gwax’s rumblings

I spent this past weekend in Seattle at Penny Arcade Expo 2008, which is a great big convention for gamers of all sorts and those of similar persuasions. I met up with Riad, Gautham and Ariel in Seattle and we had an awesome time. Between the exhibit hall, the panels, the talks, the tournaments, the freeplay areas and all of the other people, PAX was three solid days of fun. I highly recommend PAX, in the future, to anyone with any interest in video games, board games, the Internet or good times in general.

For me, the major highlights of PAX were:

• Monsterpocalypse - Privateer Press was selling preview releases of their new game, Monsterpocalypse. Monsterpocalypse is a collectible miniatures game focused around destroying opposing monsters and cities. It is a very well constructed game and a heck of a lot of fun to play; I purchased enough for two people to play and I intend to get more when the game is actually released in October. I played two games at PAX, one more last night and I really like this game. Monsterpocalypse is awesome and I highly recommend looking into it.
• Starcraft II - Blizzard had playable demos of Starcraft 2 up and it seems really good. Starcraft 2 seems to have kept the feel and gameplay of the original while replacing some of the interface annoyances, improving the graphics and adding a few more units. I am now really looking forward to Starcraft 2’s release.
• Demigod - I hadn’t heard of Demigod before PAX but, as one of the random things I saw in the exhibit hall, it looks like a lot of fun. I probably won’t get Demigod because it seems like the sort of game that’s best suited to multi-player, which I haven’t really been in a good situation for since undergrad, but if I were looking for a fun multi-player game, Demigod would be on my short list.
• Minibosses - The Minibosses, a rock band that exclusively plays covers of video game music, were the last act at PAX’s Saturday night concert. I’ve seen the Minibosses before as they’ve played Steer Roast a couple of times but they’re still great. There is something particularly awesome about hearing the theme song to Ninja Gaiden, Megaman 2 or Metroid played on electric guitars, bass and drums. The Minibosses played a ~2 hour set that was solid glory and totally worth staying up until 3AM for.
• MC Frontalot - MC Frontalot is probably the best known and most popular nerdcore hip hop artist. Frontalot is pretty good and an awful lot of fun. He puts on a great show and his raps are really entertaining and well targeted at the audience. Heck, Frontalot is probably responsible for making nerdcore what it is today.
• Pitch Your Game Idea - We pitched the oft-discussed in Fort Awesome game idea for Eco-Slayer, which met with mass audience approval but didn’t win any prizes with the panel. The reactions and getting an honorable mention from three of the four judges was pretty great. Shout outs to Mar, whose idea Eco-Slayer was originally.
• DTS - PAX had this wonderful system called the Distributed Tournament System; basically they gave you two pins at the beginning of PAX to wear. If you were wearing at least one DTS pin and saw someone else wearing at least one DTS pin, you could challenge them for a pin. The challenge could take any form you wanted, in previous years it was only for handheld gaming, and the goal was to collect the most pins at PAX. I didn’t really collect as many as I should have but I had an awful lot of thumb wars, Indian wrestling contests and games of rock-paper-scissors. DTS made for a great way to interact with and meet random new people, even if it was just for a short competition and conversation. Seriously though, I had some truly epic thumb wars, one even ended in a draw after about 15 minutes of fierce competition.
• Other people - One of the best things about PAX was all the other people. Sure there were some annoying socially awkward people but there were also a lot of really cool people. It was a great big convention for people that like some of the things that I like and for which I, as a person, probably fell within one standard deviation of normal. It was a nice feeling being surrounded, in a sense, by my peoples.

This past weekend, Memorial Day weekend ‘08, a couple friends and I set out to climb Mount Shasta; we did not succeed. Mount Shasta is the second highest of the Cascade Mountains, the fifth highest mountain in California and the fiftieth highest in North America. Shasta is noteworthy for being by itself; Shasta pops out of otherwise mostly flat land, making it a rather imposing sight. Driving down I-5 on the Seattle to San Francisco leg of my move from Greater Boston to the Bay Area, I passed Shasta and was absolutely blown away by the sight of such a massive mountain popping up out of nowhere.

Myself, Hippo and John, set out from the bay area Friday evening. Stopping at Chipotle’s en route, we got to Finlandia! Motel in Mount Shasta City, California sometime around 1 or 2AM. Repacking lightly and getting to sleep, we woke up rather early so that we could pick up our rental gear and meet up to take a basic mountaineering course with Shasta Mountain Guides. The rest of Saturday was spent at low elevations of Shasta learning how to mountaineer, including climbing steep snow/ice, self-arresting with an ice axe, etc. Personal, I felt the course was really informative, leaving me both glad to have the knowledge for the climb and glad to have the knowledge going forward. Saturday night, we dined in Shasta City, which, I might add, is an incredibly pleasant little town with very friendly people.

Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early at 7AM, getting to the trailhead at Bunny Flats by about 9AM. Bunny Flats is at an elevation of 6,800′, already more than 500′ higher than the highest thing I’d ever climbed previously, Mount Washington. From Bunny Flats, we obtained the necessary permits and set out. We reached, the first notable waypoint, Horse Camp at 7,800′. When making a two day trip of climbing Shasta, one usually makes camp at Horse Camp or Lake Helen; our initial plan was to camp at Lake Helen but the weather combined with the advice of the Horse Camp caretaker convinced us to camp at Horse Camp. Horse Camp also provided the benefits of outhouses (climbers are otherwise required to bag and carry out feces from Shasta) and a flowing spring. The spring water available at Horse Camp is reputed to be the best water on Earth and, having tried it myself, I must admit that I have not encountered better water to date. We took a short hike further up Sunday afternoon, leaving all of our gear behind, turning back when it started to snow heavily. Sunday night we cooked various dinner stuffs, repacked our bags with essentials and went to sleep around 7 or 8PM.

Monday, we woke up at 1AM, got ready and began climbing by head-lamp light around 2:15AM. The climb up from Horse Camp, is slow and rather arduous. The climbing was mostly up big, steep snow fields, which had nice fresh snow from the heavy snow that caused us to cut short our hike of Sunday. Thankfully for us, there were two guided tours that left around 1:30AM and had blazed the trail for us, making things a little easier. By around 5:15AM, we had reached Lake Helen at 10,400′. Although, Lake Helen is 2,600′ above Horse Camp, it’s only about ¾ of a mile laterally, in case you wanted a sense of the difficulty. By Lake Helen, I was starting to feel a little off, getting exhausted and losing my appetite, at the time unidentified early signs of altitude sickness or, if you prefer, acute mountain sickness. The sun started to rise while we were at Lake Helen and we set off for points higher. After Lake Helen is one of the steeper portions of the entire mountain and it’s really steep. From Lake Helen up is when the altitude sickness really kicked in.

Altitude sickness is when the lower pressure of the air prevents your body from getting as much oxygen as it normally needs, which poses rather substantial problems for your brain and body. Subjectively, for me, it felt as though my brain was falling asleep. I wasn’t tired, my body and muscles felt like they were in fine shape to continue but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was so exhausted that I was going to collapse. It’s somewhat like the sensation of being on the edge of passing out after you’ve been awake for a couple days, minus the being tired part. Altitude sickness, being altitude driven, gets worse pretty much every step up you take, which made continuing progressively harder and harder. We were following a hike one hour, rest a little, hike one hour, rest schedule and when we next rested, my GPS, which we were using as an altimeter read 11,242′. As we rested, I drank water and tried to eat but the altitude sickness was in pretty full swing. I was so worn down that chewing a granola bar took most of the effort that I was able to muster from myself. Imagine, if you will, the level of incapacitation that goes along with a very high fever but without the fun of delirium or the security of being in bed. Noting that I was in pretty poor shape and felt on the verge of passing out, it was decided that turning back was the best option. Another thing about altitude sickness being altitude driven is that as soon as you get back below your ceiling–mine is apparently about 10,000′ right now–you tend to start feeling better. By the time we got back down to Lake Helen, it was as though someone had lifted a great weight off of my brain.

It was a little frustrating to be at Lake Helen and feel mostly fine to go on but know that the altitude would make it too difficult. From Lake Helen down, it was mostly wading/jogging/trudging/hopping through a few inches to a few feet of snow, of which enough was powder to make me really wish that I had skis. Very soon after we started downward, it started to snow rather heavily with whiteout levels of visibility. The rapid drop in weather quality made it almost fortunate that my altitude sickness had forced us to turn around when it did as contending with whiteout conditions at higher elevations and greater exhaustion would have been rather hazardous. The weather events of the weekend seem to have prevented most, if not all, people from summiting Shasta over this memorial day weekend, so we may not have really missed out on too much. We got back down to Horse Camp by about 11AM, the bizarre result of starting at 2:15AM and all decided to take a nap. Unfortunately, when we got up from our naps to pack and leave, it was raining. It took us rather a while to accept the rain, get up and pack everything. From there, it was a couple hours hike out down the slow path from Horse Camp and we were done.

Ultimately, it was a grueling, sometimes unpleasant endeavor and I’m immensely pleased that I did it. I would very much like to try Shasta again sometime; perhaps I’ll try to do some altitude training or get a doctor to give me some Acetazolamide. Shasta aside, methinks that this whole mountaineering thing is a thing that I should be doing more of.

P.S. For those of you who are not Shadowrun geeks, Mount Shasta is the home of the great dragon Hestaby. For those that are, while I was hiking beyond Lake Helen and feeling the effects of altitude sickness, I got myself to keep going by telling myself to roll willpower.

Last night, at 2:03am, I happened to find myself smack dab in the middle of a five car pile-up on the Bay Bridge. I was on my way to drop off a friend on Treasure Island after a Plaid concert when things happened to go very awry.

In the leftmost lane of the Bay Bridge, a car (car one), had run out of gas and come to a stop. The Bay Bridge being a highway, another car (car two) was barreling down on car one but managed to hit the breaks in an attempt to slow down to avoid a collision. I (car three) saw car two’s break lights and made a point of hitting my brakes as well, thinking, “Did I push my clutch in soon enough? I hope that I didn’t just fuck up my transmission. I really hope that I can stop in time to not run into this car in front of me.” Soon thereafter were two impacts, one coinciding with the thought, “Oh fuck, I’ve been hit, I hope I don’t end up dead!” and the other coinciding with the thought, “Oh shit, not an airbag in the face, please! Why didn’t my airbag just deploy? Is it because this impact was slow enough to not trigger it?” I was very clear on the existence of both of those thoughts and the fact that the airbag thought came second but I was, at the time, very unclear on whether I had hit the car in front of me first or if the pickup truck behind me (car four) hit me first. On later recollection, it’s clear that the airbag thought, which came second, was connected to the impact with car two, meaning that car four hit me before I hit car two. There was additional bouncing, jostling and confusion as car four pushed my car and car two into car one. Subsequently, the Lexus SUV (car five), whose driver failed to take advantage of the good brakes a Lexus ought to have, plowed into the back of car four. The whole set of colliding took a very short period of time, well under 5 seconds and then it was done, pretty much before I even realized that it had started.

After everything had stopped, I sat in the car for a few moments, seriously hopped up on endorphins and adrenaline; I even managed to feel the slightest upsurge of shock in the bowels of my mind. Thankfully the hint at shock seemed to be my brain asking itself if now would be a good time to go into shock and then, upon discovering that there was no injury, deciding that shock would not be useful. My wits returning and realizing that the eternity of the accident was a mere few seconds, I decided it was best to stay in the car a few more moments to make sure there were no more collisions. After I was satisfied about the conclusion of collisions, I figured that outside a much safer place to be than inside, not from the faux-risk of movie-like explosions but from the very real risk of fire. As such, I got out of the car and convinced my passenger out as well. There was subsequently a lot of standing around and talking to the CHP. Eventually, my car was towed off and I was able to retrieve some personal effects and enlist a ride from some friends to a couch where, shortly after 5am, I was able to get some sleep.

End result, I am uninjured but my 2000 Subaru Legacy GT, which I had grown quite fond of, is likely totaled. Needless to say, I am not particularly pleased but, thankfully, I happen to be very good at getting over, ignoring or suppressing (I’m not sure which) serious emotional traumas. Also, thankfully, I commute to work by public transportation and can survive at least a short while without a car.

Today, I saw the truly wondrous Badlands of South Dakota, a sight that I recommend to those that have not seen them. The Badlands are gorgeous and Max should be putting up photos after we get to San Francisco. As for right now, we’re in a motel room in Gillette, Wyoming, availing ourselves of free wireless and getting ready to go to sleep.

As some of you may have gathered, we set out from Concord, MA on Monday morning (about 11am). From Concord, we drove west through New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. At 11pm, we were about 2 hours shy of Chicago so we decided to keep going in the hope that we could pass Chicago late at night instead of hitting traffic in the morning. Passing through Chicago worked well but then we made the foolish choice of trying to get all the way to Minneapolis in one go. Passing through Illinois, Wisconsin and into Minnesota, we managed to make Minneapolis at about 9am Tuesday, without having slept. Sleeping through much of Tuesday afternoon, we were ok by the evening, went to sleep early and were fine for Wednesday. Some friends and some family were seen during my time in Minneapolis but many could not be accommodated due to the briefness of the stay. My apologies to those that I did not see; hopefully, there will be another chance. We left, Minneapolis at about 9-10am today and made the Badlands by about 5:30-6pm, which gave us just enough time before sunset to enjoy the beauty of the Badlands, but now I’m repeating myself.

Tomorrow we drive to Yellowstone National Park and then on to Missoula, MT to visit Graham for a bit.

Tomorrow morning, the journey west begins.

if you recall the last time that I tried to climb Moosilauke, you’ll note that I failed. Yesterday, however, I set out for attempt two and succeeded.

I drove up to Concord on Saturday and then, bright and 6:30am early Sunday, I drove to Cambridge, grabbed Max and drove up to Lincoln, NH. In Lincoln, we grabbed breakfast and some snacks before driving out the the trailhead. Our hike finally set off at 11am.

Moosilauke starts our reasonably flat, with a slight rise over easy ground for a small fraction of a mile. After the very brief illusion of ease, comes the Hell that is going up approximately 2000 feet in about a mile, which for the mathematically inclined is about 22° average inclination. This rise is flanked, most of the way, by a series of very beautiful waterfalls and consists primarily of rocks. It should be noted that the steep part of the path begins and ends with signs warning that it is very treacherous and should be avoided when wet or icy. After using most of our initial energy on the steep portion, we were happy to find that it became gradual and had a bit of soft dirt for a while, providing a very welcome respite. After the gradual portion, we hit a number of up and down portions, nowhere near as severe as the initial portion of the trail, before beginning the final ascent to the summit. We reached the summit at about 2pm.

The summit of Moosilauke is essentially a very large grass hill, with a great many blueberry bushes and some rock shelters, reaching a maximum elevation of 4802 feet (trailhead is at 1800 feet). The summit provides fantastic views in all directions, unobscured by trees or any of the smaller surrounding mountains. The summit provided a nice cooling breeze, a good place to have lunch and a whole bunch of gnats. So far as I can tell, I probably ate about a dozen of those gnats as they landed on my fingers and food. All in all, Moosilauke has a beautiful summit that is rather pleasant to hang out on. We left the summit at about 2:30p for home.

The upper portions of the trail were just about as easy to go down as they were to come up. The steep portion, however, was not so pleasant or easy. Initially, the only problem getting down the steep portion was that we were quite exhausted by that point and steep rocks are not easy to descend. Shortly after the steep portion began, our real troubles began, rain. At first it rained lightly, just enough to make all the rocks slippery and treacherous, which makes for a wonderful addition to a trail listed as to be avoided when wet or icy. The light rain was rather annoying but then when it was followed by a rain heavy enough to drench us to the bone, it felt as though the mountain were spiting us and trying to make me fail once more. Eventually, we made it through all the slippery rocks and mud to the bottom, reaching trailhead at 5:30pm. From the bottom, we drove to the Ashland Burger King, The Burger King of New Hampshire mountain climbing, had some dinner and proceeded home. By the time I arrived back in Woods Hole, at 10pm, I felt as though I was going to collapse. Shortly thereafter, I did collapse, thankfully in my bed. Today, I still feel as though I am going to collapse, but I can probably hold myself together until the afternoon.

Mid-afternoon yesterday, I noticed that it was an absolutely gorgeous day—as many have been recently—and, having not made evening plans yet, I decided that it was to be a night for ice block sledding. Wondrously, the weather held out pretty well, with a clear night sky and warm air. Furthermore, it was a near full moon last night so we had plenty of light to see by.

Ice block sledding, for those that don’t know, is a fantastic sport that involves no more than some blocks of ice, some towels and a hill with well mown grass. In some parts of the world, ice blocks aren’t the easiest thing to come by but, in Woods Hole, the local liquor store sells them in order to accomodate people with house boats and old fashioned ice boxes. I’ve got plenty of towels, so that’s no problem. The well mown grass hill is where Woods Hole really shines; we have a fancy golf course with a very steep hill in the middle of Hole 13’s fairway. Once you have all three components, they must be put together correctly; the correct organization is to put the ice block on the top of the hill, put a folded towel on top of the ice block, sit on the folded towel, set off down the hill and try not to fall off. I should have mentioned, the ice blocks are about 12″x6″x6″, which is to say not very big or easy to stay on.

Having acquired all the requisite components, plus a few beers for good measure, the troops (friends that I had called earlier in the day) were gathered and the fun commenced. We had a little trouble with the golf course sprinkler system initially but, once that passed, we had a hill that was slightly moistened, which serves to make the ice blocks go even faster. Having been ice block sledding many times over the course of quite a few years, there’s only so much appeal to going down by myself, whether it’s on my butt, stomach or whatever. The next level of thrill is formation ice block sledding; there are quite a few ways to arrange two people with two ice blocks and even more with three. In our case, we had five ice blocks, so we didn’t come anywhere near exhausting our possible formation arrangement. It was a fantastic night and a fantastice endeavor.

If you can find some way to get your hands on blocks of ice, you will be doing yourself a severe disservice not to go ice block sledding sometime. Of course, if you ever visit me on the Cape and the weather is decent, you probably won’t have a very hard time convincing me to take you out ice block sledding.

The past few days here in Woods Hole have been stunningly beautiful; if the past few days had been women, they would have easily been 10s. Of course, having boats in the water and beautiful days means that I had no choice but to go sailing. Sunday, I took out my dad’s old sailfish, a wondrous little craft that’s hardly more than an over glorified windsurfer. I ended up toodling around in Little Harbor for about an hour, having a wonderful time. Monday, it was a bit windier and I ended up taking the sailfish and venturing a little way out of Little Harbor. On my way back into Little Harbor, I was sailing on a broad reach and I started picking up an immense amount of speed. As I started to really get going, I was made aware of something that I had forgotten about sailfish, sailfish can plane. The front half of the sailfish was completely out of the water and I was going mighty fast. Sadly, I brought my GPS with me on Sunday but not on Monday so all I can say is that I was going substantially faster on Monday than the 6.3 knots that I measured on Sunday.

Yesterday (Tuesday), is when the big guns came out and the real fun began. Yesterday was Synchronicity, my catamaran’s, first sail of the season. It was a nice, warmish day with moderate wind so Dave and I took Synchronicity out after work. We three quickly made our way out of Great Harbor and off into Vineyard Sound. As we passed Nobska Point and headed out into Vineyard Sound proper, the wind picked up a bit and we started tearing through the water. Having been cooped up all winter and having so much wind to play with, Synchronicity was more than a bit antsy so Dave and I, feeling bold, decided to let her have a bit of fun. Synchronicity was in the mood to take flight and, for the first time, we were kind enough to oblige her. The sensation of being on a catamaran as the hull beneath you lifts out of the water is very similar to the sensation you experience in an airplane the moment it lifts off the ground during take off. Investigating my GPS after the fact, we found that we had hit a maximum speed of 14.9 knots, which I find to be admirable for Synchronicity’s first voyage of the summer.

From this point forward, I’m intending to go sailing after work every day that the weather is sufficient, excepting those days when there’s an MBL softball game. Simply put, I just love sailing; it’s one of my favorite things in the world and now I get to do a whole bunch of sailing again.

Since I returned to Massachusetts and got my computer set up, I’ve been meaning to write about my trip back from Minnesota. As time goes by, I see that as less and less likely to happen so, instead, I will give you a very brief summary so that the important points can be touched upon.

Having made only a few hours of headway, my clutch decided to wear out 20 miles north of Madison, WI. This was incredibly unpleasant, requiring that I be towed to Madison to have my clutch completely replaced. As bad as it was, my clutch going was not all bad; I was able to reacquaint myself with my old friend Amrys, whom I had not seen in far too long and who happens to currently be living in Madison. Amrys was friendly enough to provide me with company, a couch to crash on and a brief overview of Madison, including an introduction to a quite pleasant breakfasterie. My car was fixed by noon the day after it broke and I was able to get underway once more. The car provided no more problems from that point.

On leaving Minnesota, I had commenced listening to Frank Herbert’s Dune in audio book format, which is a monstrously long audio endeavor. The second leg of the Journey took me to Ithaca, NY and I was only just finishing Dune shortly before I arrived. Now, I must say, as a way to entertain myself during 17-19 hours of driving, listening to Dune served fantastically well. Listening to Dune kept my attention so well that I didn’t, even once, find myself bored by the driving and completely failed to notice Ohio, even though receipts clearly show that I stopped in Ohio.

I stopped in Ithaca, NY so that I might be able to visit with a few friends that I have who attend Cornell. Over the course of one day and two nights, I spent some time hanging out with my friend Liz, some time hanging out with my friend Hannah and, in 45 minutes time, picked up a sunburn. How white must I be to get a sunburn from 45 minutes of New York state, early May sun. It was a good time, which was followed by the final leg of my journey, the Ithaca, NY to Concord, MA stretch.

The Ithaca, NY to Concord, MA leg of the journey was pretty much uneventful and filled with the fantastically amusing audio book rendition of The Areas Of My Expertise by John Hodgman. I would like to go on record highly recommending The Areas Of My Expertise.

There you have it, a brief summary of my pilgrimage back from Minnesota.

Well, not so much Dodge as Minneapolis but the point is the same. As I write this, I am in Chi-town visiting my friend Jamie. I’d been meaning to get out of Minneapolis in a “get away from it all” for a while sense and I’ve been wanting to pull a big road trip for a few weeks. So, when I discovered that I had an old friend 6 hours drive away, I found a brilliant means of satiating my desires. As it stands, I haven’t been doing altogether too much her but relaxing with a change of scenery and people is really nice. Of course, I’m not terribly looking forward to the amount of work that I’ll have to do tomorrow night but it’s worth it so, so be it.

This morning I woke up early to join some 3Ls in hitting up a costume shope and going to the Minnesota Renaissance Faire. I should note that the costumes we were looking for were not D&D geek style tights, we were looking for giant foam cowboy hats. We proceeeded to spend the day wandering around the Faire dressed as charicatures of cowboys, being heckled and getting funny looks. We attended a couple of comedy shows and ended up being the butt of the vast majority of the audience targeted jokes. Basically, we were wandering around making fun of everyone solely by our garb and being given a hard time for it. I am not normally the type for Renaissance Faires but taking this approach really made it a fantastic way to spend a Saturday; I highly recommend it.

I had a rather terrifying experience last Friday; I was on my way down to Woods Hole, chugging along in the left lane, minding my own business when, all of the sudden, something was very amiss. It took but a few moments for me to realize that one of my tires had gone so I made my way to the right side of the road. So, there I was, in the right half of the right lane of I-93S, on a bridge with no shoulder. I popped on my hazzards and figured that it was high time to investigate the damage and get my spare on. It wasn’t until a few moments after I’d gotten out to investigate that it struck me that I was standing in the middle of the right lane of I-93S with cars within 5-10 feet going by at 70+MPH. The moment that realization struck me i called 911 and climbed through my trunk to sit in the front seat with my seatbelt decidedly on. There I remained, on the edge of a bridge, dead still, on the highway, watching my side view mirror as vehicle after vehicle narrowly missed ramming me off into oblivion. Eventually, after a number of terrifying minutes, days, weeks, eternities, ar however long it was, a state trooper arrived and told me to sit in my car and wait for a tow truck. Fter a few moments of sitting through the same sort of terror that I had endured waiting for his arrival, the trooper decided that he did not want to throw away his life waiting for a tow truck and instructed me to drive, in spite of a completely shredded tire, to the next exit. At a speed of about 5-10MPH, I inched my way off the highway and into a nearby parking lot where the recently arrived tow truck helped me get my spare on safely (hooray for full-sized spares). With my life intact, I was able to proceed onwards and Cape-wards, eventually arriving in Woods Hole.

Displeased that one of my tires had spontaneously given way and plunged me into such a terrifying ordeal, Monday morning, I set out for the Sears Auto Center where I bought the tires less than half a year ago. I wandered in, explained that one of my tires had violently given up on me and that I wanted to get it replaced, which earned me the information that if I had Road Hazzard coverage for the tires, it would be a free replacement but, if not, I would, essentially, be S.O.L.. Well, as it turns out, in a move totally uncharacteristic of mmyself, I had spent the extra $7 per tire to get Road Hazzard coverage. Low and behold, an extended warranty was going to save me ~$100, that’s almost unheard of; usually you spend $10-$20 for an extended warranty and the thing you buy lasts twice that long and then dies on you. So, I dropped the wheel and shredded tire off (luckily the rim was essentially intact) and made my way to work. I returned to the Sears Auto Center on my way home, picked up the new tire, paid $7 to renew the Road Hazzard coverage and was on my way. The service and the savings in this matter alone have pretty much sold me on going to Sears for all of my tire needs in the future; I’ll still leave fancier work to my own machinations or less fast-food-esque mechanics, but for tires, Sears has a satisfied customer.

This year being a little more hectic than most, the annual Misogynistic Camping Trip was turned into a day hike. We (Sam, Jack, Smalltime and myself) left Cambridge, MA about 8a this (Saturday) morning heading North on I-93. The plan was to hike up to the summit of Mount Liberty and then continue on to the summit of Mount Flume and come back down, which forms a loop starting and ending in the same place. We were hoping to start around 11a and get down before dark.

I should note that we were traveling in an H3, which added it’s own comedy to the trip. Firstly, you might ask, why the Hell were we driving in an H3? That’s a question that I asked myself and, it turns out, Smalltime was borrowing a car from his dad–who works at a car dealership–and the only one he could borrow at the time was an H3. You’ve probably already encountered my opinions on the H3 from the exterior but this gave me a chance to back those up with impressions from the interior and ride of the thing. My first impression of the interior was that they’d done a fantastic job of making it very classy with two-tone leather, lots of polished metal and other fanciness but then shortly thereafter I started noticing things like the cheap plastic trim and the fact that the thing is absolutely tiny. The sheer tininess of the H3 is surprising considering the massive interior of the first Hummer and really starts to get to you. The vehicle is about the size of a standard SUV these days but it’s got door panels that are about half a foot thick (not exaggerating), the average person will have only an inch or three of head room and then the windows are about a foot and a half tall; it makes you cramped and claustrophobic; what a waste. Suffice it to say that our concurrant view was that the H3 sucks, though our language wasn’t so PC.

We managed to get hiking just shortly after 11a and we were making fantastic time until we hit the long swathes of steep snow and ice. Progress slowed down but we kept truding along and eventually made the summit of Mount Liberty. The views from the summit were really fantastic; we could see everything for hundreds of miles in every direction and the snow-covered peaks all over the landscape were really beautiful. From the summit we were able to spot the H3 in the parking area and I can report that from 3 miles away the H3 doesn’t suck as much. After chilling at the summit for a bit, we turned around and headed back (deciding against the go on to Flume plan). The return trip was pretty quick and easy, lots of downhill snow meant jogging and sliding a bunch.

After we’d made it about half way down and the snow-cover was giving way to more and more ice, an unfortunate thing happened: I slipped, started sliding on my butt, tried to stop myself with my left arm and popped it right out of the socket. My shoulder dislocated very easily without much pressure, implying that my accident this summer actually did leave me with a bad shoulder; having discovered this, I’m probably going to want to get surgery. So there we were, half way down (or half way up, depending on how you want to look at it) a snow and ice covered mountain and me with a dislocated shoulder. Unlike last time, my shoulder wasn’t cripplingly painful and I wasn’t going into shock but we still had to get off that mountain. The options, of course, were pop that sucker back in or bind it, climb down and hit up a hospital and since none of us knew how to put a shoulder back in, we opted for the altter approach. Going down was fantastically slow because I needed to have someone holding my hand and helping me find places to put my feet that were stable enough for me to not fall and close enough that I didn’t have to spread my legs enough to move my arm. As we were slowly proceeding downward, some people that we had passed on the way up and back on the way down caught up to us and one of them (Russ or Rusty or something like that) offered me the use of his cramp-ons. With those crap-ons, I damn near walked down the rest of the mountain without much help, it was really impressive. All the while we were going down, my arm didn’t really seem to hurt that much unless I bounced it the wrong way. Eventually, I was feeling really haggard, stressed and in mental anguish but no pain; when we reached the bottom and hopped back in the H3 (Smalltime had driven 0.6mi up the Franconia Notch bike path to the trailhead) suddenly I started noticing how very much my arm did hurt and it occured to me that the mental stress was probably the manifestation of the pain behind a wall of adrenaline, endorphins and will to not get caught up there at night. At this point, I have to, begrudgingly, compliment the H3 again, it fared fantastically well getting us out on the snow/ice covered bike path without Smalltime having to lock the rear differential or switch to low range.

We then drove to the nearest hospital, which wasn’t very close, and in some ways, mainly pain, the drive was worse than the ordeal of getting down from the mountain. We got to the hospital and then began the affair of popping my shoulder back in. I was expecting either a quick, painful pop it back in or a sedate me and I wake up with it back in approach but they decided not to take either of those. The approach that was taken was a two person operation where one person was behind me, displacing my shoulder blade and another person manipulating my arm to get it to slide back into place. The technique was not working and so they decided that they’d have to go with the more drastic, put me under and use machinery, approach. The doctor put my arm in my lap and then, after the doctor let go, I moved my arm slightly and the thing popped itself right back into place; it was really kind of comic. Then the doctor checked my shoulder a little to make sure that it was properly back, they took some X-rays and sent me on my way.

We stopped at the Ashland Burger King (one exit down from the Hospital) and had the traditional post-hike Ashland Burger King meal. From there we proceeded back to Cambridge, whence I proceeded back to Concord. All in all, not the most pleasant hike I’ve had but certainly one of the most interesting. Oh, and I do feel pretty damned hardcore for climbing down half of a mountain with a dislocated shoulder.

Whatever fantastic force I managed to drag out of myself on Monday was not to be found today. My best guess is that by being aware of such a feeling within me, I approached the evenings fencing looking for it and, in so doing, didn’t call it forth. In spite of failing to be on in the way that I was on Monday, I wasn’t particularly off and had a fine time. Unfortunately, today I seem to have picked up more injuries than any other day; meh, battle scars, oh well. I think that I’m going to have to take a step back and see if I can’t reapproach this mental issue with a more naieve outlook on Friday.

I’ve decided that I’m going to redouble my fencing efforts and kick it up a notch. This decision has three parts to it: two mental and one physical. The physical element is that I’m going to go to club at least three times a week, fence clear through and really push my body to the limit; I did this today and by the end my whole body was exhausted, burning and felt great. The first mental element is that I plan to take a lesson thrice a week as well; until now, I’ve been taking one every week or so but that’s just not enough to stick. Now, the second mental element is something that’s got me really pumped: I’m mixing Bushido into my fencing.

A few days ago, I decided to finally get around to reading (and finishing) A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi (the greatest swordsman to have ever lived) to see if I couldn’t glean anything that might be applicable to fencing. It turns out there are some fantastic things to be gleaned from Musashi’s knowledge of strategy (swordfighting and military combat). I took to heart one bit about taking control of the situation and leading your opponent in combat and it proved fantastically useful in practicing today. Not only did it prove useful in practice but I felt something fundamentally different about the way my mind was working while I was fencing, like I had tapped some force of power deep inside my will that normally lies dormant. It felt like some sort of fierce, primal core of my being had been let loose and it was truly exhilarating. Interestingly, there was no sense of loss of control associated with this mental state. It’s kind of hard to put into words but I’m going to work on developing it along with my fencing and I’m going to read and reread more of my books on the topics of war, fighting, Bushido and such. What’s more, I think this mental state may very well be applicable to more than just fencing, so I’m going to see if I can start extrapolating after I’ve got more experience with it.

I spent the long weekend down in Hartford, CT for the 2006 Fencing Junior Olympics (JOs). The JOs are the largest 20 and under fencing event in the US and they’re held in a different location every year; this year they were held in Hartford, which is so close to home that I couldn’t really justify not going. It was a lot of fun watching the fencing, cheering for members of my club and hanging out with fencing people. The fencing started really early every day, ran late every day and tended to be followed by a long, late dinner, which made for very short nights of sleeping. I would normally be fine with sleeping little over a long weekend for an event but I was fighting a cold at the same time, so this weekend has really taken a lot out of me. I feel mighty drained right now, but it sure was a lot of fun and man, oh man, watching all that fencing really makes me want to do some myself; I can’t wait for club tomorrow.

It may be well before my sailing season gets underway, but I happened to be in a West Marine recently for other reasons and I figured that I might as well grab myself this year’s Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book. I may not have any use for it now, but I will eventually and it does a fantastic job of reminding me of sailing; oh man, boats.

Until just a little earlier today, I was scheduled to go on a business trip down to Savannah, GA but as a result of intercorporate politics between the customer I was going to be dealing with and another company, they’ve asked that we put things off a little bit. It’s kind of unfortunate because I was looking forward to going to Georgia for a few days. Oh well, at least it’s snowing here; maybe I’ll go sledding later.

Before I get into the meat of this post, right now I’m eating a Beef Stick and sharp cheddar omelette and let me tell you, it’s fantastic. I’m making this stuff for breakfast next time I go camping with the guys.

Anyway, yesterday, I decided I’d set out to climb one of the White Mountains today. Taking a hike struck me as a good way to spend some time and try out my new snowshoes (Xmas loot, kind of). I was looking through my list of good hikes that I want to take and I decided to try to get up Mount Moosilauke (there’s debate between whether it’s pronounced to rhyme with rock or rocky, but I prefer ponouncing it as though it ends in uh). The plan was to set out around 7a today, get to trailhead around 10a, reach summit before 5p, turn around, camp at sunset and finish up tomorrow. That I’m writing this now means I obviously didn’t succeed.

The problems began when I pressed snooze until 6:40a, then I had to go get some food for my trip so I ended up with setting out at the equivalent of 8a which put me at the trailhead around 11a. 11a was still a pretty reasonable start time by my figuring but then between there being a whole bunch of snow, the trail up Moosilauke being really steep and me being plenty out of shape, I hiked woefully behind schedule. By 2:00p, I had made it up 2/3 of the elevation and 3/8 of the distance, which gave me 3 hours to make it the rest of the way and find shelter. Figuring I wouldn’t make summit before sundown, I figured I’d turn around, so as to be able to sleep in a proper bed tonight. Also, it was really cold up there (definitely <20°F, maybe <10°F but certainly >0°F), which had me a little concerned that my 0°F sleeping bag might not cut it. So I took the safer approach and turned back.

Coming down, as is always the case, was mighty quick, taking under an hour to cover the previous three’s distance. Seeing as there was a whole ton and a half of snow, going down was a mixture of glissading and ass sliding almost the whole way. Also, the steepness that had been a bother on the ascent made the descent fantastically keen. I almost wish I’d brought a sled with me, though that’s probably the sort of bad idea that would have tossed me off a cliff.

In summation: I’m fat and slow; Moosilauke is really steep; I like my new snowshoes.

Afternote: The highlight of the hike was the wonderfully amusing sign on a privy by the shelters where I took lunch that read something very nearly, ‘THERE IS NO “P” IN THIS RIVY USE THE WOODS’.

Earlier today, I read on the internet that you can use acetone as a fuel additive and get better gas mileage from your car. Now, since everything on the internet is true or, at least, I don’t really care if I accidentally break my truck in the name of science, I dumped about 3oz. of acetone into my mostly full tank of gas. I’ll let you know how things turn out after a tank or three for statistics. According to http://smartgas.net, who seem to have looked into it a bunch, adding 1-3oz. Of acetone to 10 gallons of gas will give you up to 30% better mileage. I’ll keep you posted.

I present, for your amusement, four different versions of how I dislocated my shoulder: the short version, the ninja version, the timetravel version and the long version.

Short version: I fell mostly off my boat.

Ninja version: I was ambushed by a group of ninjas and, after killing four of them, one landed a hit with a greathammer on my left shoulder. I proceeded to spin around, kick the head off the ninja that hit me and then finished the remaining two off with a punch through both of their chests.

Timetravel version: I came back from the future, hit myself in the shoulder with a wooden bat, said, “You’ll thank me later” and returned to the future.

Long version: I was sailing over to Great Harbor with my friend Dave and my brother Joe. We saw Andy Grant out on his houseboat and decided to stop in and say hi. We were tying off my boat to his houseboat and I was getting ready to get off onto Andy’s boat. Then my boat shifted underneath me and I lost my balance and fell between my boat and Andy’s houseboat. Since I had been trying to keep my balance my arms were out at my sides and my left arm came down across my boat’s right hull. So there I was lying, floating in the water thinking, hmm, my arm kind of hurts, oh well and decided it was best to climb out. When I tried to climb out, I realized that my left arm wasn’t able to exert any force and hurt when I tried so I mentioned to Dave and Andy that my arm wasn’t working quite right and really hurt so I thought that I’d lie in the water a bit. A little more of this and I explained that my arm really hurt, more than anything else in my life ever had but, not really saying it in any more than the tone I’d use if I’d scraped my knee, Dave and Andy figured I was just complaining. Eventually, I got them to haul me out of the water and around that point, we all realized that my shoulder was about four inches below where it ought to be and that something was seriously wrong. So, I sat down at Andy’s picnic table and took stock of how much pain I was in and realized that I was starting to go into shock. So, I calmly explained that I was going into shock and asked for a life-jacket to use as a pillow. We then managed to hail someone on a nearby houseboat and borrow a skiff to motor me to shore. Since they’d already called 911, there was a recue crew on shore followed shortly by an Ambulance, which took me to Falmouth Hospital. En route and during my hour and a half wait in the hospital, I was given a few injections of morphine, which did the fantastic job of making my pain only thoroughly unbearable instead of mind-destroyingly overwhelming. Then they gave me anaesthesia and I woke up in a bed with a sling and less pain. Since then the sling has remained and will for another 3 weeks, after which point I will be able to start using my left arm again.

I had a bit of an interesting day today. I dislocated my left shoulder in a boating accident; most painful thing that I’ve ever experienced. It’s a good story and I’ll probably put up a longer explanation Monday (but I make no promises).

Synchronicity had her first maritime difficulties today or, rather, I had my first difficulties with her today. She’s fine and, other than bruised egos, Dave and I are fine as well. Tomorrow, hopefully, we’ll do a better job.