that can presage trouble for hikers who
confuse August in the valleys with August on the Presidential
Range. In fact, it was on August 24, 1938, that Joe Caggiano
died near Madison Hut, and on August 23, 1952, Raymond
Davis hiked across the range to his death above Tuckerman
Ravine.

On the twenty-fourth, the summit observatory recorded a
wind moving steadily into the northwest with a morning
average in the 50 mph range. This is a veering wind and it’s a
good sign; an old sailor’s adage promises ,”Veering is clearing.”
My father always called it a northwest clear-off, a
promise so eagerly awaited that my generation saved time by
calling it an NWCO. This was not the pattern that was
developing this day.

Given the late start and the poor weather, the prudent
approach would be to stay on the Valley Way, which provides
the shortest, easiest and most sheltered route to the hut; in fact,
it stays below the crest of the ridge and also below timberline
until about 100 yards from the door. Then Don and the boys
could see what the next day brought; and even if the weather
went against them, they’d have a wide choice of trails back to
the parking lot where their car was. They wouldn’t get to the
summit of Madison, but it would still be a fine and memorable hike.
The three of them talked this over and Don decided to stick with the
Watson Path.

Remembering the day, Tavis says, “It wasn’t raining, but just
kind of humid, but in almost a nice way, a blanketing kind of
humidity. It wasn’t very steep and it was very pretty.”

The Brookside runs close to the brook and becomes
more of a scramble. Soon the trail turns away from the brook at
Salmacis Rock and becomes steep and rough. The Watson
Path enters from the right on a short and almost flat connection from
the Valley Way, and Don Barr’s group could have taken this sheltered
trail better suited to the day, but they didn’t.

The Lower Bruin departs on the right for another chance to join
the Valley Way, and the Watson Path bears away left. Don Barr turned left.

So far, the hike was a damp but enjoyable riparian reverie,
but then everything changed. The Watson Path is a misleading choice.
The contour lines on the AMC trail map do show that it’s the steepest
of the alternatives to the Valley Way, but the 100-foot contour
interval is necessarily an average calculation and it does not show
that the steepness comes in clumps and the footing is much rougher than
any of the neighboring trails. The climb out of Snyder Ravine is the price
hikers pay for the gentle walk along the old logging road down below; it’s
an exhausting and frustrating grind, and not often chosen for a repeat visit.

By now it was mid-afternoon and on Mount Washington
the wind was in the 70 mph range; the summit temperature
dropped from 49 (degrees) early in the morning to 32
(degrees) at noon, it held steady at freezing all afternoon, and
the heights were in the clouds with intermittent rain.
Conditions at Madison Hut were not much better: afternoon temperature
sank into the 30s, the wind was in the 50-60 range, and there was a
harsh driving rain. Hikers arriving at the hut were severely chilled
and their numbers climbed into the forties as prudent people caught
above timberline on the range made for shelter. The numbers rose to
the hut’s capacity of fifty and the hut crew kept busy warming them
and watching for hypothermia.

Don Barr and the two boys kept scrambling upward over the steep terrain
with its loose stones and root traps, a tough piece of work under the
best of circumstances and a severe test in the rain and cold. About
three miles after leaving the parking lot they reached timberline and a
stretch of peculiarly discouraging terrain; there’s a hump that looks
like the summit, then three more crests and then another hump, each of
which brings false hope. By now, hikers are wondering if there’s ever
going to be an end to it. Tavis says, “I don’t think the map showed
where timberline was. So we looked at the map and saw one major topo-
graphical bulge before the summit and then the summit and then the hut
on the other side. So we looked and we figured, Okay, this is the first
bulge and the next one will be the summit.” To make matters worse, the
trail leads over large angular rocks that tend to shift and tilt underfoot.

Madison Hut is open from early June to early September
with a crew of four. The line up had changed on this late-summer day.
Liz Keuffel had been the hutmaster, but she left just the day before to
return to her teaching job for the academic season; Emily Thayer had
been assistant hutmaster, so this was her first day in charge.

Emily had finished her junior year at Middlebury College in Vermont,
this was her fourth summer working for the AMC, and she’d reached her
full strength at 5' 8".

Lars Jorrens, Alexei Rubenstein had been on the Madison crew all summer
with Emily. Kari Geick had just arrived that day to
bring the numbers up to strength in the absence of Liz
Keuffel. Emily kept looking out the windows at the dark swirling mist
on every side and wondering about people who were out on the range.

Emily knew about bad weather on the range. During one
of her childhood summers a throng of relatives set out from
Whitefield to climb Mt. Jefferson. They started up the Caps
Ridge Trail, which is the express route of the Northern Peaks;
it starts at the 3,000-foot high point on the Jefferson Notch
road and runs straight up the ridge 2.4 miles to the 5,715-
foot summit of Jefferson, a delightful climb, but one that’s
studded with the steep rocks of the “caps” and runs above
timberline for most of its length.

The weather went bad when they were near the top of Mt.
Jefferson and the grown-ups decided that rather than go back
down through the weather on the difficult trail they’d come
up, it would be better to march the family troop down the
summit cone of Jefferson and on up to the summit of
Mount Washington so they could take the cog railway down.
A family photo album preserves the image of Emily sitting in
the summit hotel, twelve years old, soaking wet, and glumly
reflecting that the celebrated wisdom of grown-ups might not
be all it’s cracked up to be.

Now, eight years after that stormy day on the range, Emily
turned on the radio to hear the regular 2:00 P.M. call from
AMC headquarters in Pinkham Notch. Hut crews take turns
cooking on a daily rotation and this was Emily’s turn, all huts
have a reservation list so they can plan their meals, and the
2:00 P.M. call provides news of late cancellations or late
additions that will require adjustments in the kitchen. This
day the call did not include any cancellations and Emily had
an immediate thought, almost a reflex: “We’re going to be
going out — we’re going to be going out.” That is, they’d
have to answer a call from distressed hikers.

It seemed to Emily that there had been an unusual number
of emergency calls that summer. Twisted ankles and tired
hikers are a matter of course and crews take them in stride, but
extra dimensions had been added this summer. There was, for
instance, the German shepherd. One day a man came in
and said that his dog couldn’t walk anymore out on the Parapet Trail.

The Parapet is nasty piece of work. It was cut in 1951 to
provide a foul-weather route around the summit cone of Mt.
Madison and the 0.7-mile length leads over large angular
boulders and through dense dwarf spruce growth. When the
1951 trail crew got through, it was so difficult to negotiate
that the Madison Hut crew thought it must be a rough draft,
a sketch to be refined and finished later. It was never refined,
and Emily’s crew loaded the dog into a litter and spent a very
unpleasant time hauling it back to the hut. The hut crew had to take
care of the dog for three days while the owner went to the valley to
look into other arrangements. Finally the dog got a ride down in
the cargo net slung below a regularly scheduled supply helicopter.

So 1986 rescue demands on the Madison crew had been
heavy, unusual, and not necessarily rewarding. Now, on the
afternoon of August twenty-fourth, the people who’d been
hiking across the range from the Lakes of the Clouds Hut
began coming in. The wind was gaining in strength and they
were cold and wet and almost everything they had with them
was soaked, so the crew kept busy getting them supplied with
warm drinks and putting them into whatever dry clothes
could be found; the crew dug into their own reserves of
clothing and Emily even contributed her favorite original
Chuck Roast fleece jacket, which she never got back.

August twenty-fourth also brought a new crew member to
Madison. Kari Geick was an equestrienne of very considerable
achievement. After college she spent four years with the
biology department at Tufts University working in animal
behavior; then she decided it was time for a career change and
planned to relocate in Colorado. After she left Tufts she went to the
AMC headquarters in Pinkham and asked if they had any
openings for end-of-season fill-ins to round out her summer. Liz Keuffel
had just left the Madison crew that day so Kari was hired on the spot and
she went right on around to Randolph and hiked up the
Valley Way with Emily Thayer.

Late in the same afternoon, Stephanie Arenalas showed up
at the hut. She’d worked for the AMC the previous two
summers, but she was not on the roster this summer, so she’d come to the
mountains to pay a surprise visit to her friend Liz Keuffel at
Madison.

Stephanie hiked up the Madison Gulf Trail, which rises
from the bottom of Great Gulf south of the hut and provides
the most difficult of all direct approaches to the hut. It’s
strenuous in good weather but this day the trail was more like a brook
bed and the top section was steep water-soaked ledges, so Stephanie reached
the hut exhausted, wet to the skin, and severely chilled. Then
she learned that Liz had just left. Stephanie knew the ropes, so, in
the time-honored tradition of the huts, she stayed to lend a
hand.

Don Barr and the boys were still pushing up the Watson
Path. Timberline is about 4,000 feet here, with another 1,363
feet to the summit of Madison. The northwest wind was
blowing straight onto the ridge and its violence was heightened by
the topography: they were climbing the northernmost
ridge of the Presidential Range, the terrain turns a corner here,
and a northwest wind starts into the long accelerating venturi
of Pinkham Notch. Tavis says, “At that point it might have
dropped thirty degrees and the winds became a lot faster. It
was a little breezy as we were getting up to the timberline but
all of a sudden there were the fastest winds I’ve ever been in. I
was out in a hurricane in Boston and the winds on Mt.
Madison were faster than that.” Don’s group was not prepared
for this; they had long pants, hats, sweaters and light jackets,
but no real protection against heavy weather, and the bare
rocks gave them no protection at all.

“We were in the clouds and we kept pushing on,” says
Tavis, “because we thought we were almost there the whole
time, we kept seeing these bulges and, ‘Okay, maybe that’s it.’
You get this series and each one you think, ‘Well, that’s it, we
know the hut’s right on the other side.’ So that’s why we
didn’t turn back.”

There was still a chance for an easy escape. A little more
than halfway up this discouraging summit climb, the Pine
Link Trail crosses the Watson Path at a right angle. The Pine
Link is almost level here and it continues level and then
descends slightly to the hut. Tavis says, “We debated taking
that and then decided we were probably close enough anyway
that we should just go over the summit and get to the hut,
that that would be faster. At that point we were basically
guessing where we were based on the topographical markers,
and we were wrong about where we were.”

Tavis remembered that his father had said where the
timberline would be. But it turned out that his calculation was
about 300 feet too high, and this is revealing. Timberline averages
4,000 feet all around the range, but it varies with several factors.
One factor is exposure, and timberline on the northwest shoulder of
Madison is lower than Don expected because the weather is
harsher here than in most places, and harsher than he expected.

Don and the boys kept pushing on toward the top, but
they were going slower and slower and stopping more and
more often. Tavis says, “We didn’t have any backup clothing,
we had T-shirts and sweaters and windbreakers. I didn’t carry
along a hat and dad actually gave me his hat and then it blew
right off my head.”

Tavis was only thirteen, but he was already taller than his
father and notably slender. Christian had a hood on
his jacket, he had a solid athletic frame, and he seemed to be
managing the conditions fairly well, so he told Don and Tavis
that he was going on ahead and he disappeared in the fog.
Now the cold rain was in their faces and Tavis tried to wrap
his hands in a bandanna, but it didn’t work very well. He also
realized that his father had changed, he was panting in a way
that he’d never seen before.

Tavis also remembered a video his grammar school class was
shown before they went on a hiking trip. “It was on hypothermia
and I remembered that at a certain point you stop
realizing that you’re cold. And I think that’s just about when
my dad got to that point. I wasn’t at that point yet. I had
started to go numb, but I was quite aware of my condition. At
that point he had difficulty walking or moving. I was kind of
the unsteady you are when you’re drunk. I could maybe not
run in the straightest line, but I could run.” Finally Tavis saw
a cluster of trail signs — he’d reached the top. His father was
about twenty feet behind him so he went back to tell him. All
his father said was, “Oh, good.”

“We got past the summit together, my dad was at the
summit, but not for much after that. By that time we realized
that it was really too late. We both knew we were hypothermic, by
the time we were at the summit it really was the fastest
way to go straight to the hut, but it was just too late. He was
still lucid enough to know. I think we stopped for just a
second to look around and that’s just about when his lips were
going white. That was the sign that he was really in bad
shape. I knew I was in bad shape, I could feel it, but I was still
— I would say drunk, but lucid.”

There was no lingering on the summit of Madison. “My
dad was pushing on. If I reminded him that he was hypothermic
and needed to keep pushing on, he would say, ‘Oh, yeah,
I need to do this.’ And I just kept saying, ‘We need to keep
going — we need to keep going.’ He kept trying, and there
was a point at which he just visibly couldn’t walk anymore.
He found a crevice and covered himself up as best he could,
and at that point I just started running.”

The summit of Madison is not a sharp peak like neighboring
Adams, it’s more of a short narrow ridge with the trail
running just off the crest. Tavis sensed that the storm would
get worse before it got better, “but it was so painfully obvious
that there was nothing that I could do. He was trying very
hard to walk and he couldn’t. My choices were either to stay
there with him or move on and I didn’t really see any benefit
in staying there with him. There wasn’t — I couldn’t really
— I didn’t have anything to give him.”

Down at the hut, dinner was almost ready and yet another
group of hikers straggled in. They were soaking wet and they
were beyond cold, they had the slurred speech and muddled
thinking of hypothermia, so the crew put them into their own
bunks in the crew room and made them drink fresh-brewed
liquid Jello — the sugar and heat of the dessert is a favorite
restorative with hut crews.

It was now 6:00 P.M. and the crew turned their attentions
to serving dinner to a full house of hikers; actually, a bit more
than a full house. They got everyone seated and just as the
soup was going out to the dining room the kitchen door burst
open and Christian Steiber lurched in.

Kari Geick was surprised, the weather was so nasty that she
couldn’t get over how anyone would think it was a good day
for a hike. Christian was very much reduced and he tried to
tell them urgent news, but it was difficult to learn much
about the situation because he had a heavy German accent and
imperfect English, and he was further choked by fatigue and
cold. The crew did understand that there were two people
behind him and going slowly, but they didn’t learn how far
away they were, how bad their condition was, or even what
trail they were on. Trails approach Madison Hut like spokes
aimed at a hub and the crew guessed the people were on the
Osgood Ridge because that’s the only major trail that
approaches on the kitchen-door side of the hut. So they got
Christian out of his wet clothes and into a crewroom bunk to
warm up, and then they waited for a little while.

Here, too, there were complicating factors. The need for
help is subjective and it’s liable to misreading. For instance,
earlier that summer a woman came in to one of the other huts
and reported that her mother was out on the range and having
chest pains. This is an automatic danger signal and the crew
started up the trail at a fast clip. When they reached the
afflicted woman, it turned out that the shoulder straps on her
pack were too tight.

The crew waited for a few minutes to see if anyone would
come in after the German boy, but no one did. Then she told Lars
to make up a pack of useful gear and see if he could find anyone
on the Osgood Trail. Lars pulled on as much wool and polypropylene
as he had, then a hat and rain jacket with a drawstring hood, and he
put his mittens in his pack along with a blanket and extra clothes.
He took the high-band radio and Thermos bottles filled with hot Jello,
and at 6:15 P.M. he started up the Osgood Trail toward the
summit of Madison.

Lars was twenty-two years old, he’d been hiking in the New
Hampshire mountains since he was seven, he was six feet tall and
155 pounds, and after a summer of packing loads up to Madison Hut
he was exceptionally fit and strong. Now he found Tavis Barr on the
Osgood Trail about 500 feet from the hut.

Topography is important here. Timberline is not a precise
location, it’s more like a zone, and Madison Hut sits in an
open field of rock and grass and moss that’s inside a ring of
scrub growth that protects the lowest part of the trail for about
350 feet above the hut. Tavis was sitting on a rock just above
the top of the scrub growth.

The boy was completely exposed to the wind and driving
sleet. He was cold but he was coherent, and he told Lars that
his father was farther up the trail. Lars asked him how his
father was getting along and Tavis said he didn’t exactly
know. Tavis remembers that Lars had quite a number of things
with him, and when the hutman tried to give him some
warmer gear, he said, “No, my dad’s going to need them more
than I do.” He did take some hot Jello and a pair of gloves,
but Lars couldn’t learn much more about Don except that he’d
been going slower and slower and Tavis thought his father
was dying up there and he came on ahead to find help.

Lars judged that Tavis was certainly uncomfortable but not
in serious trouble at the moment, and he asked the boy if he
could hang in there for a while longer. Then he tried to tuck
him into a bit more sheltered position in the rocks and started
up the trail. Lars judged the wind to be about 60 mph and
the fog had cut visibility to seventy-five feet. Tavis hadn’t said
how far up his father was, but Lars was familiar with the
terrain, it was his summer backyard, so he made a fast climb
even though the gusty tailwind knocked him down several
times. It got noticeably colder as he came closer to the summit
and the rain turned to sleet and added a sandblast effect to the
misery.

Don Barr was lying in the middle of the trail on the near
end of that short summit ridge, he was in a short level place in
the trail that gave no protection at all from the wind and he
was in very poor condition. Lars couldn’t tell if he’d fallen or
if he simply lay down, but he was only semi-conscious and
mumbling incoherently and he didn’t seem to understand
what Lars said to him. Don’s condition had put him beyond
reason and he resisted Lars’ efforts to help him; he’d stiffen up
and try to protect his body, and he wouldn’t take the hot Jello
and he wouldn’t let Lars put any clothes on him. Lars tried to
drag him and he tried to roll him, but he couldn’t move Don
at all. Lars tried to get through to him, he put his face right
down with him and tried to talk to him, but Don barely
registered the presence of his Samaritan, he’d just groan.

In fact, Lars could hardly manage the extra clothes himself.
Don was wearing jeans and a light jacket and they were
soaked, so Lars immediately started to pull extra gear out of his
pack and the first thing was a hat. The wind tore it out of his
hands and sent it spinning away toward the valley.

Lars did not have a large supply of emergency equipment:
“I didn’t have a tent or anything, no sleeping bag. I brought a
blanket to warm somebody if they were moving — I didn’t
anticipate that the guy would be lying down and not able to
do anything. What we understood was that they were coming
along and I was just bringing up a Thermos of hot Jello,
which is always a good thing. I had a flashlight and a blanket
and some extra clothes — I just ran out the door hoping I
could get these folks in, so I wasn’t equipped to deal with
somebody that couldn’t move.”

This is always the difficult choice: to wait for a while in
hopes of getting more information and making a better informed
rescue, or to go out as quickly as possible and see what can be
done. Reports of trouble are often fragmentary and vague, the
trouble might be a twisted ankle or a heart attack, and Christian
had given the hut crew very little to go on.

By now it was 6:45 P.M. and the situation was critical and
moving quickly to lethal. The wind was rising into the 70-80
range and sleet was mixing with the driving rain; the Northern
Peaks were smothered in dense storm clouds. Then more bad luck joined
the emergency: the radio Lars had with him was not on the
same wavelength as the radio at the hut.

When Lars left the hut he took the high-band radio, and
after he’d done everything he could for Don Barr he pulled it
out of his pack to call Pinkham and heard an urgent conversation
already going on. Two hikers had been overtaken by the
storm on the flanks of Mount Washington, they were above
timberline and somewhere between Oakes Gulf and Boott
Spur, but they were well-equipped and they did the smart
thing, they pitched their small mountaineering tent in a
sheltered spot, battened down the hatches, and settled
themselves to wait for better weather.

These hikers were overdue on their planned arrival and this
had been noted, so search parties were deployed and Lars could
hear them talking to each other. In fact, the whole hut system
was listening. The eight AMC huts are spaced about a day’s
hike apart and Peter Benson was listening from Zealand, three
huts away at the edge of the Pemigewasset Wilderness.
Jennifer Botzow was hutmaster at Lonesome Lake at the far
end of the chain and she could hear the exchanges clearly.
Suddenly she heard someone break into the talk on Mount
Washington. “This is Lars on top of Madison,” he said, “this is
an emergency.” Jennifer could also hear the wind roaring
around him.

Peter Crane heard him down at headquarters in Pinkham
Notch. It was 6:55 P.M. and the main building was filled
with the hubbub of a full house at dinner. Peter was carrying a
high-band radio and he heard the call from Lars, but the
message was indistinct. The problem was not in the electronics,
it was in the air; his words were masked by the blast of the
wind, but Peter understood that there was trouble on Madison.
In keeping with his careful nature, he began a log on the evening.

Peter was one of the ranking veterans on the Presidential
Range. He had done extensive work with the AMC and that summer was
on the “Notch Watch,” one of two people detailed in 24-hour shifts
to deal with problems that might arise in the valley operation or
emergencies on the heights.

Peter brought more than wide experience to the job; he
was also a person of remarkable calm. Now Lars said that he’d
done all he could for Don Barr, he said he couldn’t move him,
that he’d tried to drag him and even roll him, but the man
just stiffened up and it wasn’t working at all.

Hut crews are housekeepers, not ambulance personnel, and
Lars was not feeling very confident, but after just a few
exchanges on the radio he felt stronger. “Peter was great. I
remember his voice being very calm and that was Peter — he
was very good for this kind of situation. I summarized the
situation and said there was nothing more here, but there’s this
kid down below and he is still able to move, from what I can
see, and I think we need to get him in, and then maybe we can
come back up and try to get this guy down the hill, but I
can’t do it myself. Peter said, ‘You make the call. We don’t
want to lose you up there — you do what you can.’ He asked
if I could move him and I said I couldn’t.” Peter told him to
shelter Don as well as he could and get back down to the hut
for reinforcements.

Then Peter asked Lars if the low-band radio at the hut was
switched on so he could speak to the crew there, and Lars said
that he didn’t think it was. This was not a mistake; those old
units were in semi-retirement and it was not standard practice
to leave them on. At this point Emily and her crew had only
the sketchy news brought by Christian Steiber and the
situation might be relatively easy — a man was a little way
back on the trail and Lars could take care of him with hot
Jello, a blanket, a helping hand, and an encouraging presence.

When Peter finished his talk with Lars on Mt. Madison he
called the weather observatory on the summit of Mount
Washington and asked them to try to raise the Madison crew
on the observatory’s low-band radio, but the summit could not
establish contact. Immediately after this, at 7:00 P.M., Lars
called Peter again and said that he could not find any place
nearby that offered more shelter than the one Don was in, and
that he hadn’t been able to move him anyway. He emphasized
that Don was shaking and convulsive.

Peter understood that they had a dangerous emergency on
their hands and the moment Lars’ call ended he called the
Androscoggin Valley Hospital, eighteen miles from the Valley
Way parking lot. The AVH staff is familiar with mountain
emergencies, so Peter brought them up to date on the Madison
situation and asked them to stand by, and they advised him on
treating Don.

That call was at 7:10 and at 7:15 Peter called Frank
Hubbell at SOLO, an organization thirty miles south of
Pinkham Notch that specializes in training emergency
personnel. He got the machine so left a message. Then he
called the Mountain Rescue Service in North Conway; he
didn’t know how many AMC staff would be available for
emergency duty and he wanted to put MRS on standby.

Peter also called Troop F of the state police and asked them
to engage the Fish and Game unit responsible for the area.
Carl Carlson of Fish and Game called back at 7:25 and said
that he was putting additional necessary people in the loop.
Peter called Forest Service men stationed on the northern flank
of Mt. Madison and Mike Pelchat, the state of New Hampshire’s
manager of its interests on the summit of Mount Washington who
made further calls. All that was done by 7:35.

Meanwhile, Janet Morgan was organizing a team of AMC
staff in Pinkham Notch. They had warm clothing, rain gear,
heat packs, Thermoses, and headlamps with extra batteries,
and they also had oxygen to be administered by Brad Ray, the
Forest Service ranger in Tuckerman Ravine and a veteran of
thirty years of mountain emergencies. Finally, Peter impressed
the nature of the situation on the AMC crew, he reminded
them of the first rule of search and rescue: that they could not
help the victim of a life-threatening emergency if they became
victims themselves.

Up at Madison Hut, Lars didn’t come back and he didn’t
come back and Emily was thinking, “Oh man — what is
going on?” The Osgood Path rises directly from the hut to the
summit, Lars was young and strong and he had good clothes,
but as night came on the conditions were so severe on top of
Mt. Madison that he was barely able to get back down
himself. The wind was in the 70s and gusting into the 80s
and it was right in his face. His body did not obey thought, it
obeyed cold and wind, and Lars staggered and lurched down
the summertime trail he knew so well until he found Tavis.

“He hadn’t moved, obviously he was stuck and he was
getting pretty incoherent. I thought, ‘Alright, I’ve got to try
get him in. It isn’t that far to the hut, so give it a try.’ I stood
him up and I tried to move him but we were getting pushed
over, flattened, and we’d be flopping around and I’d try to get
him up again. He was very stiff, he was not helping much at
all at that point, kind of a dead weight or even worse than
that, he was a sort of resisting weight.” Lars wasn’t sure of
Tavis’ mental state, “His speech was slurred and I guess he
recognized that I came back down alone and he asked ‘How’s
my dad?’ and I said we’re going to go back up and get him.”

Lars got back to the hut at 7:40. He went in through the
kitchen door and found Emily and said, “We’ve got to talk —
there’s something serious going on out there.” The kitchen
and the dining room and the crew room were all crowded
with people and Emily didn’t want everyone in the hut
overhearing what Lars had to say, so she hustled him and
Alexei down the aisle between the dining room tables and out
the dining room door and into the dingle that serves as a wind
break, a dank shelter with the space of two telephone booths.
Lars said, “There’s a guy dying up there.” He used a strong
intensifier and this all happened so fast that Emily hadn’t
pulled the door shut behind them. She shot him a warning
glance as she latched the dining room door and at the same
time she said to herself, “Oh my god — we’ve got a major
thing going on here.”

The dingle didn’t provide much shelter, so Emily had a
hurried conference out there. Alexei was hopeful; he hadn’t
been out in the storm and he didn’t quite believe it could be
that bad. The crew had been out in some pretty bad weather
that summer and his feeling was, “Come on, are you sure we
can’t go out there?” Lars was pessimistic about Don Barr’s
chances and he hadn’t been able to move Tavis along either,
but the boy was much nearer the hut and in better condition,
so that was the priority. By now the guests knew something
was going wrong and several of them said they were ready to
go out and help, but Emily didn’t think she could put any of
the guests at peril out in the storm.

Lars called Pinkham from the hut and the connection was
still poor, but Peter Crane got more information about the
situation on the summit. He learned that there was another
person about a tenth of a mile from the hut who was also
hypothermic, but could probably walk if he was strengthened
against the high winds and slippery footing. Peter backed up
Emily’s plan that two or three people should help this second
person down to the hut. Lars was used up and Emily was
needed to keep things moving in the hut and to oversee the
developing situation out in the storm, so Alexei and Kari were
the ones to go. They’d take chocolate bars, more clothes, and
hot Jello, and do everything they could to bring Tavis in.

Alexei had just graduated from high school, he was 6’1"
and after a summer at Madison his lean and rangy frame was
almost a twin to Lars. Kari was 5’3" and slender, but her many
years of riding and the requirements of handling 2,000-
pound thoroughbreds made her much stronger than her small
presence might suggest.

Kari and Alexei left the pots and pans for other hands to
finish and got ready for the storm. Kari put on all the pile
clothing she had, then wind gear, a hat and gloves, and an
extra jacket; then she and Alexei made up a pack with
reinforcements for Tavis and took their turn in the storm.
There was still enough daylight in the clouds for them to see,
but the air was a maelstrom of stinging sleet and the battering
wind was still gaining strength. About 500 feet from the hut
they spotted Tavis sitting on the rock. He was not on the trail
as Lars said he would be, he was a ways off to one side and they
were lucky to spot him.

Tavis was so badly chilled that he had difficulty talking,
his speech was slow and slurred and Kari remembers that all he
said clearly was, “My dad’s up there — my dad needs help.”
Kari felt it was important to stay positive and she said, “We
came to help you. You need help now and we came to help
you.” They got extra clothes and mittens on him, and even
though he was having difficulty swallowing they got some
warm Jello into him.

Looking back on that night, Kari says, “He had pretty
much seized up by that time and he was very, very cold. The
winds were very high, it was right around dusk, it was right
around freezing and it was raining. The rain was beginning to
freeze on the rocks.

“Tavis couldn’t walk. Alexei and I could sometimes get on
either side of him and haul him along and we did a lot of
pushing and pulling and hauling. We kept saying, ‘We’ve
got to keep moving, Tavis, we’ve got to keep moving.’ Up on
the rocks he would literally get blown over, so we tried to
keep a low profile. He didn’t have the strength to stand up,
anyway.”

At first they were out on large, rough and exposed rocks,
then the trail entered the scrub. “It was better down out of the
wind. We could be on either side of him as much as possible
and we tried to get him to walk, but he had extreme cramps in
his legs.”

As Alexei remembers, “It was difficult to figure out a method
of bringing him down, aside from picking him up and putting him on
our backs, because he wasn’t able to move very well. His legs seemed
almost paralyzed, almost like cerebral palsy.

“So we were trying to encourage him. It was kind of
sliding and it was very messy, me pulling on his legs and Kari
pushing him from the back, skidding him along.” They
bumped and scraped on the rocks and tried not to get lost
themselves because they had to go where the rocks and wind
would let them go rather than where they thought the trail
was. Then the terrain finally eased a bit and they got Tavis up
on his feet, but he could not stay steady.

It was almost dark, and in the ruthless conditions even the
best intentions and surest orientation might not be enough to
avoid moving with the pressure of the wind, which would
take them across the slope and away from the hut, but the
light from the windows was a lighthouse in the fog. The
Osgood Trail leads north of the hut, so they cut across the
clearing and headed for the kitchen door. Alexei was new to
this. “It’s August and I didn’t maybe think it was a life or
death thing, you have this concept that it’s summer and he’s
pretty close to the hut, it’s no big deal, but you have this
winter storm...”

Lars was worried, he knew what it was like out there and it
seemed to him that they were taking a long time for the short
distance they had to go. “After a while I was beginning to
wonder when they were going to show up. I was full of
adrenaline when I came in, and when I finally stopped and
rested I was pretty cold and shivery and soaked to the bone,
and I wasn’t in any shape to go right back out again.”

Alexei and Kari spent forty minutes moving Tavis that
tenth of a mile back to the hut. Inside, conditions were at full
stretch. The two hikers who came in without reservations
could not be turned away, so the accommodations were two
over capacity at fifty-two and a full dinner had to be served,
cleared away, all the pots and pans and table settings washed
up, and makings for the next day’s breakfast started. There was
wet clothing hanging from every projection and nothing dry
to put on, there was no heat beyond the stray BTUs that
slipped out of the kitchen while the crew was preparing
dinner, and the hut had been buried in supersaturated clouds
all day. The arrival of Christian and Tavis, both in dire need of
restoration, called on an account that had already been fully
spent.

Then Stephanie Arenalas took hold. Tavis was hypothermic
and barely able to speak, he was soaking wet, his muscles were
going into spasm, and he’d been considerably battered as Kari
and Alexei hauled him down over the rocks. Beyond that, his
father was alone in the storm up above the hut and there was
no way of helping him.

Christian was already in one of the bunks, so Stephanie and
another crew member got Tavis out of his wet clothes, dried him
off as well as they could and gave him warm Jello to drink, and
put him into a sleeping bag with blankets over it in that wide
folding daybed. Stephanie knew that Tavis wouldn’t get any
colder, but he wouldn’t warm up very fast either. She knew that
the 98 degrees of heat she could contribute were all they had, so
she stripped down and got into the sleeping bag with him.

The hut was not very comfortable. There used to be a wood
stove in the dining room, but that was gone now and there was no
heat except the propane rings in the kitchen and the natural furnace
of the hikers’ bodies, but the metabolic fires were running at a very
reduced setting and the hut was dank and clammy.

At 8:00 P.M., a team of eighteen people left Pinkham in two
vans to drive around to the Valley Way parking lot and start up
to the hut. Forty-five minutes later Emily called Peter to report
that Tavis was in the hut and being tended to, but he was very
groggy and debilitated.

That left Don Barr alone in the night and the storm. Emily
was in her first day as hutmaster and she was in a tough spot.
The weather was still getting worse at the hut and she knew
by way of the Pinkham radio relay that the Mount Washington
observatory could not promise any relief that night.

On paper, the crew’s main responsibility was the hut, but
this night’s responsibilities were already off the paper. One
consideration was the carry itself. There were only four people
on the hut crew, which is not enough for a litter carry. Emily
knew about that. There’s something about a rescue that fixes
the imagination on heroic carries to safety, so when a call came
to Pinkham during Emily’s rookie summer there, she thought
“Whoo...!” and she was quick to volunteer. It was an easy case,
someone went lame on the Tuckerman Ravine Trail a short
way above Pinkham and that trail is almost as wide and
smooth as a country lane. Emily took her first turn at the carry,
stumbling along without seeing her feet and trying to stay in
step and keep the litter steady and match the level of her grip
to the other carriers and it wasn’t very long before she was
thinking, “Oh man — this really sucks!”

The situation facing her Madison crew was much more
difficult. The guests knew there was a tough situation in their
midst and several of them came up to Emily with offers of
help. They could help with after-dinner housekeeping, but
Emily knew she couldn’t ask them to go outside. She was
thinking of the chaos that could overtake the evening, how
there could be people with all degrees of strength and skill
out on the rocks of the summit cone and no effective way of
keeping track of them or coordinating their work. Even more
to the immediate point, there was hardly a stitch of dry
clothing anywhere in the hut. The storm was still gaining
strength and the hut crew and volunteers alike would be wet
and tired and more prone to hypothermia at the start of the
rescue than anyone should be at the end of it.

At this point, Emily was the only one among the guests
and the crew who hadn’t been out in the storm and she was
also the most experienced among them, which would make
her the best candidate for a rescue team. But at the same time,
she was the hutmaster and she was wondering where her
responsibility really lay. Should she lend her strength and
experience to a rescue effort, or should she stay in the hut to
hold things together there?

By now, Christian had gotten up and he was in the kitchen
having something to eat. Tavis was in bed in the crew room
and he was beginning to recover from his own hypothermia,
he was saying, “Where’s my father — where’s my father?”
Stephanie was still with him, she told him that they were
doing everything they could to help his father, but at the same
time she didn’t want to give him false hopes.

The hut crew was finally all indoors and they knew they
were up against it, they knew they had to talk it over, they had
to decide about McDonald Barr. This led to another problem.
There were people everywhere in the hut, they were finishing
dinner and milling around in the dining room and the bunk
rooms and some were lending a hand cleaning up in the
kitchen. Christian Steiber was in the kitchen, too, and Tavis
was in the crew’s bunk room. So where could Emily gather her
crew for a serious talk?

It was after-dinner hot drink time, so Emily asked a couple
of the helpful guests if they could keep the fixings coming in from
the kitchen; then she called for attention and said that the crew
would be busy for a while and could everyone take turns using the men’s
bathroom.

Then the crew gathered in the women’s bathroom to talk
things over. They knew the Mount Washington weather
observatory had reported no signs of relief on their charts. On
the contrary, the observatory crew said the storm would
probably intensify through the night.

Emily and Lars and Alexei and Kari tried to think the
situation through. Emily thought most about the wind; she
knew it can be raining hard or snowing like crazy and hikers
can still be all right; it fact, they can enjoy it. But it was the
wind — above timberline the wind simply tears away every
defense.

The Madison crew knew that Don Barr was in mortal
danger, but mortal danger was everywhere on the mountain
that night; once out there, everyone would be equally
exposed. Lars remembers, “There was a little bit of bravado —
‘Oh, we can try it — it’s our job, we’re able to do these
things, so let’s give it a shot.’ We’d all been out, though, and I
think we quickly realized that all of us except Emily had just
been out in the weather and we probably wouldn’t be in such
great shape to try again.”

There was also the matter of numbers. Even in the best
circumstances imaginable, even on a walking path in the
valley with fair skies and sweet breezes, the four members of
the Madison crew would have difficulty managing a half-mile
litter carry by themselves. In the cold and dark and rain and
rocks and wind, they would have no chance at all. There was
no shortage of willing help among the guests in the hut, but
they were there to take shelter, not to risk their lives. Beyond
that, taking an unknown and untrained group out on a rescue
brings its own hazards, both physical and ethical. The first
members of the AMC group from Pinkham were already
arriving and the Madison crew had seen them. Lars says, “We
started seeing these folks coming in from Pinkham in various
states of hypothermia themselves and certainly not prepared to
go up on the mountain beyond the hut.”

All these thoughts were in the women’s bathroom and even
though not all of them were said out loud, the hut crew knew
that they’d decided. It was not a debate. Lars remembers, “We
realized at that point we were making decisions to forget any
hope of trying to rescue him or bringing him back alive. We
knew that was weighing over us. But we also knew that it was
ridiculous to try to go up there to get him. The choice had
been made before us.” No one asked for a vote or tried to
persuade anyone else, but they knew that the risk to a rescue
group outweighed the benefit to Don Barr, and Emily
summed it up for them: The danger is too great, our resources
are too small, and we’re not going to go out tonight.

The valley forces were on their way, so at 8:55 Peter Crane
called Emily for another report from the hut. Peter was in a
position to launch the rescue on his own authority, but, as he
says now, “Recognizing that there could be more than one
answer to the question, I asked if a party would be going out
from the hut. It’s very easy for someone in a warm building ten
miles away to ask other people to go out, and names like
Albert Dow come to mind.” Albert was a member of the
volunteer mountain rescue squad based in North Conway, and
four years earlier he’d been killed while trying to help two
teenagers whose inexperience had led them into difficulty.

Peter finishes the thought: “But if those people can actually
feel the buffeting of the wind and the stinging ice pellets and
have to stare out into the dark fog — if they make the
decision that that’s excessive risk for them, then I think we in
our warm places have to respect that decision, even though it
could have grave consequences.” Emily told him the difficult
news of her decision, and he backed her up completely, he said
she should not risk anyone beyond the immediate shelter of
the hut.

Right after this exchange Peter called the AMC personnel
regrouping on the Valley Way. He told them that twelve
should continue up to the hut, stay overnight, and go to work
at first light if conditions allowed. The other six in the mobile
group should return to Pinkham to keep normal operations
going, though that number was considerably below the usual
complement. The group should be divided so the strongest
members would go up to the hut and those with necessary
duties at Pinkham should return. After this conversation, he
called Don Dercole of the Forest Service and brought him up
to date, adding that his personnel might want to stay in the
valley overnight and be ready for an early-morning departure
rather than squeeze into the overcrowded hut. He also called
Carl Carlson at Fish and Game asking for a call-back on the
telephone.

Then Peter called Emily again. The contrast between his
strong experience and his mild presence can be disconcerting,
and he tells of that terrible night in a voice that is hardly more
than a whisper: “There had been more time to reconsider, or
perhaps to wind down a little bit on what had happened thus
far. After that decision was made, that initial decision, they
had the opportunity to rethink, to reconsider, perhaps to have
either more worries go through their head that this was the
right decision or to gain confidence within that decision, so I
asked again if this was something that they still wanted to
follow through with. I indicated that this was a very serious
decision they were making and asked if they wanted to reevaluate
their situation and the weather conditions.” Emily told him that
the situation at the hut had not changed, and they would stay
with their decision.

Meanwhile, the crew was trying to keep Tavis in the
picture, but they were being careful not to give him unrealistic
hopes or unrealistic fears. He understood what they were
doing. “At that point I knew that he was going to die. They
made it sound like, ‘We’ll see if he’s okay,’ but you know, as a
thirteen-year-old kid I thought they were just kind of
delusioned. Now I know they were trying to put a good note
on it, but...”

At 9:30 P.M. Peter called the Mount Washington Observatory
again. They told him that the temperature remained steady at 32
(degrees) with fog, rain, sleet, snow showers, and
maximum visibility of fifty feet; the wind was averaging 79
mph, gusting regularly to the mid-80s and occasionally into
the 90s. They expected no change over the next twelve hours
except in the temperature, which might go lower. Peter knew
that conditions would be only slightly less extreme where
Don Barr was on the summit of Mt. Madison.

After repeated tries Peter got through to Charlie McCrave on the
trail and brought him up to date; Charlie said that his leading
group was pretty well up by now and they’d keep going to
the hut and regroup there. Peter had been keeping track of the
numbers and he realized that Madison hut was two over
capacity before any emergency crews arrived. Now it would be
getting critically short of space.

Just then a call came from Troop F of the state police; they
had more powerful radio equipment and mobile units on the
road, and through them Peter arranged for four Forest Service
men and three of his AMC contingent to turn around on the
Valley Way and spend the night in Randolph. Ten minutes
later he called Carl Carlson, the veteran at Fish and Game, and
brought him up to date on the situation.

The regular 10:30 weather transmission from the summit
observatory reported no change in wind or temperature, with
intermittent snow and heavy icing. Ten minutes later, more
members of the Pinkham crew arrived at the hut with their
radio and fifteen minutes after that the three Pinkham crew
who had turned around on the trail called from the parking
lot and said they’d stand by to see if any more people would
be coming down the trail. At 11:30 the last two members of
the Pinkham group reached the hut and the five waiting in
the parking lot were cleared to return to Pinkham.

Five minutes later Peter went to bed, but he did not rest.
“You know there’s someone up on the mountain and half a
mile from the hut who most likely will not survive the night.
It weighs on you.” Up at the hut, everyone managed to find a
bit of space to lie down and see if they could sleep. The crew
room was full, the two big bunkrooms were full, there were
people sleeping upstairs in the storage attic, there were people
sleeping on the dining room tables and on the floor in places
where they hoped no one would step on them. During the
night the summit observatory recorded winds of 121 mph.

Emily went to bed in her crewroom bunk, but she did not
sleep. She kept getting up, she’d go out to look at the night,
she’d sit in the kitchen and think, “Could we do it?” There
was wet clothing hanging everywhere and draped on every
possible spot and she’d feel to see if it was getting dry. She
even thought about how many for-sale AMC T-shirts there
were — she could hand those around for dry clothes. She
listened to the sleeping sounds of the people all around her in
the hut, and most of all she kept listening to the constant
roaring and rushing of the wind and she thought that
sometimes storms just suddenly blow themselves out and she’d
stretch to see if she could hear the slightest lessening that
might bring hope, but she never heard it.

Stephanie was still with Tavis. “It was hard for me to know
what he was thinking. I don’t remember much sleep. I was
staring out the window into the darkness and holding him
and trying to reassure him that he was okay. People were
coming in and out and there was the darkness and he was
sleeping some. I was whispering to him and murmuring to
him in the night, trying to be quiet.”

First light came and at 5:55 A.M. Emily radioed Pinkham
with a weather report: 42 (degrees) and wind-driven rain at
the hut, and the rescue group up there would be ready to start
for the summit in five minutes. On consultation it was
decided to send a carry party of nine to the summit and keep a
relief group of five at the hut. Peter reminded the hut
contingent that Don should be treated as any person in severe
hypothermia: his wet clothes should be removed and replaced
with dry insulation, he should be protected from wind and
further wetting, and any possible heat loss should be eliminated
as far as possible.

Then Peter again made sure that Emily and everyone in her
crew remembered the first rule of search and rescue: No
member of the rescue group should risk becoming a victim.
The litter group left the hut at 7:05 and they found Don Barr
thirty minutes later. He was in the trail just below the summit
of Mt. Madison and the EMT people determined that he was
unresponsive.

It was the second time up there for Lars: “The wind was still
blowing pretty good, certainly not as high as the night before,
the clouds had lifted and the angle of wind had changed just
enough so when we got to the flat place where he was lying it
was almost calm. He was just lying there with his hands
crossed on his chest.” Lars stood off to one side in that small
island of quiet air, out of the way of the people tending to
Don. It was his first death and he kept thinking that he was
the last one to see Don alive, and now this. Then he saw Emily
go over and kneel down beside him.

Emily was struck by the way Don lay there on his back with
his hands crossed on his chest and she thought that he looked
very peaceful and composed; this was such a contrast to what she
expected that she almost spoke to him. She saw that his eyes were
wide open and looking up into the endless sky, and she thought
it was time for his eyes to close. Emily remembered all those
death scenes in the movies where someone reaches out with a
small gesture and brushes a person’s eyelids down as a sort of
final benediction, but now she learned that unseeing eyes don’t
close as easily as that.

The guideline among emergency teams is “Not dead until
warm and dead,” so this was still a rescue, not a recovery. They
put Don Barr in a sleeping bag and added blankets and the
weatherproof hypowrap, and they were careful to handle him as
gently as they could, because when a person is in extreme
hypothermia even a slight interruption can push the heart into
crisis. They started down toward the hut with the litter, they
were thinking, “Maybe there’s a chance.” The carry required
everything they had - at one point the entire team was knocked
down by the wind and they struggled to keep the litter from
hitting anything.

Tavis was in the kitchen with new clothes while the crew
was getting ready to go up to the summit and Lars was watching
him, “I could see in his eyes that he kind of recognized what
had happened. But maybe there’s still some hope, ‘Okay, the rescue
crew is going up and they’re going to see what’s going on.’ We
explained that hypothermia is one of those things where you can
recover. We were injecting a little bit of hope into ourselves,
that there is a possibility that he could make it. So I’m sure
he was still holding out some hope, but he kind of knew that
if his dad had been lying up there all night, things weren’t very good.”

When Kari Geick was back in the hut after she helped rescue
Tavis, she decided that her best part was tending to the domestic
routine. Everyone else on the crew was between eighteen and
twenty-two years old and they’d been together all summer; she
was five years older than the oldest of them, but she was still only
a few hours into her career with the AMC.

The next morning she was struck by the layering around her.
The crew was tending to routine tasks but there was a stunned
quality everywhere. Alexei was the cook for this day and he’d
finished his part of breakfast some time ago, so he began the
usual business of checking out the guests. “It was kind of surreal,
taking their Visas and Master Cards at the same time as all these
other things were going on.” The guests were very quiet as they
packed up and most of them changed whatever other hiking
plans they had and went down the Valley Way, where they’d be
sure of quick shelter.

The crew was amazed to learn that Tavis was only thirteen;
seeing his size, they thought he was probably seventeen. They
were worried about the way he could meet his father being carried
in a litter with his face covered, and they worked out a timing to
avoid that.

At 8:43 further reserves were alerted from all the services
Peter had contacted. At 11:15, the litter team started down the
Valley Way with McDonald Barr.

Stephanie Arenalas stayed with Tavis through the night and
through the early hours in the kitchen when everyone was up
and around and she stayed with him through breakfast. She
cooked some things to eat for the various people coming up the
Valley Way to help and she kept Tavis occupied while the litter
party came past the hut with his father. Finally she and Rich
Crowley started down the Valley Way with Tavis and Christian.

Tavis hadn’t been saying much during the morning; he seemed
a bit distant and disengaged, and the crew tried not to crowd him.
Then on the hike down he seemed to be bothered by the clothes that
had been brought up for him. There wasn’t any underwear and the
pants were much too big, so the crew had made a belt for him out
of a piece of the rope they use to tie loads on when they’re packing
supplies up to the hut. He kept talking about the pants as they made
their way down the Valley Way and Stephanie realized that she really
didn’t know what a seventh-grader should say at a time like this.

The litter crew reached the Valley Way parking lot at 3:40 P.M.
and they were met by an emergency response vehicle from the Androscoggin
Valley Hospital. Every resuscitation effort failed and McDonald Barr was
pronounced dead later that afternoon.

After calling his mother, Stephanie and Rich thought it was time
for Tavis to be alone for a while, so they showed him to a bunk upstairs
in the crew quarters. Later that morning Mrs. Barr arrived at Pinkham
and she met Peter Crane and Stephanie out near the kitchen.
Stephanie tried to explain what had happened and what they
tried to do up at Madison, but then she had to walk away from
Mrs. Barr. She’d done all she could do.

The Madison crew was in the habit of making a little talk to
the guests at suppertime. That evening Lars made a larger talk
than usual. He talked about his love for the mountains and his
respect for them and he said that people are not infallible, they’re
fragile up in the mountains and there are times when things go
wrong, not as a sacrifice but as a reminder of what can happen.
He talked about the cold fronts that come through at the end of
August and how people start at the bottom and when they get to
the top it’s a different world. He told them that they’d come to
our nice cozy hut expecting all sorts of amenities and we provide
that to you, but you have to get here first. Then he said that one
of those times came just the night before...

When he finished, Lars said later, “They were all looking at
me.” Kari Geick was looking at him, too. It seemed to her that
the talk was partly for the guests and partly for himself, that it
was his way of finishing up the terrible night of McDonald Barr.

Three days later Emily was back at Middlebury College; she
was on the women’s field hockey team and they had a pre-season
training camp. Everywhere she turned there was laughter and
cries of greeting and hugs of reunion and, “How was your
summer?” and, “My summer was really great!” Emily gave them
her greetings and her hugs, but she didn’t go into much detail
about being in charge at Madison Hut.

AFTERMATH
The two climbers who were marooned on Mount Washington
were exposed to the full force of the storm on August 24, but
when the weather moderated they emerged from their tent and
hiked down the mountain without any adverse effects.

Emily has not forgotten McDonald Barr, “It’s always hovering,
it’s always there.” Since then, she has run many guided hikes for
mountain visitors.

Tavis Barr has not done much hiking since his father’s death.
Then in April 1999 he was on a trip to California and spent a
day in Yosemite, where he and some friends hiked up the path to
the top of the park’s signature waterfall. “I brought along a down
coat and a sweater and a hat and gloves. There was no reason I
needed a winter hat and gloves up there at the top, but I still
remembered.”

Nearing the Beginning

2010-10-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

It's pretty amazing that there is so much unchartered territory. We are barely even scratching the surface of the iceberg. If the iceberg is everything there is to know, we are a sub-pecometer sized dust particle trapped inside the water tension of a micrometer sized water droplet momentarily thawed by the sun at the very surface, peering with our ever-burgeoning instruments of probing observation into the water tension that makes up the bubble of our universe, and we are just beginning to get the vaguest of inklings of knowledge as we peer out and take our crude and simple measurements within the trappings of our extremely limited perceptions into a world that only gives us the smallest of shadows and refracted light of what's truly going on by way of apparent paradoxes and puzzles which are not the stumbling blocks, but are the little clues hinting at a bigger picture, a completer truth, as we slowly pull back, layer by layer, the curtain onto a wider world.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? The only reason this question has any resonance is because it brings to our attention that the sound a tree makes when someone is around to hear it might just be a fabrication of our minds.

I love New York in June

2010-06-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

follow this link to see the new blog of the out west road trip: http://backroadusa.blogspot.com From MA to Albuquerque.

Hanging out in New York by yourself can be a lot of fun. It doesn't take much for something unusual, interesting or exciting to happen (or all three). I came across a guy strumming his guitar and singing. I liked the sound so I gave him a dollar and kept on my merry way. Then decided I should get my dollar's worth and listen awhile. This guy has talent. So I got his 'business card' and looked him up on Facebook. This is what I found:

http://www.facebook.com/#%21/group.php?gid=2224430769

The guy is ... apparently missing! Gone into the wild of New York City from his home town without letting anyone know... the comments on the wall are from 3 1/2 years ago all the way up to the present! When I was chatting with him, he failed to mention this little detail. I'll prolly see him tomorrow to hear the story behind it. I wonder if he knows about the Facebook page.

Hugh Trimble on the web: http://www.neighborpoem.me

The lovers boating pond nearby.

climb a tree

2010-04-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

because trees are meant to be climbed.

I reached nearly the very top of the right trunk of the left tree. The tree was half dead, and the top part of the trunk was dead. Jimmy didn't get a picture of me up there cause the light wasn't too good. I attracted a crowd of the two other people that were at Puffer's pond.

Bash Bish Falls at Low Tide

2010-04-19T21:41:00.001-07:00

A weekend of partying, followed up by 4 hours of sleep and a run/hike up Jug End should not provide fertile ground to then clamor up Bash Bish Falls and jump from rock to rock. Yet it was the most adventurous outing at Bash Bish in many years.

Going out on a limb

The spectators

The Falls

Jumping Jehozaphat Geeha!

No persons got wet in the making of this blog.

Water and Time carve a channel below the falls.

That's me in the alcove on the left in the above pic.

Low tide reveals rockin' weathered features.

From the top...

Can you spot my spectators?

Should I jump?

I shouldn't...

Logs get trapped at the top of the falls.

The falls from the side. You can see part of the large boulder on the left.

Another large boulder that fell in the forming of the falls.

Where another boulder cracked upon landing.

Behind the falls

To sum up, this is how I felt yesterday:

Presenting the LOLKat.

Tale of Ticks and The Hair Brained Hooligan

2009-06-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again... for ticks and hair brained bloggers (well, actually, as it happens I'm hair brained all year round.)

Last year I did an update on how to deal with ticks. Yesterday I found out an easier way. If you spot the tick on you early enough, you can simply douse the tick and surrounding area with Tea Tree Oil and the bugger will either die or back out. That's what I did last night when I found a tick attached to my inner thigh (same place I found a tick on me last year....)

One reason I prefer to do things spontaneously rather than planning is that God laughs at those who plan... he certainly is laughing at me! It's cycling and house painting season again. So we started painting a house on a multimillion dollar property up in Monterey. It just so happens the house is right near Del Martin Automotive--a great mechanic but located out in the boonies. So I made an appointment to get my car fixed there since it has an oil leak and I can easily drop the car off and get a ride back with the boss. Well, turns out it's been raining every day (maybe you noticed) so Doug reluctantly decided to pick up some indoor work at the Splendorios. Well, dropping my car off suddenly became complicated as we were no longer going to Monterey to work today. But, then I came up with a workable plan. I'd drive the car up to Del Martin right after work with all my biking gear in the back and catch up with the Tuesday riders. Only problem with this plan is that the route they were doing as per the weekly email was in the opposite direction of where I was dropping my car off to get fixed, making hooking up with the riders difficult. So I sorta forewent that plan and decided I'd just ride the bike home from Del Martin as it is mostly down hill and I've only gone on two short bike rides this summer (one 6 miles and the other 11). Plus, I had forgot to bring my lunch to work, so I would have no energy for the Tuesday ride (did I mention hair-brained? It gets better).

At work the weather service kept repeating all day the threat of severe thunderstorms and small hail and strong winds so I'm thinking.. riding in the rain is one thing, but being pelted by hail is another one entirely. On the way over to the mechanic I saw two girl road riders and thought I recognized one of them as a Tuesday regular and thought it odd they were riding early (4:50pm at this point) so I decided they were just doing their own thing...plus, they were not riding the route outlined in the email. I also realized at this point I brought no backpack to carry my work clothes back with me as I would need them the next morning. I also remembered at this point that there is no service whatsoever in Monterey. I asked Del Martin if I could make one phone call; he said sure, but that he needed to leave in two minutes. So I called Sajad who was to pick me up after dropping Maria off at weaving if I decided to bail out on riding back, but as soon as he answers the line goes dead. I call back and he tells me Gillian has dropped Maria off and that I should call her to get picked up. So I call her and her phone rings and rings but doesn't answer. Del Martin is being relatively understanding for my need to make multiple phone calls.... At this point I don't know what to do and explain to him my plan of riding to G.B. and he advises me against it on account of the imminence of inclement weather and mentions that he needs to get going to close the windows in his house as the wind picks up, but also mentions that the weather probably isn't as bad at his house as it is in Great Barrington (being farther west from where storms come). A light bulb should have gone off in my head at this point but dim witted I remained, perhaps on account of all the paint fumes from painting in doors. I then tell him that he can leave and that I'll figure it out. He offers for me to make one more try on the phone. I try Gillian again but still no answer and no option to leave a voicemail. I think for a bit and then decide to call home. Dad answers and I tell him my predicament and he says the storm is brewing and indicates in so many words that I'd be nuts to set out now. I wait on the phone for another couple minutes for him to find Sajad but the line goes dead again. I call back and he tells me Sajad will pick me up. So I thank Del Martin for his patience and then we get to talking about my car and he mentions that there is ANOTHER Honda Civic VX for sale that runs excellent but the body isn't in great shape. He tells me where the car is and then gets on his merry way. I then pull the car up to the edge of the driveway so that Sajad will not miss me when he is looking for the sign to the shop. So I'm sitting there like a cop waiting for speeders (except that I have paint all over me) and guess what I see coming up the road....

Go on guess.

Seriously, make a guess.

A train of pain!
What is a train of pain you may ask? I'll give you a hint. It involves skinny tires and has no hitches and is legal on roadways (though scorned at by some). I see a train of about 6 cyclists chugging along at a good clip coming up the hill. I'm like... no way that's Berkshire Bike and Board.... I watch them go by, feeling like Tintin with a white puff of hair sticking up from painting sloped ceilings earlier in the day and still in my painters clothes, thinking how odd I must appear to the passerbys. My brother signals to me as the train speeds by and gives me a look. I hear his voice echo in my head: "way to wimp out loser!" I just watch them go by, dumbfounded. I realize then of course they changed their route on account of the weather! I would have considered changing real quick and trying to catch them but of course that would have been futile. I then see another two riders coming... the DeRis brothers go by, both recognize me sitting there in the car, and Mario gives a look like.. what the hell? Then I see another train coming... oh.. of course... there's the B group too.. (the not as fast riders) led by Dick Clark, BBB partner in crime. None of this matters, though, since two minutes later Sajad arrives. If the day hadn't been a string of hair brained absentmindednesses (yes, that's a word, I'm an English major) I would have been on my bike headed home and unexpectedly greeted by the Tuesday riders with "you're going the wrong way!" and.. "get on the train of pain!" instead I was an odd spectacle parked on the side of the road as they rode by. Well, I'll hear all about it next Tuesday of my epic fail. And this time I'll be sure to make it.

Global Warming on hold...

2009-01-16T02:30:00.000-08:00

Therapsid powerpoint: http://www.sendspace.com/file/14ff96

This just in. Global warming on hiatus until further notice...
Regional temps as of 5am 1/16
Below temps do not consider windchill factor.
Wind chills where there is a breeze easily drops any of the below temperatures by 15 degrees. For example, a 5mph breeze in Caribou, ME makes it feel like -49 which is 83 degrees colder than freezing.

-8 at Berkshire Village, Egremont
-14 in Amherst, MA
-20 in Greenfield, NH
-34 in Caribou, ME
-11 in Brattleboro, VT
-19 in Burlington, VT

Have a nice day.

Berkshare$ Currency

2008-12-11T19:42:00.001-08:00

Steffen Root tells you why you should buy local with local currency.

Maine Marine Ecology field trip

2008-09-21T17:15:00.000-07:00

Chucky slaying the ladies again.

Reflection in the water of a student holding a crab.

A non-interdimensional wormhole

A translucent worm plucked from his non-interdimensional home.

the mind boggles...

2008-09-16T19:50:00.000-07:00

The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can't Have
Ford's Fiesta ECOnetic gets an astonishing 65 mpg, but the carmaker can't afford to sell it in the U.S.

???

It can't afford NOT to sell it in the U.S.
Read the full story.

In other news... Michael Moore has a new movie out... and it's free!
slackeruprising.com

Cycling Obsession

2008-08-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

This here blog is liable to turn into a cycling journal primarily.

"If one is approaching a convex hill, applies power early, and powers over the hill, the speed is much greater than if one simply gears down as one approaches. You may think, but surely this is a tactic for racing alone! But the truth is, I use it often in touring. Sometimes I am crossing a bridge, so I need to keep my speed high, to get off of the narrow bridge as quickly as possible. But I have another strong reason for using these tactics when touring: I can save energy over grinding up the hill. However, the extra weight of the bike and also the fatigue of a long day do create limits to these strategies." --http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/skills/uphill.htm

I am racing on Sunday in a 22 mile very hill race. check out the hilliness:

Schule auch vertig los

2008-05-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

uhh... my German isn't what it used to be. Translate as: all done for the summer. I'm predicting a 3.5 for the semester. But I really don't know how I did on my last two papers.

Someone needs to learn them when they're young how to hypermile, because that right there is gonna net him nothing but bad FE.

Easter and Other shenanigans

2008-05-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

I never did the Easter Update. Photos taken with dad's camera of the Easter walk, before Leslie and I had arrived....

From top down: Aaron, Zane, Nadia and Gillian

John and Gillian

Doug and Gil

I arrived late to the Easter Walk because I had to wait for Leslie to get dressed. By the time we arrived, everyone was numchuckles near ready to pack it up. I didn't realize this at the time and wanted to do some hiking behind the falls, so Tobias and I set off. We both took pictures of the gushing falls still encrusted in ice. On the way down I told him I wanted to get more pictures from a vantage point I suspected to be a ways to the left of the steep wooded slope we were hiking down. He couldn't be bothered and continued down. Easter Sunday 2008 is a story in pictures.

When we reached the top, everyone had gone.

Nad had waited at my car with Leslie and Zane. When we got back I realized I had left my green cashmere sweater at the falls. Steffen had brought it up while Tobias and I were behind the falls. He left it on the railing, assuming I'd see it on my way out, but I think someone else saw before I got back down. Tobias and I drove back to Bash Bish later that evening at dusk. The last dull glow of the sunset the only light hovering on the horizon. I looked where my brother said he had left it but it wasn't there.

After I had scoured the area and didn't find my sweater, I walked back up to the road but the car nor Tobias did I see. Perplexed, I started walking up the road. After a short while, the probing beam of the flashlight spotted a shape laid out on the pavement. I squinted and upon approach, made out that it was Tobias.

What was Tobias doing lying on his back in the middle of the road? Was he dead? As I puzzled through the possibilities he suddenly came to life.

Switching Gears

Doug is one cool dude.

Doug gets a kiss from Christina

I'm no guppy!

"Hey Bucky"

Ben's gym nearly done.

A lady at Ganga Extravaganza was walking around with a pet python. Ganga Extravaganza is a festival of young, stoned, students campaigning to legalize marijuana. Really it's an excuse to get stoned without being harassed (not really sure how that works.) There were a few live bands playing, but otherwise it was pretty low key.

Tick Season means Lyme Disease

2008-04-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

Well, Seekonk seems to be tick heaven as half the people living in that low lying wooded area seem to have contracted Lyme Disease. I went for a very lovely stroll through the woods and, no surprise, when I woke up early this morning before the light to get a glass of water felt an itchy sensation near my bum and when I drowsily went to scratch it noticed that little tell tale flap of tick attached to me. After unsuccessful attempts with small medical scissors to remove the tick (they only served to cut off part of its backside) I tried the other method I was most familiar with: trying to burn it off with a burnt chopstick. But when that didn't work either, I went online to find out the best method for tick removal. I found one unsubstantiated claim that rubbing soap on it encourages it to leave, so I tried it but the tick didn't respond. I then found recurring websites that stated the following:

1. Do not use petrollium jelly, nail polish or nail polish remover, soap or other ointments to get the tick bothered enough to give up its host (you). While these methods may work, they may also incite the tick to regurgitate its meal, increasing the chance of injecting you with disease, even if it hasn't been 24 hours since it became so attached to you.

2. Do not try to burn the tick out. For the same reason. The stress of being burned can cause the tick to regurgitate saliva or gut contents, besides the fact that more often than not the tick will not remove itself... and the risk of burning yourself.

3. So how DO you remove a tick? The best way is to use good old fashioned tweezers. Get as close to the skin as possible and grasp the bugger firmly and pull straight out. Avoid jerky movements or twisting the tick. A firm, steady hand is all that is needed and is the best method. Jerking the tick or twisting it will only increase the chance of having mouthparts being left attached to your skin. Two reasons for getting as close to the skin as possible: one, you'll be less likely to upset the tick, and thus incite it to regurgitation, and secondly, it will remove easier the closer to the skin you grasp it.

Alternatively, a method used by fishermen may be employed which does not risk squeezing the tick's thorax. Use 18 inches of fine weight fishing line. The line is tied in a simple overhand knot that is tightened slowly around the tick's head. If the line is pressed against the skin while being gently pulled, the knot will tighten around the tick's head. Slowly pulling the ends of the line will then dislodge the tick from the bite site with a reduced chance of leaving the head attached. This method also works with sewing thread.

4. Once tick is removed, disinfect hands and site of bite and put the tick in a plastic bag and note the date on the bag (or on a piece of paper in the bag) and place it in the freezer. If you get sick later, you'll know precisely how long its been since you were bit, and you can have the tick analyzed later to see if the tick is really the cause for your flu like symptoms.

5. Its best to remove the tick less than 24 hours after being bit as this reduces the likelihood of contracting Lyme Disease or other tick caused illnesses.

My devour is the same as your devour

2008-04-17T15:01:00.000-07:00

So a student told the professor during lecture. Just about everyone in lecture agreed that they had the same devour as the professor, except for one student who really didn't see anything wrong with saying "The children and adults from mars told Klem that the cat might devour."

The professor was saying that without saying what the cat might devour, the sentence is incomplete. The student who raised her hand and said "my devour is the same as yours" was stating that she agrees that it doesn't sound right to leave no object after devour. Most the rest of the class also agreed. The professor told the student who didn't agree that his devour must be different from the professor's. You can't say "Tomorrow the world will devour" but you can say "Tomorrow the world will eat." So the question is, what is the difference between the two verbs "to eat" and "to devour" that make this difference? 'Ts interesting.

Elsewhile when the professor sees the students might not be entirely enthralled with the material being taught he writes on the board: "The large dog has shat on the elf" to get their attention. The effect works. This isn't a random sentence though. We have been studying ambiguity in sentence syntax. Most of the time the former pupil of linguist Noam Chomsky has the class laughing--part teacher, part comedian. A couple classes he actually brought in a pet elf a former student had given him to demonstrate the subtle syntactic differences in meaning in a given sentence: "Some angry guy smashed the elf on the table." What does this sentence mean? Well, it actually has several meanings. To demonstrate, Kyle climbed up onto the table/podium in front of lecture to differentiate that "some angry guy smashed the elf on the table" and "some angry guy smashed the elf on the table." See the difference? No? It's okay, I didn't either at first. I'll explain. So in the first, some angry guy smashed the elf while he was standing on the table. Whereas in the second, some angry guy smashed the elf that was on the table. We draw syntactic trees in class to differentiate between all the meanings a sentence like this has. Adjectives and prepositional phrases introduce ambiguity of meaning into sentences we take for granted as having one meaning, when they actually could have many. To show the difference in these two, Kyle climbs up on the podium (which he has a little bit of difficulty doing) and then, standing on the podium, starts smashing the elf. He then gets down from the podium and puts the elf on the table and then starts smashing the elf again. Then the elf starts singing a crazy tune about having no friends because it's a misfit... do you think the student who gave it to Kyle was trying to give him a hint?

Here's a picture of the fine professor:

They don't call it ZooMass for nothing.

New Soul - Yael Naim

2008-03-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

You've all probably heard the new MacBook Air ad. Well, if you haven't, you haven't missed anything but a great song. I thought I'd post the song by Israeli Yael Naim on here blog.

Better yet, go to www.pandora.com and sign up if you haven't already. Then create a new station called "new soul" -- very nice, chill music.

Speaking of notebooks. I'm typing this blog on my new laptop! Very cute little portable. I feel like I've suddenly been launched into the future. No more chicken scratch while taking notes in lecture anymore.
Also: stay tuned for the Easter walk update coming soon.

Spring Break... just a little bit

2008-03-21T21:58:00.001-07:00

Approaching the end of my spring break. Not quite as fun as Fraser Island in Australia I'm afraid....

Lake Mckenzie, Fraser Island, Australia, 2006? Yeah, good times those were.

Rather posthumous photos to be surfacing now, but one of my friends from my Australian trip just posted these on Facebook.

setting up camp.

getting slammed against the rocks--not sure what the appeal of this was now, but at the time it looked like a great idea.

Another one of Champagne Cove

whose the dork with his shirt on? Afraid of a little sun are we? Well, yes I am, thank you very much.

Fun times indeed! We all went sledding, running and tumbling down the sand dune.

we had a race at one point, but I think I ended up faceplanted in the sand somewhere... I don't quite remember. Dave was just happy not to be last.

A dingo. In numbers they can be a threat to humans.

wayward ship.

The Devil's Arcade

2008-03-10T21:50:00.000-07:00

so apparently (according to Shauana, my roommate whom I went to the Bruce Springsteen concert with) Bruce Springsteen covered a song by the Arcade Fire. Not sure if the title of this blog post and song is an homage to The Arcade Fire or not, but at any rate, a great song by da Boss on his latest album "Magic".

So it turns out I like large concerts. Never really knew I did, but definitely would like to see him again in the summer. Was one of the biggest natural highs liberated by a little alcohol I've experienced--good times dancin' in the dark. So after the superlative performance by Bruce an' company the radiator hose on my car came loose as we were driving out of the parking garage (a 20 minute episode in itself) and overheated. No biggie, went to a bar and borrowed a pitcher of water to replace the missing fluid and put the hose back on; finally found a gas station and bought some coolant and a flathead screwdriver and tightened the hose down good; problem fixed; no exploding engine on the ride home.

let's hear it for the good samaritan

2008-03-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

What do you do when you leave your lights on and come back to your car? Don't panic. Well, if you are in the middle of town on a busy street with a lazy red light keeping traffic at a crawl, just hook up the jumper cables and stand next to your car. You don't even have to wave; two minutes later someone will stop in the middle of the street, and hopefully the cables are just long enough; and 30 seconds later you're on your way. If you're me, you learn early on to keep jumper cables in the back of the car. Uhh.. maybe someday I'll buy another camera, until then it's edge of your seat exciting moments like this to dazzle and entertain.

Magic

2008-02-29T09:49:00.001-08:00

The writer's job and challenge is to take two dimensional words; to arrange a bunch of squiggles that make up language in a way as to illicit in the reader's imagination and stores of experience a visceral, three dimensional understanding of something they may have never actually experienced themselves. This is obviously not easy and I have class in a few minutes so all I'll say right now is the Boss is still the boss and Bruce Springsteen is a Living Legend. The concert was Magic.

I'm giong to a Bruce Springsteen Concert!

2008-02-27T21:46:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'm gonna see the Boss perform live in Hartford with the E Street Band!! Somehow I know not how, I scored two free tickets valued at over $100 a piece. I've invited one of my roommates along who has a similar opinion of the Boss as myself; not a raving fan, but definitely not going to pass up an opportunity to see a living legend rock out only the way the Boss knows how. VERRY ROCKIN' Check back soon for an update on the show! In other lucky news, I picked up a nearly new $100 printer/fax/scanner for $20 because some lady was moving and didn't use it much. I also scored a circa $2000 88 key electric piano that sounds like a real high quality piano (but has great functionality for hooking up to a PC) for $600. I'm just all sorts of scoring lately.

2009 Auto Show

2008-02-27T19:37:00.001-08:00

Cars are fun. So couple weekends ago I went down to Philadelphia with mein bruder to visit my cousin Jonathan and his wife Allison. We threw the football in the park and I jumped the fence Jacky Chan style. The highlight of the show was when my car was featured! Yes, I'm not kidding! Same generation, same model, same color! But all blinged out with 617 horsepower or something ridiculous like that which is Mclaren F1 territory.

First, another photo that needs a caption. Come on, people, I know who most of you are that look at this blog and most of you are clever and smart and I'm sure you could come up with some good captions.

OMG Britney Spears having sex in public with 50 cent!

Still the best tuner car ever made:

Steffen checks out a stylish crossover Bimmer. Or was it the M5?

That's Jonathan in the background with the carrot colored hair and brown jacket.

This car had interesting seats. Kind of like how Miller High Life is the champagne of beers (the stuff you learn at college) this car is the champagne of ... cars.

The exterior:

Jonathan showing the camera some love

Jake in front of an American Revolution. Sorry, this revolution doesn't involve overthrowing Dick Cheney.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Porsche Cayman. Go on, you can drool with me. Just don't get any on your keyboard.

Lotus Exige. Very interesting name. I wouldn't recommend trying to say it ten times fast.

This Mercedes starts at $495,000. I think it might be overpriced. Granted it carries the Mclaren badge.

Audi's flagship sports car. I think it costs less than 1/6th of the above Merc.

Somebody wrecked this one but they couldn't be bothered to remove it from the show.

Umm... sexy.

That is what I call a fine caboose.

From Blog to Oscar: celebrating unlikely successes

2008-02-25T14:30:00.002-08:00

A stripper is not most people's preconception of an Oscar winning screenwriter, yet blogger and former stripper Diablo Cody can lay that distinguished claim as recipient for best original screenplay this year at the 80th Oscars.

Other notable wins were for No Country for Old Men for which the oh too cool Cohen Brothers took best Director as well as Best Picture but who does Ethan Cohen keep signaling to on stage? As expected, Daniel Day Lewis took the win for Best Actor in a leading role. But the highlight of the night was when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won for best original song for their film Once, winning out over three nominated songs from Dinsey's Enchanted in a David vs. Goliath type match up where the big Hollywood studio was expected to win. Marketa Irglova didn't get a chance to say thank you so they let her come back out, which was cool. The film Once was shot in 3 weeks for $100,000. Here's to small independent films and "fair play to those who dare to dream and don't give up."

Just found out Ms. Irglova only just turned 20 years old! Hansard is 38. They are dating.

A random guy playing a cover of Falling Slowly on the street.

Amazing how many covers of this song there are on youtube.

Disappointing from last night was Cate Blanchett's snub as she had two nominations and should have won for her supporting role as Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There." Tilda Swinton had the surprise upset in the category for her role in "Michael Clayton." According to Wikipedia Hansard and Irglova performed a cover of a Dylan song for the "I'm Not There" soundtrack.

Kitty needs a caption

[Insert caption here]

Black History Month: MLK and W.E.B DuBois

2008-02-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

As Black History month enters its final week, thought I'd post MLK's "I have a dream" speech since I never actually seen or heard the entire thing.

Martin Luther King talking about death threats on his life.

Great Barrington is the birthplace of W.E.B. DuBois and as I write this, I am sitting at a computer in the W.E.B. DuBois library at Umass Amherst. The video is a brief summary of his life and his influence as an important American historical figure.

Watch it!

Esoteric Cycle and other videos

2008-02-21T14:57:00.001-08:00

Esoteric Cycle part 1

Esoteric Cycle part 12

JFK speaking on secret societies

Jake's weather blog continued....

2008-02-19T19:03:00.000-08:00

So I heard on the radio this morning some weather person on WAMC talking about how the winters when he was a youngster were brutally cold and that they are not like they used to be and on one specific year, 1969, he remembers snow banks as high as the telephone wires. But it's not just New England's winters which are moderating. My good buddy from Russia emailed me! If you remember my VA Beach blog, Vadim is the Russian lad who I painted houses for Doug Schmolze with. He sent news that winter in Russia is very warm and that he has only been able to go ice skating once! And I guess you can forget about skiing this winter in Russia. Apparently it's that bad. But he sent along some very nice photos, so even though I don't have a camera to upload pics, I can put up his!

Vad the Impaler.

Red Square in St. Petersburg

Russia's defense consists of a man with a ruler and a glint in his eye. Yes, I remember the days when a nation could run on pure, unadulterated idealism alone.

Holy shit the guy on the radio wasn't kidding! Wow what a way to kick of the new year and decade; January 1st, 1970: 36 inches of snow on the ground, high temperature of 15 degrees and a low temperature of -18. That was just the start of a long cold spell. From January 1st to January 25th the low temp was 5 degrees or colder with 13 of those nights in the double digit sub zero range with an ultimate low of -24. I've never experienced -24F, have you? Who remembers this winter? Fantastic. I'm gonna build myself a time machine. On Christmas day the low temperature was -22. Another fascinating thing. Despite the frigid temperatures during the period, the snow pack declined twenty inches in 9 days from 36 to 16 and the highest the daytime temp reached during that period was 27F. Snow must have settled or sumthin. Does snow evaporate? Maybe it all blew away...

The snowpack was a result of having 5 inches of snow on the ground when on December 22nd a foot of snow fell. The next three days each saw over an inch of snow. White Christmas anyone? All the while the high temperature never comes close to freezing. Then on December 26th 22 inches of snow falls. Hence 36 inches of snow on the ground. May 12 of that year saw 29 degrees. Low temp for 1968 was -26 degrees.

Unrelated, on October 4, 1987 the low temperature was 33 degrees and the high temperature was 44. Yet 6.5 inches of heavy wet snow fell that day snapping all the still fully leafed trees. I remember that day well. J.P. and I prayed for snow the night before. I inadvertently went sliding off the garage roof and my short little life flashed before my eyes right as I approached the edge. I couldn't believe I was actually going to fall off the roof. I couldn't believe my short little life was about to come to an end. I just couldn't believe it. Somehow, in a far corner of my mind, I thought, I hoped, this couldn't really be happening and something, somehow, was going to deliver me from my abrupt end. All I remember next was laughing really really hard and awkwardly pulling myself out of a big soft snowbank. I was totally unhurt. I clambered up the roof again to slide off another time. It was that day we built an igloo at J.P.'s and had hot chocolate inside. Oh, yes, those were the days when children dared to dream outrageous dreams because they didn't know they were outrageous, and so their dreams came true. It was only in retrospect many years later that I suddenly realized how absurd it was to be thinking about winter in the beginning of October or how much of a fluke that snowstorm was. It was still too early even to have an Indian Summer! But we were delighted that it actually snowed and had no idea that it was such a fluke snowstorm. I actually do remember feeling guilty and overwhelmed by the power and havoc the storm had wreaked (it was a bit more than I was wishing for, nor had I taken into account the leaves on the trees hadn't even peaked) so I guess it was a kind of a watch what you wish for fable.

Hah, the high temperature for March, 1938 was 80 degrees and the low temp for the month was -3. Wow, the same year April's high temp was 92 and low 23.

Memories not exaggerated:
Here is a photo from the famed 1978 Blizzard that clobbered Boston among other major cities:

"On February 6th and 7th 1978, 27.1 inches of snow fell in Boston. The storm quickly became known as The Blizzard of 78. Along the coast, the tides were devastating. At the height of the blizzard, the ocean storm surge rose 15.2 feet above the normal low tide mark. Many homes in coastal communities in Massachusetts Bay were completely destroyed. Severe flooding occurred in many low-lying towns. The storm strengthened during afternoon rush hour, and people were buried in their cars on the highways surrounding Boston. 99 people tragically lost their lives due to the blizzard. The value of all property destroyed was about $1.3 billion [or $2.8 billion current dollars]. The above photo was taken on February 8th or 9th. Please note that cars are completely buried on both sides of the street, and some buildings had their first floors partially buried." http://www.ebmainstreets.com/history/blizzardof78.htm

Part of the reason for the huge snow piles is that Boston was still digging out from another major snowstorm three weeks earlier that dumped 21 inches of snow.

Winter's last stand:

Birmingham, Alabama got over a foot of snow from the superstorm of March 1993. How bout that.

For some reason no photos can be found from the 1987 snowstorm. I think part of the reason is it was an isolated snowstorm that effected a relatively small area.

According to a Great Barrington weather station, the high temperature on December 26th, 1980 was -7 degrees.

Compare to the Albany weather station that reported 6.5 inches on Oct. 4, 1987 with the Great Barrington station that reported 2 inches for October 4th, but 10 inches for October 5th for a storm total of one foot. 55 was the high temp for both days and 30 and 32 low for each day.

West Stockbridge had 8 days of 52-62 degree weather during February in 1930 of which two days before the mercury was down to -21. It'd be funny if all these records were totally quackery, some dyslexic drunk entering the data.

Is it really getting warmer? An investigative report.

2008-02-17T20:26:00.001-08:00

Are our winters really getting shorter?

As nerdy as this blog post is, I felt compelled given that it has rained quite a bit the last couple days and is raining as I write this.

Curious as to whether our winters are really declining in snowfall amounts and severity, I finally took it upon myself to do some digging to see what I could discover. Through the www.NOAA.gov website, I obtained data dating back to 1922 for Albany for the daily rainfall amount(including snow melt), snowfall amount, observed snowfall on the ground for each given day as well as high and low temperatures. Here are my observations and interpretation:

I have no idea why I am an English major and not an atmospheric science major.

Other observations:

In the first year of complete data (1922) (other useful data starts in 1903--I'll get to that later) I already came across two -10 degree low temperatures. I don't think we've had -10 in at least a few winters now (-5 maybe, but not -10) Nevermind, two days in 2003 with a low reading of -12 and -16 reading for Jan. 28th, 2005. Also, from January 4th 1923 until March 13th of the same year there was observed on all days at least 3 inches of snow and throughout most of January there was more than a foot and nearly all of February around one foot (11-13 inches most common daily observed snow depth on the ground) with march seeing significant snow cover for the better half of the month. I did find a very similar winter recently: winter of 2002-2003 and the period of uninterrupted snowfall cover began sooner than the 1923 example and ended at very near the same time (3/15 vs 3/17 for 1923). Looking at the data closely, I have to conclude the data are not different enough to draw any kind of conclusion whatsoever. If anything, the 2002-2003 winter was more impressive.

other random data:
8/16/1922 had a high temp of 94F
7/23/1923 saw a high temp of 94F
7/30/1933 saw a high temp of 100F
7/09/1936 saw a high temp of 103F

I did not find high temps of the like of 100+ elsewhere in the data. In fact, scanning more than ten years back I didn't see one mid 90s reading. The highest I saw going back more than ten years was a couple of 94 readings (two days back to back in 2007), a 96 in 2001, a 95 in 1999. For 1998 temp never reached above 88 and there was a 99 in 1995 with 5 or more degrees cooler for the two days immediately before and after.

as far as winters being duds 1932 was a mild one, saw only a couple wimpy snow falls and most of the time observed 0 inches or a trace of snow on the ground for the entire winter. 0.5 inches of snow for all of December, the most single snowfall for January was 3.5 inches with only a total of 5.3 for the month. February saw a few more 3 inch snowfalls and if it wasn't for a late season snowstorm at the end of March of 14 inches, it would have been a truly abysmal winter.

It should also be noted that Boston and New York in recent years set snowfall records. Boston in 2003 set an all time snowfall total for a given month, and then again this year broke total snowfall record for December. In 2004 Central Park set a snowfall total record from a single snowstorm by I think 1/2 an inch (26.9 inches) It was the snowstorm I missed because I was in Cali for Ana Sophia's birthday. And regretted not flying home sooner and hanging out in New York with Sol. (You remember that snowstorm, eh Sol?)

Perhaps better data to look at for indication of whether winters are getting worse is to look at data for Washington D.C. or New York but it's very tedious to sift through the data.

Another important indicator, perhaps the most important in my reckoning, is how much rain/snow melt there is in the winteriest months of December, January, February and March; more important, perhaps, than snowfall totals as that data can better show an indicator of a warming trend. (The warmer it is the more precip will be measured in melted form than frozen.) Since it can snow at any temperature below 32, and winters in Albany see 0 degrees regularly, if there had been an average increase in temp by 2 degrees in the last 100 years, it wouldn't have that great an effect on frequency of snowstorms or snowstorm amounts, but only increase the number of cusp storms to produce more water than snow/ice precipitation (as I am experiencing right now as it is raining.)

So let's do a little observational experiment. I'll look at the last ten winters (December 1996 to December 2007) and the first ten winters (December 1903 to December 1914) (rain/snow melt data goes back to 1903) and count the number of months among December, January, February and March to see how many of those months have rain/snow melt greater than 3 inches. Remember, the greater the rain precipitation combined with snow/ice melt indicates more warm temperatures. We'll also compare the total amount of rain/snow melt between the two periods. A preliminary look indicates to me more rain/snow melt for the period 1997-2007 than 1903-1913 although I did see a winter month within the period of the beginning of last century having 6 inches of rain/snowmelt. But I'm going to hypothesize that to be an outlier (a fluke) and not indicative of an overall trend for that period.

and the results:

1904-1914 had a total rain/snow melt of 92.08 (The outlier ended up not being in this section of data, but later on)

1997-2007 had a total rain/snow melt of 128.05 inches which is 39% more rain/snow melt.

However, just from scanning the data for all months it appeared all the months in the earlier period were dryer than the recent years. This data also does not take into account la niña or el niños.

Although it just occurred to me by the end of March all the snow will have melted by that time anyway. So removing March from the data totals, let's compare:
66.77 inches for beginning of last century vs. 90.57 inches from last decade, which is 35.6% more vs 39% more with the original set of data. I think this method was actually pretty inconclusive of any indication of a warming trend.

After scanning over all the data I cannot conclude that there has been a significant change in climate or winters. Just now looking at a random year (1926) I saw a 102F temp. Remember I scanned 12 years from 2007 to 1995 and the only remarkable temp I saw was 99F. And now I find another 100+ just by luck and not searching for it. (The next day the temp dropped 20 degrees.)

So are our winters getting worse? From the perspective of skiers, not wussies. I cannot draw any conclusion from this thorough waste of time. The only thing I can conclude is that it seemed a little dryer for the first decade of last century and 100+ temps seemed slightly more common 50+ years ago than they have been in the past decade. The number of Julys and Junes in the 1920s and 1930s with less than an inch of precip is quite common. Whereas lots of 6+ inches of rain in Junes and Julys in the last decade, including one incident of 11 inches of rain in September of 1999 and a couple months with 7 inches each. The winter of 1935-1936 saw less than twelve inches of cumulative snow for the entire winter and the biggest single snowfall dumped a whopping 4.8 inches... speaking of dry... and duds. I dunno, I might be inclined to say there are more weather extremes now as well. The winter I just mentioned wasn't that dry- it saw 4.5 inches of wet precip. Was a pretty mild winter, but no 60 degree readings. Just lots of 40s. It seems now we see 60 more frequently. Owner of ski resorts (like the former owner of Catamount who is an old timer) would probably be able to offer some insight on whether winters have gotten worse and warmer. Speaking of extremes, March 22 and 23 both hit 80 degrees in 1938. You know, it's interesting, I'm really not seeing a significant pattern. That same year September saw 10.33 inches of rain. September seems like a wet month. It also got down to 1 degree in November 26th. 64 Degrees February 20th, 1939. 1940, Xmas day 51 degrees. No snowstorms in 1942. I classify a snowstorm as 6 inches or more of snow at one time. Winter of 2005-2006 did not get below freezing. 1930 saw 101 degrees. The coldest it got in the winter of 1931-1932 was 8 degrees and that was in March (8 degrees warmer than the coldest it was in 2005-2006.) June, July and August saw 100, 100 and 101F degrees respectively. Ugh... the next thing I really should do is compare high temps for the winter months and low temps for the winter months. The data table does tell me that info for each month (I only just realized, because when I am scrolling down I cannot see the headings for each of the columns) I've checked all the way back to 1990 and still only that one 99F degree day. A 97 one as well, but no 100s. All the other 100s I've been finding in the 1930s etc I'm just seeing without searching for them. 1988 was hot with a 96, 99 and 97 for June, July and August. I'm all the way back now to the early 80s and nothing approaching 100. So in the last 25 years the temperature has not hit 100 degrees in Albany. Yet in the first 30 years it did so on more than 5 occasions without me even searching for such instances. Yet December of 1933 saw -21. I doubt I will find a single -20 in the same 25+ years I searched for one 100. We'll start with 1977, the year of Star Wars. -13 for 1977. -19 for 1979. In fact, this year brings to my attention another key factor. Not just the severity of a deep freeze but the longevity of one. In the year of my birth it was below freezing for nighttime lows a consecutive 10 nights, seven of those nights in the double digits below zero, five of which were consecutive. In 1980 it hit -20 (there goes that theory :P) Short lived cold snap tho, only 2 nights of sub-zero. However, the following month (January) of the same season (year 1981) saw -16 and 4 consecutive days of sub zero and 17 consecutive nights of 10 degrees or below 10. Furthermore, from December 12th to January 22nd (nearly six weeks) there were only six nights above 10 degrees with single digit lows continuing to dominate until middle of February at which point double digits won out and remained double digits for the remainder of the winter. The next year saw another fairly bad cold spell: 22 consecutive nights of 10 or below except for one night of 13 and another of 11 with a max low for the period of -11. Reason I point this out is because I think from 1995 and onward we did not have many sever cold spells like the ones I'm illustrating here. -20 the following year was seen. 1987 sees -15 with two different cold snap periods of 0 or below for 5 and 6 consecutive nights (both including double digit sub-zero nights) The following year saw 1 1/2 weeks of single digit lows with double digit sub-zero nights sprinkled in there. The entire month of December of 1989 was hovering around zero for nighttime lows with only 9 nights barely staying in the double digits. The following year, 1990 was much more mild with no appreciable cold snaps. '93 and '94 saw a handful of nights in the single sub-zero range. 1995 saw -18 but only brief cold snaps. -19 for 1996 and 2 weeks of 10 or colder nights with all but four of those zero or less. January of 1998, the coldest month of that winter, saw 24 nights not get out of the double digits with some nights as warm as 41 degrees. For the entire month (again, the coldest month of that winter) only three nights were single digits, with First Night being -7. February of that year was very similar with many nights remaining in the 30s. 1999 saw one isolated -10 otherwise lots of double digits and only a small smattering of single or sub-single digits for the winter. January of 2000 saw 18 consecutive days of single and sub-zero single digits except for one 11 degree night with a low for that winter of -9. The following year of terror fails it with only four consecutive nights in the positive single digits and no nights reaching zero or colder. 2002 was even worse with only two consecutive nights in posative single digit territory and never going below zero. In fact only 4 nights dropped below double digits for the entire winter. 2003 redeems itself somewhat with lots of single sub-zero nights. A low for the winter of -12 on two separate occasions and 19 nights of single or sub single digits (including the two nights of -12 already mentioned) and 3 nights of those 19 in the low double digits. 2004 was similar with a low of -13. 2005 -16 on two separate occasions otherwise not quite as many sub zero or low single digit nights as '04 and '03. The best winter of 05-'06 can manage is an unconvincing smattering of low single digits. '06-'07 manages to just scratch below the surface of zero but compared to those -20 winters of the late 1970s and earlier, fageddaboutit. Old man winter ain't holding on like he used to. Losing his grip as it were. Old man winter... you're getting old.... Getting tired of blowing from yonder north pole and his arctic blast just ain't reaching as far as it used to.

Let's go up now, from 1977.... End of February 1976 sees 67, January sees -16. '75 = -17. '74 = -14 twice and -13 but none of these years are managing the death grip of '79. '73 = -21. 6/11/72 drops down to 37. -16 for '72. June of '71 sees 38. '71 sees six nights of double sub zero with an ultimate low of -28. And nearly 3 months of 8 inches or more snow pack with 5 snowstorms of 10 inches or more. 1970 June sees 39 degrees. Well, I'm beat, maybe I'll continue this tomorrow. If this last bit of data is arguing for less severity of cold in the last 15 years, here is an interesting counterpoint:

Al Gore says global warming is a planetary emergency. It is difficult to see how this can be so when record low temperatures are being set all over the world. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.

Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years. Antarctica is getting colder. Neither the intensity nor the frequency of hurricanes has increased. The 2007 season was the third-quietest since 1966. In 2006 not a single hurricane made landfall in the U.S.

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

Last January, $1.42 billion worth of California produce was lost to a devastating five-day freeze. Thousands of agricultural employees were thrown out of work. At the supermarket, citrus prices soared. In the wake of the freeze, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked President Bush to issue a disaster declaration for affected counties. A few months earlier, Mr. Schwarzenegger had enthusiastically signed the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, a law designed to cool the climate. California Sen. Barbara Boxer continues to push for similar legislation in the U.S. Senate.

In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.

Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years.

Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are just emerging from a destructive ice storm that left at least 36 people dead and a million without electric power. People worldwide are being reminded of what used to be common sense: Cold temperatures are inimical to human welfare and warm weather is beneficial. Left in the dark and cold, Oklahomans rushed out to buy electric generators powered by gasoline, not solar cells. No one seemed particularly concerned about the welfare of polar bears, penguins or walruses. Fossil fuels don't seem so awful when you're in the cold and dark.

If you think any of the preceding facts can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.

Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo.

David Deming is a geophysicist, an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis, and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071219/COMMENTARY/10575140

Indiana Jones retuns to theaters in May

2008-02-17T19:26:00.000-08:00

Nothing much better to blog about. Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is coming out May 22nd.

High Res
CLICK HERE

Low Res

Umass Amherst

2008-02-05T08:28:00.001-08:00

I don't gots my camera no more so I cants put up da photos and da videos of da new life and home of Jacobis. I'm living with three nice roommates, two girls, a guy and a wood stove, in a nice three story house going up a hill just east of Amherst. So I'm in da country but still close to school. We got wet wood to burn in a funky top loading wood stove. That seems to be the highlight so far, because it seems to be what everything revolves around. I mean, literally; like people physically revolve around it. Because it's centrally located in the middle of the house. It's a small house and the living room is on one side and the kitchen on the other side. So it's like, central heating proper. It also takes up lot of our time because we are constantly prying wet wood from the frozen outside and then trying to dry it around the wood stove and then put it in and watch the thermostat on the smoke stack try to climb to 300F. *Active particulate collection stage.* On the other end of the thermostat reads *Particulate cleaning stage activated* but we've only seen it there once when the girls were nice enough to buy some kiln super dried wood that burns like peace in the middle east: 700F anyone? The world is heating up, but it's a cold rain here today schlepping around campus.

That and I teeter on the edge of college alcohol culture which I don't really want to be a part of. I like my liver. I like being healthy. But that's kind of the situation I find myself in the middle of. Last weekend I felt like I was tumbling backward in time as I lay nauseated and spinning on the couch. I am 18 again? The Jello shots didn't have enough Jello but still went down like butter, hence the spin cycle. Drove home to setup Nadia's computer and had some fine local farm fresh yogurt which my unsettled queasy stomach greatly appreciated. It was the same kind of fare that kept me so healthy so much of the time in India (called curd).

When I was home I watched the Superbowl. How about those ads? How about those last five minutes, eh? End result disappointing at best, but everyone I was watching with was rooting for the underdog. I really thought NE was gonna hold them for the remaining four point five minutes.

* * *

Maybe I borrow somebody's camera at some point and get a visual on the situation here.

Oh, I almost forgot. I got a haircut and look like a puffy poodle... or a girl, whichever you prefer. Just imagine... cause you ain't gonna get a picture. Great way to kick off the new start. And we have a long eared rabbit living in the apartment. I sometimes hear it scamper back and forth during the night two stories up.

Scott Ritter on going to War with Iran

2008-01-25T21:47:00.000-08:00

Former Chief weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter illustrates how Bush's rhetoric is "fabricating and misrepresenting data...to exploit the ignorance of the American public" in an effort to justify going to war with Iran.

listen to Scott Ridder speak about Bush's latest war mongering

Frogs in a pot:

"They say that if you put a frog into a pot of boiling water,
it will leap out right away to escape the danger.

But, if you put a frog in a kettle that is filled with water that is cool and pleasant,
and then you gradually heat the kettle until it starts boiling,
the frog will not become aware of the threat until it is too late.
The frog's survival instincts are geared towards detecting sudden changes.

This is a story that is used to illustrate how people might get themselves into terrible trouble.
This parable is often used to illustrate how humans have to be careful to watch slowly changing trends in the environment, not just the sudden changes. Its a warning to keep us paying attention not just to obvious threats but to more slowly developing ones.

An example:
Let's say that every year, the local well had an inch less of water in it. A person might realize there's a problem if there's suddenly NO water, but a slowly dropping level might not be an obvious crisis until it's too late!
Can you think of other examples?" taken from http://allaboutfrogs.org/stories/boiled.html

What's going on?

2008-01-25T20:44:00.000-08:00

And so I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and I get real high and I scream at the top of my lungs what's going on?

Twenty - five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
And I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means
And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream at the top of my lungs
What's going on?
And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what's going on?
Ooh, ooh ooh
And I try, oh my god do I try
I try all the time, in this institution
And I pray, oh my god do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution
And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar
And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream at the top of my lungs
What's going on?
And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what's going on?
Twenty - five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

If I may quote the 4 Non Blondes....

Also... whose Mike Gravel?

Grow a brain people!! Sheeeeet!! Is there no hope?

May 4, 2007 transcript of interview with Mike Gravel from truthdig.com

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

Harris: ... so, I want to know if you would share with us what you think should be next for us in Iraq.

Gravel: What should be next is to get out, and one of the things that we should do is—. There’s a civil war going on, and so when you hear Hillary and the others say, “Well, we’re going to get out,” they’re not getting out; they’re talking about just pulling back the combat troops. That still leaves 100,000 American soldiers there and 50,000 mercenaries and then all those war profiteers that are over there ripping it off at the expense of the Iraqis. So we’re going to leave all those people there and “Sure, we’re going to end the war.” You can’t end the war. Our presence is causing the war, our very presence. So if we leave any troops there at all, the insurgents will continue the war and they’ll continue killing other people. So their plan is a non-starter.

My plan would be very simple: We pull our troops out. As we’re pulling our troops out—that takes about 60 days—we turn around and get the puppet government ... and I want to say it, the word is probably ... the puppet government that we’ve set up ... we get them to draft 3 million young Iraqis. These young Iraqis are unemployed. Who do you think is part of the insurgency or these militias? It’s these young people that have no way of making a living and so they do this “insurgency” with banditry—the whole nine yards. What we do is draft them, put them in uniforms. OK? No civilian clothes. No arms. No arms. Begin to disarm them and turn around and give them the tools to rebuild their country with their own hands. And get the damned American war profiteers out of the country. Let them build their country, let them have some pride.

We had a program like this in the ’30s. It was called the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC. That’s what we need to do with Iraq and then get out, and use diplomacy, let them form their own government. It’s their country. Politicians in Washington feel we’re going to cut the country up in this way, that we’re going to get them to do this with their oil. ... It’s their oil! Let them do what they want with it. Who are we to go tell them what to do? Can you imagine if we had a million and a half, a million five hundred troops in the United States—and that’s about the proportions now population-wise. If we had a million and a half troops in the United States that had the power to go anywhere with their weapons and to kick in any door and to shoot anybody when they panic, what do you think would happen in the United States of America?

Harris: Our editor, Robert Scheer, in a recent panel with Nancy Snow and a bunch of other folks, Chris Hedges ... said that we are in fact afraid to let these Iraqis make their own history. Why do you think we are so fearful of leaving and allowing them to shape, as you said, their own future?

Gravel: Two reasons. One, we want to continue to control the oil and the media people on the Hill are getting briefings that we’ll lose control of this oil. That’s why we went to war. Who cares if we lose control of the oil? They’re going to sell it. They can’t drink the oil. What we should be doing is spending our treasured resources to get off of oil and to get off of that dependency. And of course, I have the proposal for a carbon tax that will begin to do it but we’ve got to first get our heads screwed on right.

It’s very simple. Energy is not an American problem. Energy, the environment, is not an American problem; it’s a global problem, and we need to work with other people from a global point of view. So I would have a carbon tax and under my administration we would set up a global institution and we’d ask other countries to come in and join us and to put carbon tax on their people and then we would take that money and integrate the global scientific community and the global engineering community into getting us off of carbon in a decade. When I say global ... the Chinese are ahead of us in fusion. The French are ahead of us in fission. The Israelis are ahead of us in photovoltaic. We’re ahead, of course, in weaponry. A lot of good that’s going to do us in the long run.

Scheer: ... I know you said earlier that you don’t need as many mavericks. I would hope that people are learning from you and I hope that we actually have more mavericks. I think we need more mavericks right now, more people who—.

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

read the rest of the interview in its entirety here
or listen to the interview here

Please visit Mike Gravel's website: www.gravel2008.us

There's something to be said for blind optimism If the few political leaders that are not part of the bought system don't believe in themselves then there is no chance of at least exposing a tired, apathetic public of what we want and deserve from a politician.

Democrat Kucinich Quits White House Race

2008-01-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

But he doesn't quit the good fight. Please go to the website and continue to show your support for this leader of uncompromising integrity. www.integritynow.org

By JOE MILICIA, Associated Press Writer Jan. 24, 6:15pm

CLEVELAND - Democrat Dennis Kucinich is abandoning his second, long-shot bid for the White House as he faces a tough fight to hold onto his other job — U.S. congressman.

In an interview with Cleveland's Plain Dealer, the six-term House member said he was quitting the race and would make a formal announcement on Friday.

"I will be announcing that I'm transitioning out of the presidential campaign," Kucinich said. "I'm making that announcement tomorrow about a new direction."

Kucinich has received little support in his presidential bid; he got 1 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and was shut out in the Iowa caucuses. He did have a devoted following.

Kucinich, 61, is facing four challengers in the Democratic congressional primary March 4, and earlier this week he made an urgent appeal on his Web site for funds for his re-election. Rival Joe Cimperman has been critical of Kucinich for focusing too much time outside of his district while campaigning for president.

His decision comes a month after the death of his youngest brother, Perry Kucinich.

Kucinich said he will not endorse another Democrat in the primary.

Kucinich brought the same sense of idealism to his second run for president as he did in his first bid. He said he was entering the race again because the Democratic Party wasn't pushing hard enough to end the Iraq war.

Once dubbed the "boy mayor" of Cleveland, he made an unpopular decision to refuse to sell a publicly owned utility that pushed the city into default and drove him from office.

After the city's financial troubles, the mayor faced death threats, and was forced to wear a bulletproof vest when he threw out the first ball at a Cleveland Indians game. He barely survived a recall vote.

But he lost his bid for re-election as mayor of Cleveland in 1978 to Republican George Voinovich, who went on to become governor and then U.S. senator. His life and his political career were derailed. Kucinich spent more than a decade trying to get back into politics — traveling around the country and then working as a teacher, consultant and television news reporter.

In 1994, Kucinich was elected state senator and he then won a seat in Congress in 1996. His once unpopular stand against the sale of the municipal electric system was praised as courageous. In 1998, the Cleveland City Council issued him a commendation for having the foresight to refuse to sell it.

During his time in Congress, Kucinich has been one of the most outspoken liberals, opposing international trade agreements like the North America Free Trade Agreement and marching with protesters in Seattle during a meeting of the World Trade Organization.

As a presidential candidate, he has proposed a Department of Peace, backed universal health care and supported gay marriage. He also pushed for impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.

At a debate last October, Kucinich delivered one of the night's lighter moments when he confirmed seeing an unidentified flying object at the Washington state home of actress Shirley MacLaine. With a smile, he said he would open a campaign office in Roswell, N.M., home to many alleged UFO sightings.

Kucinich married British citizen Elizabeth Harper, in 2005, ensuring his 2008 campaign would have one dramatic difference from his first campaign. Kucinich told New Hampshire audiences during the 2004 race that he was seeking a mate. Women then vied for a date with him during a contest arranged by a New Hampshire political Web site, but nothing romantic evolved from Kucinich's breakfast with the winner.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS 3rd graf to correct spelling in quote; ADDS graf on UFO sighting.) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_el_pr/kucinich_withdraws

Viggo Mortensen to snub Oscars!?

2008-01-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

Thought you'd appreciate this Ben.

taken from azcentral

Viggo Mortensen is prepared to snub the Oscars. The 49-year-old actor is up for a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a ruthless Russian gangster in ‘Eastern Promises,’ but will boycott next month’s prestigious Academy Awards if the Hollywood writers’ strike is still unresolved. “If there’s a strike I will not go but I have a feeling they’ll solve it. I hope they do. I’m sure my mother would like to see me on TV,” Mortensen said Mortensen is up against George Clooney, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones and Johnny Depp for the Best Actor accolade at the awards ceremony on February 24.

New Weekly Feature!

2008-01-23T15:35:00.001-08:00

We have a new weekly feature for all you loyal fans of the web publication Shire Shenanigans. It's Wednesday Workouts with Benito! We're kicking off our new feature with a fun little exercise called Glute-ham raises. Watch and weep.

Notice how slowly he lowers himself and also how he pushes back up with as little as possible so as to maximize the glutimus maximus.

Click To Play

Glimpse into the Oscars

2008-01-23T07:18:00.000-08:00

This maybe the year remembered for most films recognized by Oscar that weren't formulaic Hollywood Oscar bate fare but made with the artistic intent of the filmmakers in the forefront and not the studio. Let's just hope Atonement doesn't win the top prize just for that fact as it is the only quintessential Oscar bate film nominated this year. (I actually haven't seen it, but that's the impression I get.) It shouldn't win, as it was the only film nominated for best picture and not nominated for best directing as well, which "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" was nominated for instead. A film about a man paralyzed by a massive stroke whose only form of communicating is through blinking. (Seems perhaps reminiscent of "The Sea Inside" which stars the same Javier Bardem who gives the chilling and haunting performance in "No Country for Old Men".)

I like films as much as the next gal, and everyone likes it when a film that isn't Oscar bate gets nominated for best picture. I haven't seen Juno yet, but apparently the director wasn't really thinking his movie was Oscar material. I mean, after all, it was written by a stripper:

Juno | Dailies | Academy Awards 2008

Another film I was sort of surprised got nominated was "There Will Be Blood" by Paul Thomas Anderson, director of films like Boogie Nights and Magnolia. If you like watching fervent, possessed evangelical type characters freaking out in more terrifying ways than anything in the Exorcist then you'll like "There Will Be Blood." While not quite as disturbing and effecting as the Cohen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men" (also nominated) for me it was Daniel Day Lewis' performance, not the demented evangelical's, that made the movie for me. Mr. Lewis' was so sensationally compelling and entertaining it sort of makes up for the film's muddled purpose and nowhere going plot about a greedy oil man who loses sight of what's important (if he ever had sight of what was important)--basically his character goes from bad to worse and crazy). Both movies take place in the desert west, both eschew typical Hollywood story arcs, both films dominated Oscar nominations with 8 nods a piece, and both movies just end . . . with any pretense of film formula never surfacing--and questions lingering. The desert scenes; the cinematography and subtle artistry in No Country For Old Men are exquisitely done, though, and at the very least should make the film a cult classic.

The final film to be nominated was Tony Gilroy's "Michael Clayton" starring George Clooney which apparently was too high brow for me because I found the film utterly unengaging.

On to the predictions:
I suppose Hollywood has a precedent for giving top prize to horror flicks (Silence of the Lambs). So even though No Country ends on a flat note (some critics argue this is part of its artistry and genius. << spoilers.) I say this film wins Best Pic followed up in order of likelihood: Juno, There Will Be Blood, Michael Clayton, Atonement. It really is a testament to the cinematic accomplishment of No Country that a film that can end so anticlimactically without conclusion the way it does can still garner a 95% rating on www.rottentomatoes.com. Btw, No Country is not for the faint of heart. I doubt I could sit through this film again. A good film does not necessarily mean a likable film!

Missing from the list of nominees was "Into The Wild" which I wasn't really surprised by (although I did like the film) but other pundits expected it to be recognized.

In other Oscar news, Aragorn, I mean, Viggo Mortensen has been nominted for Best Actor for his performance in Eastern Promises! and Lady Galadriel from Lothlorien-- I'm sorry... I mean Cate Blanchett has been nominated for Best Support Actress in "I'm Not There", the creatively realized biopic about Bob Dylan's life as well as best actress for Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

And now for the random video of the moment:
Why college students of all political affiliations pull for Texan (*gasp!*) Republican (*gasp!*) Ron Paul for President.

"U.S. Representative Paul (R-Texas) is running for the Republican presidential nomination on a platform of restoring the country to the values of the Constitution and founding fathers. Specifically, he wants to pull troops out of Iraq, repeal the income tax, abolish the Federal Reserve and put America back on the gold standard." quoted from the above "college students" link.

Home and Body Improvement with Ben

2008-01-12T15:19:00.001-08:00

Today we have a really exciting show for you folks. We are so fortunate as to have the great and venerable Ben with us today. Welcome Ben, it is wonderful to see you again!

Ben tell us a little bit about why we should be so excited to have you on our show today! (click to play video)

As you saw in the video, while talented and proficient in his work, Ben still manages to be humble in his daily activities, not letting his skills and prowess swell his head, but instead in a show of humility lowers his head to the garbage pale and actually kisses the garbage, for he acknowledges it too serves an important purpose for him in his labor of love.
To schedule a dynamite training session with Ben at his current studio in Lenox, call 413 695 8152.

I had the distinct honor of helping Ben out a little bit yesterday burn the old rotten wood from the Barn and other wood scraps from the barn to studio conversion job.

The fire before we threw on a giant slab of wet wood that was part of the wall of the barn.

Here the wet wood wall from the barn is incinerated by the super hot fire from all the dry wood I stuffed into the firepit to its absolute capacity.

Some fine craftmanship by Ben on his barn and what will be his new personal fitness studio.

Ben deftly installs a new window and carefully cuts and reinstalls the old pieces of wood around the window. What a pro job.

Jumping Jehosafat Giha

Can't have a bonfire without some leaping lemmings fun! now can we?(click to play video)

And now for something completely different. (video is from last year at Catamount)

Click To Play

Gov't runs a racquet: "I am coming to you"

2008-01-11T17:34:00.000-08:00

"You will explode in two minutes!"

Solomon Shinerock. Special bulletin just for you: Those IDs the government is trying to push on the people is a clear and direct result and reason for 9/11. Of course that is just a small part of a bigger picture, but anyway... as far as motivation for attacking our own country....

"'It certainly seems to be an effort by the federal government to create compliance with REAL ID whether states have an interest in doing so or not," said Don Cookson, spokesman for the Maine secretary of state's office.

The Sept. 11 attacks were the main motivation for the changes: The hijacker-pilot who flew into the Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, had four driver's licenses and ID cards from three states. [one of which survived the fiery inferno to positively ID him!]

The Homeland Security Department and other officials say the only way to ensure an ID is safe is to check it against secure government data; critics such as the ACLU say that creates a system that is more likely to be infiltrated and have its personal data pilfered."
secure drivers licenses
In other related news, the government is trying to create reasons to go to war with Iran:

"I am coming to you. You will explode in two minutes!" wait.. where's John Stewart on this one? Ahh... there he is.

Now about this comical "threat" the (supposedly) Iranians made. Dan Schmolze, the man who always has a sharp sense for common sense in affairs like this--do you really think this audio is legit!? I trust Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about as far as I can throw him and Donald Rumsfeld together.

Bush says: "Iran is a threat to world peace." Uhhh... no... last time I checked Bush was a threat to world peace.

on a lighter note...
Why there's no money to help me go to college :( it all went into high falutin' fernature.

Flying Jehosafat Giha

2008-01-07T18:58:00.000-08:00

I lost my camera at Catamount. Apparently forgot to zip my jacket pocket after putting my camera away. Roger was dressed up in funky outfit and on those teeny skis that are like a little bigger than the ski boot. Was filming him looking goosey. Roger has about 35 pairs of skis--all different kinds. Roger's the guy I've been skiing with this past week. We both live near by and ski the same trails and he struggles to keep up with me on my racing skis which are damn fast, but he does. So, no picture updates for awhile.

In other news, it's better not to sign a lease for an apartment before being accepted to the associated school. "We haven't gotten your transcript yet--we're not sure they'll be room to accept anymore students." ... --pause-- "But I just signed the lease for the apartment in Amherst." --Fool of a Took! Fool of a Root more like it. "Well, I don't want you to be stuck with a lease and not be able to sleep tonight, let me see what I can do." Councelor leaves and comes back about five minutes later. "Okay, the director of Admissions accepted you." So by the skin of my teeth in typical Jacinto fashion, I am accepted to Umass right then and there. How bout them apples. But I will be doing late registration which means slim pickins on the classes. Looks like I'm gonna major in English rather than Environmental Science. Too much science and math in the kind of work I'd want to do in ENV SCI. I'd rather read and write. So I'll be a Junior! I actually gradjimicated from BCC thirty-six years posthumous to the fact. Feels good to be movin' on. I'll miss the cement hegemony on the hill that is BCC. Here's to new beginnings.

Dude, you're getting a Dell!

2008-01-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

Well, no, I already have one. But, dude, you should get a Dell!

Tech support remotely accessed my computer and did a bunch of tweaks to get it running well again, then it recommended a great software "Picasa2" for managing and editing my photos. So no more red eye! I hear there are cheap flights to Europe right now--can't vouch whether they're red eye or not, and I don't think the remove red eye feature will remove the red eye status of such a ticket. Oh well, only so much a piece of software can do I guess.

more snow

2008-01-03T14:14:00.001-08:00

I forgot to post these fotos and videos:
Little Cute Root goes sledding with Aunt Annie and Amira.

In other news, trying to get my higher education sorted out. Met with one of my potential roommates at Umass. She kinda left me with the impression Umass won't be a good fit for the same reasons Illona was saying. She is also a BCC alumni. And like many other BCC alumni, effectively said she was spoiled by BCC. So I am trying to mentally prepare myself for a downgrade in education and an upgrade in financial tuition. Or maybe I should just attend BCC one more semester and do more research to find a better fit. Awful lot of money to throw at the wind as it were.

Umm... more snow pics because I like the snow.

more snow

2008-01-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

more snow for the snowy at heart. Ride home after skiing today.

Richard the Reliable plows.

Went skiing yesterday and today with a "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" type character--ala Steve Martin from the movie. He kept going on about all the ways in which he conned ski resorts out of coupons and lift tickets and such. Had lots of funny Dirty Rotten Scoundrels-esque stories about how he'd finagle his way in and out of trouble. Funny chap. Well, skiing solo has its benefits. Can go where you want at yer own pace and meet interesting and friendly people on the chairlift. Today was good skiing because with each run the snow became fluffier and powderier as it was coming down hard all morning.

Happy New Year!! Have a great 2008!

2007-12-31T19:47:00.000-08:00

American culture, grounded in solid, meaningful values:

Times Square celebrates 100th ball drop

Milwaukee resident Jennelle Joset and her mother, Wanda Bowers, had been standing around since 1 p.m., wearing hats with big plastic wheels of cheese to show their Wisconsin pride.

"I had to do this once, to see it once before I die," Bowers said. (AP)

Yes, high on my list of things to do before I die, right up there with falling out of an airplane and bungee jumping.

What better way to ring in the new year than with a smattering of old man winter's finest confetti.

Boston broke it's all time record for snowfall in December today with this snow fall. A few years back it broke the all time record for the month of January snow fall. Old man winter laughs in the face of Global Warming. But who will get the last laugh? Some older gentlemen riding up the chairlift were talking about memories of 70 degree days in December from the 1960s and 70s. Warm spells are not unique to the 90s or two Thousandsies. But one must remember the overall global picture.

Here's Nonny's car really sneezed in snow. (I actually sneezed while writing that.)

Snowy scene in southern Vermont.

Here's what it looked like on my way to the ski slope this morning.

Umm... couldn't be bothered to take photos of myself skiing. But it was fun and I would have stayed at the mountain all day but I ran out of ATP and didn't bring a lunch. But I did get some pics of some fine ladies sportin' some fine shawls.

413 429 6036--direct shawl sale for Indian shawl come from mountainous region in Ladakh India. Support student >> buy shawl.

Modest Pakistani women cover their faces in the presence of crude American man.

Mother and daughter share a moment two days before Nori departs to Israel for six months.

In other news, Ben continues to erect a wall in his barn where his personal fitness space will be.

The spade drill bit is used to drill holes for wiring installation. Ben wields it with a commanding presence.

Andrea, Ben's girlfriend, installs wiring.

Meanwhile Jacinto monkeys around on two old ladders.

Jacinto the swashbuckling buccaneer teeters on two tattered ladders.

Mr. Galleraga works in a half doped daze.

Mr. Galleraga recovers from his stupor to deftly drill a nail into the support.

dog sled

2007-12-26T20:20:00.000-08:00

went skiing at Catamount with Amira, Aaron and Jonathan, except that I never actually went skiing with them because I arrived late and Amira suddenly got a 104 degree fever. But i did have a surprise serendipitous meeting with Mischa and Nikolai while getting on the chairlift.

Mischa Nikolai and I then squeezed all our gear in my car, with Mischa squished in the back and went back to Nikolai's where we went "dog sledding" after bogarting some hot chocolate from the Taconic Lodge.

The videos don't have sound.

^^ Watch the dog in the background toward the end of the video after Mischa lies on the ground.

Merry Christmas! And happy Chanukah!

2007-12-25T20:04:00.000-08:00

Rare is the blog that is not centered around the Schmolzes.

A lot can happen if you don't update the blog....

For example... family members can get engaged... and other families can be reunited for the holidays. Family members can fall ill and recover. anything can happen when you don't update the blog. That's why it's important to update the blog.

Indeed, on Christmas Allie got a very special present. Shawn proposed to her! Way to go Shawn! Merry Christmas.

The main entree for this blog will be the few wonderful days I spent with that peculiar New Hampshire bunch known as the Shinerocks. While not as wacky as my family, they still earn a place among the few special families that make up the echelon of "bizarro Jeff" families. Don't misconstrue: that's a good thing. If New Hampshire is the granite state, then the average New Hampshire-ite would be plain old granite. But only one New Hampshire family can be of such repute as to be called the Shinerocks. I sure would rather spend Christmas with the Shinerocks over the Granites any day.

Arturo, the St. Bernard. Perro grande. He looks harmless here, but those paws and jowls were a constant threat to the equally wacky Simon the cat.

When the big dog is away, the little cat comes out to play. If it wasn't enough that Simon had to contend with Arturo the oversized dog, Holly then fancies him a plaything just when Simon thinks it's safe to come out of hiding.

We went skiing at Mt. Sunapee: A sunny place to pee and ski.

The magnificent view from the chairlift.

Laurel and Manny. Manny is Lynn's son. Lynn is Amy's cousin.

Solomon disappears below the bluff before the backdrop of lake Sunapee.

One more of Lake Sunapee for good measure.

Hold onto your hats, kids! We're going for a ride!
We only found out about the rifle rentals after we had finished skiing for the day. As a result me missed this great opportunity of all the little tikes lined up in a row. No worries, they weren't real guns; just paint ball guns.

Solomon expresses due disdain for the mountain's attempt to take all the fun out of the sport. What will be next, signs saying no reckless skiing? An outrage.

Solomon will show them. He goes down backwards. Yeah, what now Sunapee?
At least he didn't make a nice sunny pee on the slope.

Big brother and little sister then.

Big brother and little sister now. Little has changed. Umm... this isn't what it looks like? Eve was surprised to see usually skinny Sol had developed a little paunch in his middle section.

Simon and Garfunkle--I mean Evening.

The skiing was marvelous despite it having rained and melted half the snow the night before. (Great timing, eh?) But we had a blast. Steffen's Kniessel's that I'm riding on are dy-no-mite. Between skiing and eating, we played lots of "Catchphrase"-- a very fun game where you have to describe the catchphrase without using words in it for your teammates to guess before the annoying beeper runs out of time and the buzzer goes off.

Christmas morning we opened presents (what a surprise). I was lucky enough to score a nice Calvin Klein shirt and a new Ben Sherman hat I very much needed. Thanks Amy!

People actually buy things from Victoria's Secret? I thought they just admired the beautiful angels in the catalogs.

Not enough pictures of Tristan. The balancing force in the family.

After all these years, I finally got what I always wanted for Christmas! Toothpaste!

What could possibly be so funny? What's in the box? Or perhaps better to ask, what's not in the box?

Santa employed the help of the Elves of Lothlorien to make this special gift for Tristan to give to Laurel.

Tristan gives Laurel a box to keep her recipes in. A worthy gift as Laurel's recipe skills are quite impressive.

Finally Tristan gets a present. He is very happy.

Solomon is very happy.

Eve is very happy.

Robert is very happy.

Laurel and Amy are very happy.

Lynn is very happy.

Manny is very happy.

The dogs and I are very happy.

Happy time. Everybody's happy.
Thanks Shinerocks for the very special Christmas!

And the geese gather on Smiley's pond, awaiting my belated return.

ADDENDUM: On the drive home, I got a little lost and stopped at a 7 Eleven where the attendants were decidedly ambivalent in helping me find my way to the interstate which was nearby. I picked up a map and started to look at it but it wasn't detailed enough to help. A gentleman overheard my needing to get to route 9 west or I-91 south and said he was going that way and for me to follow him. I went to my car and turned it around to see that I had no idea what car the gentleman I was following was in. Frustrated, I started driving in the direction I thought I ought to go but soon was driving in residential streets. Extra frustrated I turned around and drove back to the 7 eleven and felt like I was suddenly in a bad episode of Groundhog's Day. "Uhh... yeah, I'm looking for route 9, --I was gonna follow someone but I didn't umm... I had trouble--anyway, I didn't follow him and I need directions again." The attendant scarcely made recognition that I was just in the store ten minutes prior. When the attendant continued to exercise her right to ambivalence (afterall, I was in the state whose motto is "live free or die") I picked up the same map as before and impulsively bought it. I then started looking at the map again and was double frustrated upon having forgotten that it really was not detailed enough to help me out. I then asked for a refund and the same attendant said she didn't know how to give refunds and that there was no manager. Two seconds later a friendly, elderly gentleman asked what I needed and I told him I was looking for the interstate and that the map I had just bought was unhelpful and wanted a refund. After momentary figuring, he refunded my credit card transaction with cash. He then proceeded to tell me how to get to the interstate when someone interrupted saying "I'm going that way, if you want you can follow me." Feeling quite sheepish at this point, and not sure if I should take this ever mounting feeling of groundhog day nonsense any further, but too beleaguered to follow the attendant's directions, I said okay, and made sure I saw the man's car. So I got in mine and followed the lad. He then pulled over and I did too and he explained how to skip the exit he was taking and go to the end of the road and go left--that will take me to the Interstate. I thanked him, shook his hand and wished him a merry Christmas and put my little snot nozed flagellate into VTEC whining high-rev superfast mode and proceeded to drive down I-91 south like the cops were on my tail. I wasn't the only one in a hurry--afterall, who wants to be driving on the interstate on Christmas day at dusk? I was racing a Subaru WRX, some fancy Infiniti and some other high falutin' gas guzzling SUVs, going anywhere between 80 and 95mph: speed is the ultimate frustration dissolution, and the little gas miser kept up with the Joneses. Loud, but solid as ever. We drove 100 miles without seeing a cop--we got jingle bells rock blasting off the hatchback top, singing sha-la la, sha la la la la la
Sha-la la la la la la
Sha-la la, sha-la la la la la
Sha-la la la la la la or some other Bruce Springsteen Christmas cheer nonsense.

To make a long story short, got off the freeway and finally slowed to within single digits of the speed limit in Stockbridge where there finally was a cop. I waved and smiled and carried on my merry way.

BlogNog

2007-12-20T14:39:00.001-08:00

It's that time of year again. For Eggnog and Frankincense.

Here's a solar rainbow to make up for my slacking on the job.

Well, let's bring things up to speed shall we? While you were gone--err.. during the period of time this space was neglected the sun rose and set. The stars shown bright whether clouds obscured their truth or no. Snow fell and more snow fell and sleet and more sleet and freezing rain and more sleet and freezing rain and some more snow and sliding cars. I love my car, but it's unsafe without snow tires. Fun, but unsafe. Safety first.

Presenting the in-laws.

Okay, what's the big idea. Is this the cat claw the air picture? Why do we have to strike a pose. Why can't we just be ourselves.

I guess this guy thinks he's cool cause he's got his back to the camera. Okay, no. NOT cool.

I guess this girl thinks she's cool cause she's got her face to the camera. Yeah, whatever.

Okay, this girl is cool. Yeah. She knows how to turn her back to the camera.

Wait, we're not done yet. Coolness is about to go to a-whole-nother level. I didn't know it was possible to get drunk off of cold.

Now that is cool. Like really cool. Like cooler even than Siberia. Oh, wait, it is Siberia! Yes, folks, I'm afraid it's true. This is what happens to those who winter in Siberia. I don't know what's so funny about the cold, but there you have it. Cold silly.

This is what you do in Siberia during the winter. You knit, play scrabble and laugh. It doesn't get any cooler than this.

Nori blazes the way to new, hip trends in Siberian styling.

Cool, man, cool.

After about an hour or two of laughing at the absurdity of the situation, we finally awoke from our reverie and realized that we weren't actually in Siberia at all. But rather, the door had been left open. So the Siberian cold air was getting inside from outside, as in, a draft. No studies have been done on the effects of winter on intelligence.

Now here's a man who isn't deterred by a little cold. Ben erects a wall for his new private gym. Now that's cool!

Okay, now what is with this. Let me guess, another person who thinks they're cool. Taking credit for Ben's hard work are we?

John talks to Richard Scarlet dappled in scarlet light after the performance of the the annual Shepherd's Play. Richard's daughter Leslie played Marry, but we have no pictures because John restricted flash and non-flash photography during the performance and then lied about setting up shots after the performance. Way to go dad.

But we do have pictures of the magnificent stained-glass windows! (And Mr. Eurich)

Oh, and the red innkeeper. Everyone's favorite.

Sneezed in snow.

Old man winter. I swear, no respect.
"Haha, I got you stuck in the snow and made you late for school!! Hahah, Aren't I cool!!!"

%&$!ing asshole.

John fails it.

Piece of cake.

BCC was closed three Mondays in a row because of sleet, freezing rain and blowing snow. Old man winter really thinks he's cool. That's because he doesn't know any other way to party. Really quite pitiable actually. He can't have any real fun so he tries to spoil it for everyone else. Well, OMW, I happen to like missing school. It's actually FUN. so there.

Giving thanks with the Greeks.

Oh boy, it's the cool couple again....

What, you talking to me?

Teddy's toy, except that's not Teddy.

Oh please, don't be ridiculous.

If you're gonna go crazy, might as well go crazy for oversized cupcake.

What in the hell? Are we still trying to be cool?

Dude, don't even go there.

You are all sorts of 0wned.

Name the frightening political figure.

Butterflies with wing tips that mimic snake heads from the Rene's taxidermy collection.

Okay, can we close the book on cool once and for all?

Someone's idea of fun: snipping off the feet of teeny saw-whet owls.
Okay, that's not cool.

But I'm cute! Sorry bub, cuteness doesn't care about science.

Wow, the coolness awards are really heating up now. Tobias Heine puts it all on the line.

Seasons collide.

Giant ... thing.
another taxidermy thing from Rene's "museum".

Coolness submission #26. Exibit A

Forget it, this competition is closed. We have a clear winner.

Poor mouse has been traumatized by finger nail polish.

Well, you've done it again. You've wasted another perfectly good 2 minutes festooning on empty calorie frivolity.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Enthusiast's Taxidermy museum

2007-11-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

In the basement of an unassuming house in an unassuming neighborhood in Pittsfield are located thousands of insects on display and dozens of wildlife taxidermies and moose and deer busts. Over the course of his life, Renee Wendel has collected them as a hobby. "Everybody needs a hobby in life. Everyone should be happy as kings" he says of his hobby. Tom Tying thinks he probably has a few never before identified species of insects among his collection, but because he is unschooled (dropped out of school somewhere around the 4th grade) Tom thinks he does not quite have a full appreciation of the significance of his collection. He does it purely for fun.

Now 90 years old, Renee is still adding to his collection on a regular basis. He says to Tom "here, you can have this specimen, I already have it and have no more space anyway." He has about 50 drawers filled with butterflies, moths, beetles and other insects. Most of his collection is local from the Berkshires, but some things are exotic such as the legendary Morpho (blue butterfly) and some cool looking critters from New Guinea among other fascinating exotics.

I will upload pictures when I have time. Been busy of late. I also am behind on a few other blog updates, including Halloween, small mammal trapping and owl tagging. Maybe during Thanksgiving break I'll be able to get to some of these.

Halloween at the Dreamaway Lodge

2007-11-01T15:20:00.001-07:00

Fun with MS Paint

2007-10-29T16:36:00.001-07:00

It looks better when you click on it for the full view.

World Series Update

2007-10-27T22:07:00.000-07:00

The Red Sox are set for a repeat performance of their 86 year drought ending World Series sweep against the Cardinals in 2004 as they stand poised to shut out the Rockies as they just wrapped up game Three of the World Series for their third consecutive win of the first three games to bring the standings 3-0 with the Rockies on the verge of being shut out. Be sure to watch tonight's 4th and last? World Series game at 8pmEST.

Some highlights from last night's game:
Rookie Jacoby was the star of the night being the second Rookie in World Series history to score two doubles in one inning. He also became the first rookie in 61 years with four hits in a Series game, getting three of Boston's seven doubles. By inning 3 the score was 6-0 the Red Sox. The Colorado Rockies rallied in the bottom of the 6th, bringing in 5 runs to only be trailing by one. But the Red Sox were quick to snap back from complacency, keeping the Rockies from scoring anymore the rest of the game and managed to finish up the longest 9 inning game in World Series history (4 hours, 19 minutes long to be exact) to win it by a sizable margin, 10-5.

Things to take note of going into game 4.
No team in the 103 year history of the World Series has come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the World Series, putting the Rockies in a rather rough position. They are off to a... rocky start (ahem) to say the least. Between a rock and a hard place as it were. The Boston Red Socks were the first team ever to come back from a 3-0 deficit in the World Series playoffs for the Pennant against arch rivals the New York Yankees in 2004. The curse really seems to be broken.

Click here For more on the Red Sox and the World Series

Random Shenanigans.

2007-10-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

Dan rockin' the Nat Sherman shirt.

A flower keeping the Co-op pretty.

I wonder how often the driver of that Delorian goes back to the future.

Actually, I think it's a Lotus Esprit. here is a pic of a Lotus Esprit Concept car from 1972:

Self taken photo monkeying around on the outdoor gym ropes at Ben's. Notice the form: perpendicular legs to torso. Not easy.

I dunno if images like this are boring or not. But fall fell. Err.. fall has fallen.

A fine evening for a hot air balloon ride. This harked me back to Australia.

A life less... ordinary...

2007-10-22T18:21:00.000-07:00

A very curious Mantis wants me to play with him/her.

Come on, put 'em up. I ain't afraid of you.

Aww, c'mon, you're no fun.

Aww, man, don't make me beg. Won't you play with me?

Alright, whatever. I'm outta here.

In a deep Barry White voice: "I'll just be grooovin' along now. See you around."

Mt. Graylock

2007-10-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

On the way to Mt. Graylock...

Greeted by the opening of the heavens at Mt. Graylock

Lovely Leslie lilts through the leaf litter

Maria leads the march

The wayward travelers: Maria, John, Doug and Leslie

John reads about forest succession where competition is low for the small mammals. (They'll be a blog on those later...)

Red is the color of war. A blood red leaf upside down is the signal of a nation in distress.

Maria tries to get the tree to come with her.

Das Ende

More nonsense for your horse sense

2007-10-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

Joan doesn't like to be late, so she sets her watch ahead by 7 minutes. When she travels from Los Angeles to Chicago, she forgets to adjust her watch. In addition, her watch stops for a full 23 minutes before she notices. By how many minutes is her watch off?

One of the possible answers is the right one:

90
104
120
136

Uhhh... say what??

umm... there's 14 minutes between the first two possible answers.
16 minutes between the second and third as well as third and forth.
Ohh... heh, I get it.

mmmm, here's an easy one:

Which picture completes the analogy?

An even more absurd one

2007-10-18T19:18:00.001-07:00

Brain Teaser

2007-10-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

Complete the "pattern" with one of the appropriate images from below. Oh really? Pattern, huh? You think so, do you? WHAT FREAKING PATTERN!! Who designs these tests, honestly? If anyone thinks they know how to solve this abominable riddle, please, please enlighten me. I will be adding more brain teasers periodically, so check back often. Please provide your reasoning for your choices. Thanks.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater:

No dice

2007-10-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I think the prosthetic limb was just completely covered by her pants and earlier in the semester maybe she was wearing shorts because I always remember it being pretty prominent. But today it was moving just like her other leg, with only the ankle of the prosthetic showing - and it was in a sock and boot like her right leg, so no blip in the matrix I'm afraid. Oh well, would have been fun. :)

The following is true.

2007-10-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream--a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought--a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"
He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.

from "No. 44 The Mysterious Stranger"
by Mark Twain

This is exactly the realization I had come to that has pained my feeble brain for the last two years.

Here is what happened today:

Chesterules: strange thing happened in class today
Chesterules: funny, because I think about stuff like this often
Chesterules: what if something "impossible" happened in my scope of reality?
chesterules: why shouldn't something happen?
Chesterules: how would I react?
Chesterules: Would I bother telling anyone?
Chesterules: well, something did happen today
Chesterules: while I was taking my test
Chesterules: the overweight lady in the back of the classroom - the one with the prosthetic leg, she left the classroom after she finished her test -but she walked out normally - her leg was no longer prosthetic but normal. I didn't even much notice. I mean, I noticed but I didn't react. I watched her leave, to make sure it was her, and to make sure her leg was normal, even though I could plainly see that it was, I didn't need to look on.... I then went back to my test... feeling a little "uhh" about it, but that was it, nothing more. I had enough to worry about right in front of me, I couldn't worry about whether peoples' prosthetic legs are magically becoming normal over night.

Now I am very curious if it will be normal on Monday or if I was just momentarily tripping...

Short winged blister beetle or oil beetle

2007-10-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Sharon!

2007-10-07T20:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks for having me be a part of your birthday Sharon. It was fun digging holes and running the wheelbarrow back and forth. I needed the exercise. Sorry about your tree. :( Dan, email me the pics so I can post the foolish reason why the tree got hurt.

Ben digs a hole.

Sharon found some very strange antlike bugs. What to do? What to do? We pulled our hair out and screamed frantically. But we never were able to figure out what they were online. It shall forever remain a mystery unless Tom Tyning can shed some light on the matter in class on Tuesday when I show him da pics.

We also saw a cool bat looking moth:

It actually was trying to mimic a leaf, not a bat.

Dan heaves. Dan hoes. While Ben looks on.

Well... that's all folks!

Gone fishin'

2007-10-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

Went down to the pond to catch some fish in Field Methods class. We caught fish. I squealed like a little girl when I had to put the worm on the hook and hold the fish and try to remove the hook from its mouth. I failed at both. Well, I eventually got the worm on the hooks. Tearing worms apart is not nice. Poor worms. Poor fish. Poor world.

The girls caught most of the fish.

Tom removes the hook for the squeamish girls. *ahem*

Nate and I caught some minnows.

All in all we caught 4 fish. 3 caught by girls and one by the boys, and the one guy that caught the fish was the one who brought all the fishing poles and is a fisherman. So what do we learn from this? Guys can't fish.

Oh yeah, and one fish caught bare handed by me. As you can see I'm about to eat it raw. "Riggling, and raw" mmm mmmm.

Gassavers.org

2007-10-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

So I've been getting advice from this website gassavers.org on how to get my car in tip top shape. One of the guys on the site agreed to help me out so Ben and I drove to Dartmouth college last weekend where the guy SVOboy from the site futzed around with the car, cleaning this, poking that, prodding and probing and tweaking and more or less not accomplishing anything. But the drive was fun. We drove 75-80 the whole way there and back and averaged 44mpg. Respectable. About what the Prius manages at those speeds.

It's gotta be the EGR valve. Just plug the IACV and blow on the PCV or something.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Maye there's a vacuum leak

Just gotta clean out the IACV

In the end we got the idle to stay at 500RPM for about 2 minutes, but then the sticking idle and roaming idle returned. I brought it to the mechanic and after some head scratching and but crack scratching and whatever other scratching mechanics do while trying to figure out the problem, he decided to clean the throttle body out completely for $180 as well as replacing the fuse for my headlight. Problems solved. Another mechanic had offered to replace the throttle body for $200 so I guess I came out of it okay. Just need to get a cluster from the junkyard to fix the odometer and speedometer and the car will be in tip top shape. Love the little gas miser. But don't be under any illusions of the car's incapabilities. Ben and I did a 0-60mph sprint in 12.6 seconds. But that was with a very bad start and less that swift gear shifts.

1984 Ford Thunderbird (he wouldn't let me take a picture of his car so I found one on google that is what it looked like.)

So this mechanic I brought my car to. He's an interesting guy. I tell him there's still a hesitation problem while driving at low RPMs. He tells me cars aren't designed to be driven at 1100RPMs. After twice around the block down route 71 to demonstrate how I should be driving my car, his answer to the problem is to keep it above 1700RPM: "the car doesn't *like* to be at 1100RPM. Listen to the car, it will tell you what gear it wants to be in." I tried to explain to him that I like to get 60mpg from the car. He tells me no car was ever designed to get 60mpg except maybe hybrids. He then demonstrates how *his* car also doesn't like to be driven at low RPMs. This was quite an experience. His car is an old 1984 Ford Thundercrap or whatever, all modded out for bare bones performance. The car has been stripped down to a weight of 2200 pounds, just 100lbs more than mine. The rear seats have been taken out and the fronts replaced with bucket seats equipped with race seat belts that don't work. This, after lecturing me about how concerned he is about safety. (I had asked his opinion of coasting down hills in neutral, which he saw as a good recipe for getting killed.) He then demonstrated the RPMs his car likes to be driven at. So we're ambling along at a modest pace. We turn down route 71 and we're putting along and I'm waiting for him to do something, or say something... for something to happen. All of a sudden (but I was half expecting this) he let's the car rip. The already loud engine roars to life as the speedo and RPMs fly northward then southward as I feel myself get pushed back in my seat, the cabin noise increases, the engine starts to make a high pitched jet engine sound and just before take off I glance a look out the window to see the airport go whizzing passed when he slows down and asks... "feel the difference?" Yes... got it... car likes the high RPMs... won't soon forget it. At this point I feel like I am in one of those B horror movies from the late 70s or early 80s that never got made because I'm living it now, two and a half decades later.... He claims we just hit 130mph. I'm skeptical but don't say anything. I'm pretty sure his speedo is off by a good 15-20%, but maybe we hit 100mph. He claims 4000RPM in 4th gear is 130mph. (His speedo only goes up to 95.)

Well, maybe any other sane person would slowly walk away at this point and say thank you very much and never return again down that dirt road to the mechanic shop hidden from view (sorry, again, about that Dan) but I somehow like the guy and he offers to give me 1/2 hour of his time to look at my rear brakes which are making a clicking noise. We jack the car up, get the wheels off and he takes a look at the brakes and immediately starts doing the "oh jeez, do you guys have *any* idea what you were doing" routine about Ben and my brake job. He then asks me to look at the brakes and tell him what is wrong. I fail it. With some leading questions I finally see it. The backing plate has been bent. How did that happen!? All I can say is Oopss... He then goes round to the other side and points out some brake fluid that has leaked from the brake cylinder and some excessive brake pad shavings. Back to the left side he starts to disassemble the brakes. He discovers the clevis or adjuster has been worn down--all the way down to the threads. Will need to be replaced. While taking the brakes apart to fix the problem, the other cylinder starts leaking fluid badly. He then proceeds to lecture me on why you don't work on cars yourself when you're not a mechanic, especially something like brakes, and why there are professionals that charge what they do to do the job right and to *please* bring the car to a professional the next time it needs work. So I have no option now but to pay him to fix the brakes. The car isn't in any shape to drive. New brake cylinders need to be installed as well as new brake hardware and a new adjuster/clevis.

So I call Dan to get a ride but I don't take into consideration maybe he doesn't know where the place is. Like I said, you cannot see the shop from the road because it is down a little driveway and hidden. So I start to walk to Dan's house from town and keep expecting to see him on the way. About 1/2 mile from Dan's house, by the airport, I hear a car slow down behind me: poor Dan spent the last 45 minutes driving around town looking for this phantom mechanic shop and finally gave up. Moral of the story, if you want something done right, hire a professional.

Field Methods

2007-10-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

So I am taking this class called Field Methods where you go out in the field and pond and wood and flora and stream, and muck about in the mire and pretend to do scientific study of the populations of the fishes or the turtles or the whoolly bears. Mostly it's just goofin' around tho.

Nori, if you want to know what the howling is behind your house... look no further for the answer: here we have a dead coyote in a freezer box.

Umm... this attractive speicimen is a skinned bear head. Apparently bear meat is tasty.

Here's another picture of it since I know you want to see how big and sharp its teeth are. I can post more pics of it if you like. Just let me know.

Tee Putt Putt Birdie Par Bogie Bah

2007-10-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

Dan and I went to a golf course in Worcester and walked around it shortly after I bought my car. It was pretty. Later we went to the club house and sat down to wait for some burgers, but left before they were ready. But I made off with a Gatorade. Not sure if they realized we weren't part of the club. Seemed happy enough to give us drinks and burgers tho.

Some hot rod bikes we saw in da parknig lot.

Grecian like theater in the round:

Dan puts on a show...

Dan is having a gay and merry time.

Something of a view of downtown Worcster. Dan swears there are worseter cities than Worceter and that there is no "h" in worcester sauce, but please, know better than to call it "worseter" sauce, ya?

The golf course. The stragglers were finishing up. We were just strolling through, waving at the golfers.

A tree that changed color because of seasonal dystrophy... or something.

The last hole. Going for Bogie.

I promise the next update will be a little more interesting and not so long in coming.

Mcdonalds in the Australian Outback?

2007-09-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

You may recognize this photo from my Australia blog. Despite protests from the Aborigines, it would appear Mcdonald's now has a restaurant conveniently located at the top of Uluru. If it wasn't bad enough that tourists like me were climbing the sacred site against the will of the Aborignes, now the tourists can find an air conditioned haven from the 120 degree heat and enjoy a McFlurry after they've struggled up Ayers Rock.

Just Joshing around

2007-09-16T17:03:00.000-07:00

Just Joshin' around in the Josh Billings Runaground. I signed up for this Triathlon slightly against my better judgment as cyclist along with teammates Ben and Gio canoing and Dan finishing up with the run. I was pleasantly surprised that my reservations were unfounded. I hung in their tough and didn't let my team down.

Steffen charging up Taconic Avenue at the beginning of the race before going down the hill passed Simon's Rock.

Jacinto grunts his way up the hill.

Gio strong arms it home while Ben rangoons the tennis ball handoff to Dan.

Last but not least, Dan heaves and hoes across the finish line.

Test Results!! I mean... Race Results!!

Place: 172 Dynamight cat: 02 cat place: 18 Total Time: 3:11:22

Person place split
Jake 121 1:17:35
Ben/Geo 205 1:01:47 canoe place: 149
Dan 260 52:00

Steffen placed solidly at 51st place with a time of 1:11 and Mario De Ris had an impressive finish of 1:07 putting him in 21st place.

Steve says:

I'm guessing the "canoe place" is excluding the kayaks, but don't know
for sure.

If you'd been in the recreational canoe cat, you'd have been 5th in that
category.

For what it's worth, Ben ran it in 45:39 last year, so he gets bragging
rights amongst the Schmolze boys. The field was faster this year though,
so places for the same running time are worse.

In other news. My little snazzle toothed squat little sasquatched gassipper of a car gets better gas mileage than any Prius owner this side of the moon. 63mpg anyone? Thank you and have a nice day. 62.6mpg was my average over two tanks of gas. That's 1026.64 miles on 16.4 gallons of gas (about an average tank for most cars)

Bird Watching

2007-09-13T17:46:00.001-07:00

Today had Field Methods lab where we watched hawks with binoculars. No way to get pictures of them, but here is an amazing video of some pretty spectacular bird formations.

click here, and make sure you watch the entire thing -- some parts are pretty amazing

In other news, been half-assing the training for the Josh Billings Runaground. Ben, Dan, Jake and Gio all competing as a team. Dan is running. Jake is cycling. Gio and Ben are hoofing it in the canoe. Rode up Mt. Washington today as a last ditch effort to prepare. Was a splendid ride. Flying Moseses.

I got a "new" car!

2007-08-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

yessum yessums! A 1993 Honda Civic VX hatchback! Why am I so excited you ask? Because this little gem is the most fuel efficient car Honda made during the 1990s. Along with the teeny Geo Metro XFi which has much less utility and comfort than the VX, it was the most fuel efficient car made during the entire decade.

Ride it like you stole it

2007-07-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

that's the sort of image endorsed by Berkshire Bike and Blade. Racing through 6 (yes six) towns in 2 hours for a total of nearly 40 miles I did my first road ride. It wasn't as demanding as I thought it would be and I didn't have anything to eat before the ride and nothing to keep me powered up during it. Despite this, I was able to keep up and even helped some others out who were struggling a little toward the end by "pulling" in front.

We started at the bike shop in G.B. went through Alford to West Stockbridge (the same back route I took to BCC) and then we rode up 102 to Stockbridge. From Stockbridge we went by the Stockbridge Bowl and Tanglewood in Lenox and then rode to Housatonic via 183 and then back to the bikeshope via Vandeusenville road to 41.

The reason the ride wasn't as demanding as I feared it would be was because, one, the five days of sprinting to work and back conditioned me more than I realized and, secondly, I wasn't aware how much drafting improved performance. By following close behind the rider in front of you, you have to work much less in order to maintain speed as you are cutting through much less air. The real challenge is in keeping in line maintaining a constant speed. I kept going too fast and then falling behind, and then sprinting to catch up again, struggling to maintain a foot or two between me and the guy in front of me. Everyone was very forgiving of my amateurish riding and a certain flashy rider in pink trim coached me in the strategy and technique of the road ride (that would be of course the big bro, who by the end of the summer I intend to smoke). I found it most fun to tuck really low down hills and just coast by other people pedaling. Road riding is all about aerodynamics. Cutting down your drag coefficient. But it's also riding smart, conserving energy and riding as evenly and smoothly as possible. Well, I managed 1 out of 3... I got the aerodynamics part down but I am not efficient... struggling to maintain a uniform speed and sprinting a lot (it's just more fun)

I can't wait for the next ride. I couldn't believe I was maintaining speeds upwards of 20 miles per hour. At the end of the ride when leading two others I maintained an average of 23 to 24 miles per hour without the aid of dragging behind someone else. On some down hills we approached the 45mph speed limit. It was actually a pretty mellow ride but for someone who is new to road cycling the second half was pretty intense. (more VA Beach update coming soon)

VA Beach, Part I: 25 hour day

2007-07-09T18:01:00.000-07:00

Vadim from work and I drove down to VA Beach for July 4th extended weekend.

We left late Tuesday night the third at 11pm and arrived at 7am. Then we went to the beach and frolicked in the waves. We went to bed at 12am. 25 hour day. It was a very long day.

7am at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Vadim showing the early signs of needing to get some sleep.

Sunrise over the Chesapeake. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is the longest bridge tunnel in the world.

Just as we approach the end of the pier located near the VA Beach end of the bridge tunnel we see a man pull up a skate that inadvertently got caught on the hook.

The hook is removed and the skate is released back into the bay with a belly flop.

This concludes part one of our trip. Stay tuned for more coming soon.

Driving in Great Barrington

2007-06-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

I was on my lunch break today and went around the castle street block after picking up the Instant Karma: Save Darfur CD at Tune Street which is a bunch of covers of John Lennon songs to raise money to stop the genocide in Darfur. I wanted something to listen to while painting the interior of Steffen's new bike shop location on State Rd. across from The Pizza House. Town was über-mobbed and coming out onto main street by Berkshire Bank the person two cars before me wasn't inching forward or anything--waiting for a magic traffic light to suddenly appear or something--so I got impatient and honked the guy in front of me and motioned for him to do something about the tentative driver in front of him but he didn't care to extend an encouraging honk to the girl in front of him, just looked at me dumbly as if to say "what am I supposed to do?" so I got of the car, covered in paint, paint in my hair, paint everywhere, and marched into traffic (the traffic was so bad the cars were only going 5-10mph) and put my hands up to stop both lanes of traffic and motioned the little lady to go. She smiled sheepishly and I ran back to my car (there were now cars behind me), giving the guy in front of me a passing glance. He got the picture and followed the girl in front of him into traffic. People's inability to look at a traffic situation and improvise accordingly--especially in overly congested Great Barrington--is a little irksome. I mean, I can't sit around all day and let bad drivers ruin my gas mileage, sheesh!

Trish doing a professional job of cutting in while painting Stoof's new, spiffy bike shop:

Bash Bish Falls after hard rain

2007-06-19T14:26:00.000-07:00

If you remember this spring we had a little flood. Well, being the Intrepid Dr. Root that I am, I ventured to places where I thought the water would be impressive: Bash Bish Falls. Apparently I wasn't the only adventurous soul in search of ferocious water. I didn't bring my camera but I met a very nice man with his wife taking photos of the falls and he offered to send me copies of the photos. Few people will ever get the opportunity to see the falls the way they were on April 16th. You'll want to click on the images to see them in full size. Remember that in normal conditions, you can walk across the bottom of the falls where there is usually a pool lined with boulders that you can hop from one to another. But here you can see there is no longer even a pool, just a mad torrent of foaming water.

Getting to the falls was a bit of a challenge. I approached from the parking lot above and streams had sprung up everywhere. The creek feeding the bottom of the falls had swelled to a remarkable torrent and I was barely able to cross it by stepping along the metal fence that goes over it where it normally is passable by a small hop over the creek. This was a full on raging river and the bottoms of my feet were nearly being splashed by the rapids. Alas, no pics of the descent to the falls since I didn't have my cam.

The spray from the falls was so bad that you could not go down the steps to take a closer photo. You would be soaking wet in seconds from the tremendous spray pluming outwards with tremendous force.

Barbecue at Jake's

2007-06-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

Nori in rare fashion complying to a photo shoot in Guy's Memorial. His birthday was last week.

If I'm the best root above ground, then Harbinder has to be the best Indian this side of... of India. Although it looks like Dan isn't so sure.

It was a beautiful afternoon for a barbecue. (sorry, I don't have photoshop to lighten the foreground)

Nori and Avi loving the spotlight of the camera.

If you would like to know why any pictures of me are conspicuously missing from this entry, perhaps a visit over to Dan's complementary blog is in order... Plus, there are some very nice pictures. Very impressive one of the sky. Wow.

In other news, Vadim and I went for a bike ride up that killer hill by Camp Eisner. Then we hiked up the Appalachian trail a ways and Vadim took 42 thousand pictures. I took a few but I was more interested in just being in the moment than capturing it on my camera for twice. (there was another time but it was a long time ago and I don't really remember when.) On the bike ride back I got up to 43mph. But this is on a mountain bike with knobby tires and my bike wouldn't go into my top gear. I think I will have to borrow a road bike from Berkshire Bike and Blade some time and see if I can't top 60mph.

Vadim clambers up the rocky face.

This wild flower on the trail caught my eye. Do you think it's pretty? I think it's lovely.

I like the halo around the sun in this rather lovely but typical sunset. I remember the sunsets in India. Particularly the ones in Kovalam in the south. Loverly, but the ones in the good ol' Berkshires are nice too.

Stay tuned for 42 thousand more pictures of Vadim and our little excursion coming soon.

Keep the paint where it belongs!

2007-06-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

Okay? Don't put it on surfaces it doesn't belong. That is how you end up buying roofs and floors that you can't afford.

Doug walks the plank... (Vadim and my plot failed to get rid of the boss, alas.)

Vadim and Bret.

Doug shows how it's done

In other news...

Sold a couple shawls at the tag sale... but only AFTER I packed them away before the thunder storm came. Nina Thayer was very kind to mention my shawls in the advert for her and my mother's tag sale.

It's important to have a professional presentation when selling high value products.

8 hours of the sandpaper shimmy

2007-06-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

and other adventures with paint and ladders coming soon!

For now we turn to some pre-season swimming.

A week or so ago we biked to the stream by Rowe Road.

Nora is pretty enthusiastic about being in the frigid spring water.

Jake is a little less excited.

Yep, this basically sums it up. That's about as far in as I was willing to go.

Nori did end up going all the way in. But I never went beyond my ankles.

Then Dan decided I should go in too.

News and other happenings

2007-05-19T14:36:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the loooooooong lapse in blogging. The camera broke and recently got fixed. They'll be another update soon.

Spent a couple days in New york this passed week and it was a wee bit expensive. I parked the car in a bus lane and it got towed. I rode Vincentine's bike to the pound to retrieve the car but when I got there I realized I had forgotten the key. So I rode back, got the key and retrieved the car for $185. I then spent an hour stuck in traffic looking for a parking space to contest the $115 fine that went on top of the $185 impound fee. I finally found a space but had to go up 20 blocks. Good thing I took the seats out of the minivan for easy transport of the bike. They reduced the fine by $25 to $90. I then parked the car in a meter spot to see Damian at his bike shop in the village. But I couldn't find the car again because I forgot to note the streets I had parked at. When I finally got back to the car it had gotten another ticket good for $65.

I started painting houses for Doug Schmolze so I'll have money to pay all the fines. Joy! Had my first day on the job on Friday and it was surprisingly not so bad. Today was pretty okie dokie too. Stained a bunch of beam girder thingies--the thin pieces of wood that act as trim. Oh for a radio at work tho. Or an iPod. Music would make work wonderful. And now peekshures from the last few weeks.

My Mom is moving!She is moving to a quaint little house on Hulburt Road near Route 71 direclty across the cornfield facing the airport.

Four Generations. (if you include the pic of mom)

Something taboo about going in the left lane?
Ana Sophia came to help mom move.
Ana Sophia reaches up to grab at the big wide world.
Is Ana Sophia's aunt as cute as Ana Sophia?

We think not. Not all that glitters is gold. Aww, that was mean (if you can ascertain the reference)
Nora powers the canoe while I study
for last assignment for English
Uhh... last of the Mohecans?

G.B. in full bloom.

the Fight Club Philosophy

2007-05-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

Paper I wrote for my Philosophy class of Self and Identity. They'll be a proper blog update soon... prolly before the weekend.

Struggling to find oneself in a pervasive culture of consumerism as seen through the lens of the film Fight Club

IN ANY GIVEN generation, in any given time period in human history, a study of the self, of who we are, of what we are, of how we define ourselves, of how our culture defines us, is always an interesting and fundamentally important study and will reveal something unique about ourselves. We may never get to the definitive truth, to concrete answers, but nevertheless, a deeper understanding that stimulates in us different perspectives of who we are. The current time in history is particularly interesting to look at in my generation with so many historically unprecedented factors influencing people. The bombardment of advertising, chiefly carried out by television, perpetuating a consumeristic Mr. Hyde mentality of gorging ourselves on stuff we’re told we want. The film Fight Club based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk offers a rather dire and sad way of looking at our lives; but one with some truth to it. How we buy into the corporate, consumer, slave to advertising culture of acquiring materialistic possessions that ultimately define who we are and keep us from truly living.

Tyler Durden: “An entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives.”
Jack, though a 30 year old adult, struggles to come of age in a world of Ikea furniture and the meaningless, monotonous Dilbertesque routine of his white collar office job that leaves him feeling alone and isolated by a world that seems to have betrayed him. As a result, he suffers from insomnia and goes to support groups for people with life threatening illnesses that he has no business going to where he becomes addicted to unleashing his tears into various different people from different support groups such as a big boobed man named Bob. In a sort of post adolescence initiation into a quasi eastern form of enlightenment, he boldly breaks away from the half-sleep waking purgatory existence that is his life defined by material attachment. He does so with the help of his alter-ego, the counter-side of his psyche to his shadow self, a character that is actually a fabrication of his own mind: Tyler Durden, who is confident, capable, smart, good looking and already free from the prison of a society of people hypnotized by advertising, who identify themselves with brand names, and approaches life with the kind of fearless verve Jack wishes he possessed.

Before Jack meets Tyler, while he is still support group hopping, he meets a girl at one of the support groups doing the same thing he is because, like Jack, she has hit bottom. But he is reticent to open up to her despite what they share in common. He does manage to exchange phone numbers with her, though, but when she calls him he avoids talking to her, afraid to show her he is attracted to her. He deals with his lonely, isolated self by nurturing his “nesting instinct”: filling his house with Ikea furniture and the other materialistic junk he buys and identifies himself with. If he can satisfy his perfect ideal of his apartment, then he will be happy and satisfied, so he thinks. While I can relate to this a little, I was a bit surprised to learn to what extent some people actually do.

Tyler begins to show Jack how his life is holding him back. Jack comes home from a business trip one day to see his apartment has been bombed. “It wasn’t just a bunch of stuff that got destroyed. It was me!” he tells Tyler. Tyler tells Jack: “The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything.” Jack slowly starts to switch how he identifies himself from the meaningless, lifeless connection he has to his material possessions that represents the epitome of the western mentality to liberating himself by a more eastern “zen” mentality of letting go of the wheel that is driving his life down a narrow, dead end road… and to approach life in a more… non-linear way. When Jack literally lets go of the steering wheel of the car and crashes, Tyler exalts: “we just had a near life experience, man!” Jack has to resort to letting go completely in order to sort of shock himself to waking life. The film and book are sort of symptomatic of a culture that is starving for something to meaningful to identify itself with—a way to break free from the cultural enslavement, from the limiting and limited materialistic meaning of their lives. Instead of leading spiritually fulfilling lives with meaningful human connections, the mass consumerism machine led by the constant bombardment of messages in the form of television and magazine ads blindsights us into thinking our happiness and fulfillment is to be found in the things we’re told to want, and the things we’re told to identify ourselves with; that these things will make us happy and complete. Tyler tells Jack: “What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with five hundred cannels and a designer name on my underwear.” These are not the things that should be defining how an entire generation shapes its view on who and how to be and live. These are not the things that should be shaping the future leaders of tomorrow who will only continue to perpetuate this spiritually bankrupt materialistic mentality.

I went into a Myspace group dedicated to the film and book of Fight Club to see what others thought about the film. Most of the members are teenagers and clearly can identify with the film’s premise. People with name’s like “Your Broken God”, “Zen Master” and “In Tyler We Trust.” While one person was willing to share their constructive insight into the film, most people’s form of communication is to verbally attack others with colorful language. If not attacking someone, judging something in a similar fashion. For example:
This IS the fight club group, do you expect normal people who are just going to be kind and nice to everyone, who will just give out happy opinions? this is life, it ain't about sunshine and rainbows, fight club was a great idea that I personally think is getting more lost every day by assholes like yourself, so quit crying, and why don't you do something with your life, and stop trying to bother people who've been in this group much longer then you have, because honestly, we all like them more then you.
I postulated some topics and questions to see how people who apparently identify with the film and book feel and think about it:

I'm asking fans of the film to give their opinions on what they liked about the film, what about the film (or book, but I haven't read the book) resonates with them. What things about it they identify with. What the author or the film director is trying to say. What do people think about the many notions postulated in the film? Do you agree that losing all hope equates to freedom? why? Do you agree with Tyler that you can't know very much about yourself until you've been in a fight? Has anyone tested this theory? Any thoughts from your own experiences? What do you think of the idea that "it wasn't just my stuff that was destroyed, it was me!"? Jack says this to Tyler shortly after his apartment gets destroyed. Can you relate to this statement?

One fifteen year old girl replied without berating me. I thought her response was rather perceptive and profound. I was surprised that a young girl would have such insightful things to say about being in a fight; reminding me of unconscious stereotypes in my mind like weeds needing to be uprooted.

I do believe that you learn more about yourself after you've been in a fight. It tests how you would react without really thinking about it. I've known people who thought they had everything in life figured out; then they got in a fight and didn't know who they were anymore. Being in a fight unleashes everything, and suddenly when you’re fighting someone you stop fighting them for whatever reason you started, and fight them for everything you haven't fought for in the past. After a while you think “If I kick this person’s ass all of those other problems will be solved.”

"It wasn't just my stuff that was destroyed, it was me!"
I sadly related to this. Earlier in the film at the bar with Tyler, Jack says "I was almost complete." I think that way all the time. I say to myself when I get my own house I'll fix it perfect and everything will be organized and right, and if my house, clothes, etc. is all perfect I will be perfect. I am my material possessions and if that was all destroyed I would be destroyed. I can't help but think that once I'm "complete" that "no matter what happens I'll have that couch problem handled." [Quote from the movie]

Honestly, this movie has made me curious about what I would learn about myself by getting into a fight. My older sister was telling me how in a class she took in school the professor would have the students watch classic pop-culture films such as “Pretty Woman” and ask how these films influence people. My sister then asked me if a film ever made me want to be like the people in the film or do things from the film. I couldn’t think of any examples and at first thought it was silly when she said Pretty Woman had a negative impact on young girls because it gave them the idea that being a prostitute could be an appealing thing in order to be saved by a nice, wealthy man. This sort of ties into a quote from Fight Club: “We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t.” But when I was watching Fight Club I found myself becoming curious about whether there was something to this fight club mentality—if being in a fight might challenge my fears—things I have been avoiding in life might rise up to the surface, and might bring to the surface of my consciousness latent interests and desires that have, in Tyler Durgen’s eyes, been suppressed and dumbed down by a consumer culture. Who knows, maybe it would wake me up to have a “near life experience.”

I’d like to close with a quote that basically sums up the film: “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.”

THE END.