Filed under: Seattle, Uncategorized | Tags: commute, craigslist, trek, Trek Portland, tri bike, triathlon
It’s just a bike. Just metal and rubber and some carbon. You can buy a new one. But I can’t stop staring at the barren white spot on the wall.
I’ve just sold my bike. Not any bike, but the bike I specifically purchased for knocking out triathlons, something that never ended up happening.
When I finally manned up and purchased it back in New Hampshire, I was at a crossroads in my life. I knew I was leaving; I knew I was going somewhere new. And I knew I wanted to continue my athleticism with triathlons. So when I bought and assembled the bike, it was a symbol of the things to come—a talisman to my desired athleticism. This bike would be the gateway to the dormant athlete in me.
Filed under: Seattle, Uncategorized | Tags: at&t, blackberry, blackberry pearl, iphone, tmobile
Today was the day I had been waiting for. Today I became the proud owner of an iPhone.
There is a strange mixture of sadness and exhilaration in saying this. Exhilaration because I have a new toy—a new tool—and can look forward to a working calendar program again. Sadness because—like the idiotic consumer masses that I used to despise, I have become involved with, and placed expectations of happiness on, a consumer product. I have become them. I am a hypocrite. Joy should be had from doing things, not buying them.
But nevertheless it comes at a convenient time. I had been holding out for some months as my Blackberry Pearl continued, like a technological hospice patient, to waste away to the point of barely functioning. It dropped calendar dates, it wouldn’t sync with my computer, it turned off when it felt like it, and it had an annoying habit of jumping out of my hand and crashing into the wall of our apartment.
Filed under: Seattle, Uncategorized | Tags: ankle sprain, Mt. Si, trail falls, trail running, trails, walking on a busted ankle
Before long we are half a mile down the path, and my vision is jolted by my hastened steps. Clom clomp clomp, the pack hops up and down on my back. Our clothes swish as we dart through tunnels of trees and into the dark only to explode again into the intermittent patches of sunlight. Swish swish swish—we move fast, going down down down the trail, hopping and dodging all the rocks and roots. We are focused.
I am moving fast, dodging branches and hopping roots, coming down the mountain; we will be there in no time at this pace. I feel great. We look great. Clad in mountain attire we run past the jean-short wearing idiot dayhikers—to move this fast is badass. To move this fast shows a knowledge of woods. I am fast. I am conditioned. I am born of the woods—born to breathe, to consume the woods, to be sustained by them and be a man of the mountains. I am a man of the mountains!
It’s at about this point that a gentle root reaches up, stiffens, and taps my left boot lightly—so lightly that I don’t notice. But I am a mountain man, and nothing escapes a mountain man’s attention—even small details like the approaching earth.
Because nothing’s sexier than Scrabble. In my search to find things to do instead of my own work, I came across, as many other have, the Scrabble application option on Facebook. Being the unabashed Scrabble geek that I am, I’ve long since overcome the stigma of starting speed games with random people I’ve never met.
When one’s friends are “working”, or “living their lives”, and can’t play at the instantaneous speed needed to keep a Scrabble addict from contributing to society, there is a “join table” option on the application page which allows one to search for a playing partner based on ranking, variety of speed, and speed of play. Filling out my parameters, I came across something new; “adult invites”. Thinking that this was a new feature provided for those older individuals navigating Facebook without a home network, I clicked “allow” so that I might be able to enjoy the higher intellect the older population might have to offer.
I was very, very wrong.
Filed under: Seattle, Uncategorized | Tags: a frame, Benz, cabin, chelan, lake, lake chelan, leavenworth, rattlesnakes
It says something about the state of technology in society when I find myself writing on my laptop 11pm in the evening in a tent. Yes, like the great outdoorsmen before me, I am scribbling down my notes and thoughts on my MacBook. Lewis and Clark may have been using Dells, but I’m not sure.
