A Happy Scottish New Year

Most everyone is familiar with the melody… traditionally performed when the clock strikes twelve on New Year’s Eve. But did you know that the words of this immortal song are actually from a poem written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1788? And when first put to music, it had a slightly different, less jubilant melody? I prefer this original arrangement, performed here by Mairi Campbell, a Scottish singer and musician. I think it's lovely, even a bit haunting, and more in keeping with the meaning of the words. Happy New Year everyone.

Caveman Hiking

Because my last two blog posts were hiking-related, it had been suggested that I repost to this blog something that I wrote in April 2009 (posted to my Facebook notes and then removed a short time later). It is another tale involving Laura and I and an ill-fated hike, and in it, like the bear tale, I make light of a situation that did not seem all that funny at the time.

The hike had its bad points; I took a nasty fall, the effects of which I still suffer pain from to this day, and a severe underestimate of the amount of water needed for the hike. One would think April to be cool, however, this April day was very hot and the trees had absolutely no foliage upon them. Combine this with the lack of water and the fall I took, and you have the preverbal “Perfect Storm”.

So here it is… a repost of “Caveman Hiking”…

The trail guide says “Depart trail head and walk 0.1 miles to Appalachian Trail crossing” so we do that… only takes a minute or so. I’m thinking, “Man, this is so easy a cave man can do it”. We read on, “now descend 2.7 miles along blue blazed trail into deep hollow to third highest waterfall in Shenandoah National park”.

With the assist of gravity (gravity is good) we begin our decent. The hike down is beautiful, only marred by one minor incident. I’m sure everyone can relate, having had this happen at one time or another. You are walking along on an outcrop of rocks and the next thing you know your feet are somewhere out in front of you and then there is a sudden jolt through your body as it hits the hard sloping rock of the cliff followed by a distinct feeling of weightlessness. Then you find yourself laying on your back looking up into a cloudless sky feeling like you are going to throw-up (and would have if there were anything in your stomach). I’m sure it happens to folks all the time. I lay there for a while, wondering if my arm is broken and wondering if this ever happened to those cavemen. Except for that, and the constant throbbing pain in my elbow after the fall, the hike down into the hollow goes just fine.

After two hours of hiking we arrive at a spot near the base of the falls, but the approach to the falls is a scamper over many large slippery looking rocks. My elbow throbs intensely, as if to tell me “If you do this I’m going to make sure you wind up on your back again… don’t forget I’m your elbow and I am in contact with other parts of your body… and we talk… a lot”. So we choose to save the last 0.1 mile trek to the base of the falls for another attempt (perhaps in another lifetime).

Now here is where the difference between reading and doing becomes orthogonal. The guide says “retrace your steps and ascend 2.7 miles to crossing with the Appalachian Trail”. I think back to the hike down into the hollow… every single step of it… all 2.7 miles of them… were steps down. The vast majority of them very steeply down. This is the part where the caveman says “Heck no, not me, I’m going to make camp right here. In fact, I’m a hunter-gatherer and I think I’ll just live here. You’all have a nice hike out. See ya.”

It takes us three hours to retrace our steps. Somewhere around the half way mark I find myself willing to pay $100 for one of the cold drinks sitting in the ice filled cooler in the back of our car. A little while later I am willing to pay $100 for one the ice cubes. Soon after that I begin to notice things… strange things. Are these odd shaped rocks really rocks? They begin to look likes bones… bones of other 52 year old hikers whom made the decent into this forsaken hollow. Yes, I am sure of it now… they are bones. I begin to realize I am not going to make it out, at least not alive.

As I begin to picture our children coming to claim our remains I notice we are back at the crossing with the Appalachian Trail. The last 0.1 miles to the trail head that we scampered down in less than a minute earlier in the day only takes another 20 minutes or so. Then we are back. And the cave man in me says “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You did it, both of you, and all on your own”. I look up at the clear sky and take a deep breath of fresh mountain air and say to myself “Yes… yes we did… and we are never going back again”.

Buddy Bear - Part Two

Well… I said I would write this a few days ago… I am just getting to it today. Sorry about that. If you are reading this and have no idea what I am talking about, you need to read the first part of this bear tale… which you can do by proceeding backwards one blog post.

The photo by the way is of Laura, during a much more pleasant hike earlier in the year. For those whom have read the first part… I will pick up where I left off… Bear!

Yep, Buddy Bear was still behind us. Laura and I took off at full speed (again)… up the trail that was now making its way to the top of the ridge. As our breath ran out once more, the trail (thank goodness) leveled out and disappeared into a thick cover of trees -- trees we wasted no time vanishing into.

A few minutes later we came to a junction… a meeting of two trails. We knew our path lay to the left so we made the turn without breaking stride. The trail also continued straight for those not wanting to turn. If you recall, this was an impromptu hike, which means I had no pack, which means I did not have my trail maps, which means I really had no clue as to where the heck we were. I did not know where the trail that went straight led, nor did I care.

My hope was that the bear would continue on straight and not turn when it came to the junction. This of course implies that I was hoping the bear was not following our scent. Let’s face it, the “scent” of two 50 something’s whom had just run a quarter mile up a very steep rocky slope would probably not be all that hard to follow. In fact I had already picked up on the fact that squirrels were climbing way higher in their trees than usual… obviously due to our “scent” problem. I began to hope that Buddy Bear was suffering with a bad cold, or at the very least, an allergy problem.

I looked at Laura and put my finger to my lips… no noise… no talking… quiet steps. When the bear got to the trail junction we had just passed, I wanted it to continue on its merry way without taking the turn. Now hiking at a quickened (and quiet) pace, it was not long before we found ourselves at yet another junction; one that we had passed earlier in the day at a much slower pace, while under no mental duress of any kind, while feeling no pressure at all, and not worrying about “things”, like the current economic situation, or world hunger, or the chances of being mauled by a bear hell bent on catching up with you on a trail out in the middle of nowhere. We stopped, each keeping one eye on the trail behind us, and quickly made the decision to turn right. We were sure we needed to turn because we knew we needed to hike parallel to the ridge. In the words of the Templar Knight from one of the Indiana Jones movies… we chose poorly.

The trail dipped down and around a bend. About 10 minutes in I had a crystal-clear “Seals & Crofts” moment… sing it with me now… “We had never passed this way before”. Laura said it first… “This trail doesn’t look familiar”. It was obvious that in our haste to stay ahead of the bear we had turned the wrong way.

Nevertheless, Laura and I continued for a while (neither of us wanting to turn around and head back in the direction that the bear might be coming from). We began looking for a trail blaze. Trail blazes are small rectangles of paint, found on tree trunks and large rock formations that mark most trails. The trail we wanted to be on was blue blazed. Even though we could not find one, I was convinced that we were on the Appalachian Trail (which would be blazed white). We both knew that the AT ran along this ridge.

That’s when Laura saw it. She stopped dead in her tracks and pointed.

Nope… not the bear. Nope… not a white blaze either. However, it was something that a bear might leave behind if it wanted to blaze a trail… only not with paint. Apparently another bear had used this trail very recently… and I really do mean “used” this trail. If the intent of the bear were to mark territory, I could easily see why a small bear might choose to turn around. I looked down in awe at the small mountain in the middle of the trail. Not only was it fresh, but it was full of berries, lots of ‘em. Actually, I did not see the berries; my mind saw things like my wristwatch and Laura’s sunglasses.

So… if this truly were the Appalachian Trail it would mean that we were not only heading for Maine (instead of our car) it would also mean we were probably not very far behind a fellow traveler. Reluctantly, we turned around and started back in the direction that we had come from, knowing that Buddy Bear would soon appear in front of us if by chance it had made the same trail choices that we had.

I picked up a rock, one a little larger than the size of my fist, you know, the kind you see tied to a stick in those museum drawings of prehistoric folks… when they hunt animals… like bear for instance. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to do with it. A bear’s head is not much different than a bowling ball when it comes to hardness… and my rock wasn’t even tied to a stick.

With every bend in the trail that we could not see around, our heartbeats would quicken, only to be followed by a sigh of relief and a long exhale of held breath. This up-down cycle repeated itself for the longest quarter mile we had ever walked… ever. Our spirits picked up when we arrived back at the junction. We then hiked only a short distance down the trail (the one we had prematurely turned off of) to find the turn we should have taken earlier. And by the way… back at the junction… we saw the white blaze that we wished we had seen when we made the wrong turn.

After scampering across the cliffs that we had visited earlier that day (happier times, carefree, and bear-free), we began the long hike down the other side of the mountain. Even though we were quite sure the bear was no longer anywhere near us, it was funny that we still found ourselves looking over our shoulders every now and then… just to make sure.

On the way down we met two separate groups of hikers, both on their way up. We told each about the bear and how it had followed us, its persistence, and it making our lives miserable for almost an hour. The first group talked about it for a while, then turned and followed us down the mountain. The second group seemed to take the news as all the more reason to keep going… to each their own I suppose.

When the hike was over Laura said, “Well, we had an adventure.” Yes we did… we had ourselves an adventure alright. -- Good night Buddy Bear, wherever you are.

Buddy Bear - Part One

Before I tell you my bear story, I need to tell you a very short deer story…

Back in the spring of this year, during a hike in Shenandoah National Park, something really neat happened to Laura and I while we were on our way down from a summit (I can’t recall which one). Laura, whom was hiking in front of me (she usually takes the lead), turned to say something to me. She halted mid-sentence and pointed over my shoulder. I turned to see a deer walking about 10 yards behind me… simply following us down the mountain. We had no idea how long it had been there. Whenever we stopped to look at it, the deer would stop and look back at us. And when we would start back down the trail, it would resume following us. The deer continued to walk behind us for about 20 minutes. When the time came that we turned and it was no longer there, I felt a little sad… I liked having the deer taggling along behind us.

Now let me change the story a little… give you a new version… one not so neat. One where what is following you is not something you want behind you, especially when you are far away from everything and everybody else.

Laura and I went up into the park today for what was going to be a drive in the mountains. In the vicinity of Loft Mountain (in the southern section of Shenandoah National Park) we decided to change our plans and embark on a short hike. The trail wasn’t a long one so we figured it would be ok not to have our normal packs or boots or anything else we take with us when we hike. After a long steep uphill trek we made it to the top of a ridge where outcroppings of rock provided breathtaking views of the valley below (see the photo above). We sat there for a while; letting the constant breeze coming up the side of the mountain keep us cool.

The trail was a loop trail, meaning the way down was different than the way up. We prefer loops (and lariats) over “out and backs” since you get to see different scenery on the return trip. My guess is we were about half way down the downhill leg of the loop when we turned a corner to find… you guessed it… a bear. It was on the trail, not very big, and it noticed us just as quick as we noticed it.

Now usually when a bear is encountered on the trail, the bear skedaddles. We had two problems right away. Number one, the word skedaddle was not in this bears vocabulary. And number two, this bear was a young one… no longer a cub but still young enough that mama was most likely nearby. Right away the words of a ranger I talked with many years ago went off inside my head like a voice over a loudspeaker. “If you come across a cub on the trail, you can rest assured that mama is not very far away and most likely already knows of your presence. If she feels you might be a threat to her cub, she is probably already coming for you.”

I stopped in my tracks and turned to Laura (who was behind me this time). “What do we do?” she whispered. “Turn around and walk very fast” I said. In unison we turned, and proved to this bear that we had superior intellect since we obviously knew the meaning of the word skedaddle.

This is when the third problem arose… we had been hiking downhill, a very steep downhill, and now we were hiking UP a very steep and rocky trail with a dire need to move very fast. I turned and looked over my shoulder hoping to see buddy bear gone, or heading off in some other direction. That’s when problem number four reared its ugly head… the bear was following us. My pounding heart jumped up into my throat… all I could think was “Here we are… out in the middle of freaking nowhere… with the only direction open to us being a steep uphill climb, with a bear on our tails."

I will admit I was a bit concerned (ok… I was scared).

If I had my pack, as I usually do when I hike, I would simply open it up, pull out every granola bar and piece of food I had, rip open the packaging and make a pile of yummy bear treats so large that it would stop a grizzly in its tracks (if there were grizzlies east of the Mississippi). This is one of the methods I was taught for diverting a bear’s attention away from you (the human) while you (the human) continue to prove your superior vocabulary by skedaddling. But, of course, I had no pack, no nothing, heck we didn’t even have our hiking boots. This was an unplanned hike that had gone terribly wrong.

I was also painfully aware of the fact that if this bear decided to run we would be in even bigger trouble… no way to outrun it on the uphill. “Please be a lazy bear” I began to think. And the thought of a possible mama bear not far behind this one was more than I wanted to think about. So, we doubled our pace, which was already killing us, figuratively, in hopes that the bear who was following us did not want to do the same, literally.

The uphill to which we were contained was definitely not meant for anything but a slow climb. We turned again, the bear was still there. I turned to find Laura bent over, holding her knees, no breath left. “I can’t…” she uttered. I grabbed her hand saying “You have to keep going… we can’t stop”. On we went, continuing to climb the steep rocky slope. A little while later, after skedaddling almost all the way back to the top of the ridge, we halted. No breath, legs like rubber, and gasping for air. Running up this trail was something beyond our abilities, but somehow we did it. We stood there and tried to recover, keeping an eye back down the trail. No bear. We felt our breath starting to return. No bear. Laura says, “I guess we'll have to go back up and over the top and then down the other side”. “Yep” I said. We looked down the trail again. Bear! This persistent bear was right behind us… again. We took off at breakneck pace.

I have to stop here… it’s late and I am tired… and this story is a long one… part two will follow… tomorrow night. I know what you are thinking... did we live or did the bear have us for lunch?

The Solstice and the Equinox

Another solstice has come and gone. That precisely stated point in time that marks the beginning of summer slipped past us a few weeks ago… try as I may I could not intervene. Some say the long days are now upon us. In actuality it is the sweltering days that are upon us; the longest day has come and gone. As everyone knows, from the solstice forward, the amount of time we spend in daylight decreases with each passing day. We are on a downhill run, speeding toward September and the equinox that awaits us there… a place (and time) where night catches up and then overtakes day.

It is those days that I look forward to… I am not a huge fan of summertime. My fair skin will back me up on that. The sun burns me as if I were a slice of white bread stuck in a timer-less toaster. It is a time when my best friend becomes a bottle of SPF 50+ sunscreen.

If I were asked to rank the seasons I would pick autumn as my favorite; followed closely by winter. This places me in a minority of sorts, if one were to group folks using such a quantifier. Most prefer warm days and abundant sunshine. I choose crisp autumn evenings and warm wool sweaters. I feel best under an autumn sky, dark and clear, one abundant with stars that sparkle like diamonds spilt out over black velvet.

Rod Serling's Olympic Games

Am I the only one who sees it? There must be others who have noticed. The photo on the left is an image from a Twilight Zone episode titled “The Fear” (1964). It took me almost an hour of Googling to find it (because I did not know the name of the episode). The image on the right shows the newly revealed mascots for the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Aside from how ridiculous the mascots look… and the fact that money actually changed hands in exchange for their design… I think it very odd that the designers went so far out of their way to come up with gender and nationality neutral mascots… for a venue where the events are segregated by gender and the competition pits country against country.

I can almost hear Rod Serling laughing… from behind that signpost up ahead… in the Twilight Zone.

A disjointed cosmological rambling (or "What I choose to believe") (or "If by chance you understand any of this, I would love to talk with you") (or "Bear with me. There is a message here, for those who choose to find it")

I'm a fan of a multi-verse composed of giant bubbles…floating around in the bulk. I like bubbles. My grandkids like bubbles.They are elegant and easy to visualize. Most prefer membranes though, so I will speak in branes. I believe in level two universes. I have trouble with ours being a level one universe. Level one = infinite = I can’t handle that (i.e. cosmic inflation). The earth is not flat and neither is our universe… I think this even though WMAP begs to differ. The alternatives are flat but not infinite or curved but so huge we cannot measure the curve. I’ll bet on the latter. I am probably wrong. I often am. In the early 1990’s I told my boss Microsoft Windows would never catch on. Maybe there are an infinite number of level ones in each level two… could be… but I can’t wrap my mind around that either. How can a finite bubble hold an infinite amount of anything? How can a government spend more money than it has? Ok… maybe universes are flat.

That means I now believe in branes (multiple string theories plus one additional dimension [the 11th] to tie them all together [and in the darkness bind them] = M-theory = “The one ring theory”). Yes… that means I believe that everything and everyone, including you and I, are connected, at the most minute level. I also believe that everytime two branes rub together, a new brane comes into existence (i.e. brane + brane = collision = big bangs are commonplace = I really enjoy that TV show). I believe in a continuous cycle of branes hitting each other and giving birth to new universes. I believe the multi-verse does not use birth control.

And speaking of parallel universes, can someone please explain to me what differentiates a non-quantum moment from a quantum moment? Is it when a particular outcome depends solely upon how a particular particle in my brain moves? If that is so, thought experiments like this must waste a heck of a lot of space. I really should spawn fewer parallel universes. Waste not, want not. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics... yea... Hugh Everett's work not withstanding... I'll pass on this one too.

And lastly, level three universes really blow me away… and they bother me… because I like being alone. I hate the idea that I may have roommates and I can’t see them. In one of my favorite movies Nicole Kidman called these roomies “The Others” (not to be confused with “The Others” from the TV series LOST). Perhaps level three universes = ghosts (to us) = non-ghosts (to ghosts). I feel myself digressing.

Ok… this armchair cosmologist has finished rambling… for now anyways… level four universes shall remain a mystery.

It depresses me and amazes me to know so little. I need to take my telescope out soon. The answers are all around us… and within us at the same time. They exist equally at all levels of measurement and they hide from us like small children, quietly laughing as we walk right past them in a game of cosmic hide-and-seek.

Be amazed. Be very amazed.

My yard... I think I'll burn it.

I just came in from doing a little yard work, traversed to the fridge, grabbed myself a much deserved cold one (“cold one” equates to a can of Diet Sunkist for folks like me), and plopped down in front of my trusty computer; where I will now commence complaining about my yard.

Let’s get right to the point. I want to burn it. I have seen how they burn the meadows in the national park every few years… seems like a very fine idea. Give me some matches, lighter fluid, and a hose and I’ll “getter done”. Seriously though, this is my first spring at my new place north of Charlottesville and I can tell you this… I liked my yard a whole lot better when it was beneath two and a half feet of snow.

I just finished mowing the lawn. Just the back yard actually. Well, only the upper half of the backyard. Right up to where it starts running downhill at a slope that even a ski jumper would wince at. Now don’t start thinking I didn’t do much. That upper half is at least the same square footage as my whole yard in Virginia Beach… front AND back. And let’s talk about terrain... geesh! Aside from the slope, it’s a dirt-biker’s delight… holes and tree roots and gullies galore.

My observation: There is not a level square foot in the whole backyard. That’s living in the country… where the grass is not only greener, it's also harder to mow.

The Old Victrola That Is My Mind

A memory wandered into my mind tonight... I’m not sure why... but sometimes one just needs to go where the mind wants them to go.

In late October 1977, my fiancé (Laura… now my wife of 32 years) and I traveled north from Virginia Beach to my hometown of Perth, New York. I had just turned 21 years old the month prior and Laura was just a week away from turning 20. It was a magical time, we were young and our whole lives lay in front of us. We had been engaged since February, and the wedding was set for January. We had no other plans, and frankly, no idea of what we were doing, but we had dreams and we had each other, and that was enough.

The trip to Perth was important. I wanted Laura to meet the people I had talked so often about (aunts, uncles, grandmother, and cousins) and I wanted her to see in person the places that I had described and written to her about (while she was away in California the year before).

As planned, Laura met my relatives (sadly, many are now gone) and she was able to see where I had lived (in the house that my dad built in 1959), where I went to school (through the sixth grade… a K-12 school… whose yearbook was thinner than that of my junior high in Virginia Beach), and the farmhouse where my mother and aunts were born. We also hung around my aunt and uncle’s tavern (Mickey’s)… a place that I always thought of as the center of my universe. It was the one place that I thought would always be there… a home to me… no matter how far I wandered or how long I was away. Sadly, Mickey’s Tavern is also gone. But in 1977 it was in full swing and Laura and I had a wonderful time there.

At the urging of my aunt Tessie, we took a day trip. Heading east, we drove to Lake George, and then, after a brief stop and look around, we continued trekking east and meandered into Vermont.

Stopping at a place with barns full of old items for sale, we had fun rummaging through piles of antiques and junk. We did not know the difference between the two but it was fun trying to figure it out. Before leaving, we decided to buy something to remember the trip with, so we picked out two RCA albums (with the famous dog and Victrola on the cover) full of 78 RPM records . I recall the name Tex Ritter being on a few of the records… the others I can’t recall. Both albums still adorn a shelf at our home in Virginia Beach.

After that we simply drove along quiet country roads and drank in the beauty of a late New England autumn. By dusk we were in a town named Manchester, a ski town I think, where we settled in for dinner at an Italian restaurant named “Garlic John’s Spaghetti House”. We dined by candlelight. I recall it being so dark that we could not see our food; but it did not matter, the food tasted fine and the atmosphere was very relaxing. It was the late 70’s in Vermont… it was a magical time… a simpler time.

I’m not sure why this trip is on my mind right now. I can’t even tell you what triggered it. It can’t be the time of year… it’s April as I write this… and autumn is so far away. Perhaps it’s simply because I often think of my northern home, and the family that I miss. Perhaps this particular memory just happened to be “ready to go”… taken down from the shelf by someone who knew I needed to travel north tonight… dusted off… and placed on that old Victrola that is my mind.

Well… the reason matters not… it’s the memory that is important.

Memories of a journey, taken during the waning days of a crisp and cool October some 30 odd years ago are keeping me company tonight. The memories make me smile. And they bring a tear to my eye. They make me whole. A few minutes from now I will step away from this keyboard and head off to bed. I will take these memories with me… and if I am lucky… when I slip from this world into sleep… I will dream an Adirondack dream.

Current “End of the World” Stats

What most folks know about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is no more than what they have learned from watching news programs on TV. For example, “The LHC, a giant atom smasher located at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, is believed to be so powerful it will create a black hole here on Earth and thus bring about the destruction of our planet”.
 
That is inaccurate on so many levels I do not even know where to begin… therefore I won’t.
 
The LHC is in the news today though… after a couple of bad starts over the last few years it is up and running. The first line of the press release from CERN today…
 
Geneva, 30 March 2010. Beams collided at 7 TeV in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the LHC research programme.
 
Very cool indeed… record-shattering energies… but still far below the levels they will need (but will eventually attain) when they go in-search-of the Higgs boson a few years from now.

In the mean-time… here are those stats:
 
Persons killed by spontaneously
created black holes: 0

Persons yet to be killed by spontaneously
created black holes: 6,602,224,175

I’ll keep you posted.

Friday by Morning

I’ve done the calculations. If I want it to be Friday when I wake up tomorrow morning (it's Monday evening as I write this) I need to travel at .984375 times the speed of light for the next 12 hours.

It looks good on paper. And the math was relatively easy (pun intended). Now I need a really fast car and a long stretch of open highway…and some beverages heavily laden with caffeine. I need to drive all night to make Friday by morning.

Those Pesky Little Lesson Generators

It takes a while with me. Slow to learn a lesson. Call it a late New Year’s resolution. It won’t happen again. I promise myself and bask in a newfound air of confidence. Sometimes it’s work, sometimes it’s something dumb I did, and sometimes it’s just life hitting me on the back of my head with a piece of ice thrown from the cheap seats. I’ve made it a part of my simplification process… hoping to learn those valuable lessons a little quicker, hoping to be more proactive and less reactive.

Sometimes we willingly put ourselves in positions that we should avoid, and then ponder the resulting mystery. “Why did I do that?” We shake our heads. “I should have known better,” we say. A lesson learned is a lesson learned. It’s not a total waste of time and energy though… you learn something… you do know better… you gain experience. Some lessons can only be taught by experience. What makes each of us different is where “the line” falls. The line between what we can theorize and what we need to discover through empirical methods. My line falls more toward the latter. I have learned a lesson. I am content and satisfied to simply say “Now I know”.

The Ramblings of an Old Fashion, Peculiar, and Presumptuous Kitchen Table Person

I found this in someone’s blog today…

“I've not used this in ages. Facebook and Twitter have become an easier way of conveying what I want to say here and now. Is this a sign of instant gratification?”

A sign of the times I suppose; online snippets, texting, and online chatting instead of emails… and prior to that emails instead of letters. I suppose blogging will eventually go the way of journals and diaries. No one wants to write anymore.

I miss letter writing… putting pen to paper. I still have stationary tucked away in a dresser drawer.

I’m also a kitchen table person. I prefer talking face to face, perhaps over a couple of cups of hot chocolate, or two, or three. Throw in a few more chairs and few more voices. The more the merrier I say. Call me old fashion.

Some ask “Why write when you can speak over the phone?” I suppose it is easier, and I do own one, and I do use it, but the truth is, I don’t care much for phones either (a quirk of mine… I’ve always been that way when it comes to phones… call me peculiar).

And then there’s online chatting… a taxing venue where folks like me (non-multitasking persons whom prefer to live their life in a serial manner) seem to have trouble adapting. My main problem with online chatting is that I always assume I have the other person’s full attention. Call me presumptuous. Given the choice between undivided and divided attention I choose the former.

Yes… I prefer a kitchen table… or a front porch… even a quiet pub will do. Pick any of the “too many to list” places where a pleasant conversation can be enjoyed. With any luck, in my sometimes much too busy life, that’s exactly where you will find me.

Sinus Solutions, Inc.

I’ve done the research… there is no such thing as sinus removal surgery. Nope, you can’t have them ripped out. Therefore, in order to put an end to my sinus induced suffering, I've decided to have them filled in. Yep... you read that right... filled in, just like a pothole on the highway in springtime. I have opted for SRSP (Sinual-Resin Sealing Procedure), also known as The Blockhead Solution. My sinus cavities will be completely filled with a plastic resin made from 100% organic polymers. Once the resin hardens, the pressure within my head will be a blissful steady constant, and it will be impossible for my sinuses to fill with anything else. My head will be as solid as a bowling ball.

Of course there are a few draw-backs (read the next paragraph as quickly as you can… try to sound just like one of those announcers on TV… at the end of a prescription drug commercial… you know… the “fine print” part… where they tell you some people may suffer a few side-effects from the drug… like vomiting, diarrhea, chronic headaches, death, etc.)… all with a voice that speeds through the words as if it were a BMW on the Autobahn.

When I stand I will need to be held up by others because I will no longer have any sensation of balance. I will lose all ability to breathe through my nose; therefore chronic snoring will become an issue. I will lose my sense of smell (the most overrated of the senses in my opinion) and my voice will sound like that of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer in the 1960’s TV special, after his father puts mud on his nose, because he is ashamed of him, and worried he will not be able to follow in his footsteps and be one of Santa’s reindeer, when in fact it is he who is ashamed of his own shortcomings, due to his domineering parents and… sorry… I digress.

Anyways, other than that, my doctor says I will be much better off... and of course I trust everything he says. I’m looking forward to the end of my sinus problems… and it’s all thanks to the good folks at DuPont Chemical (Sinus Solutions Division).

Anyways… just kidding of course… I came down with a really bad cold late last week… makes me fell better to joke about it.

A Whisper of Spring

Well… not quite… not yet anyway. Almost a foot of snow remains from the last big storm (now two weeks ago) at my place in the western part of the state. When I left there last night, I drove past field after field of undisturbed snow cover, still beautiful, but now transformed into hard frozen blankets upon the ground, and I thought about the coming spring. I felt a definite twang of anticipation. I love winter, but I am ready for warmer weather.

I write this from the den of my home in Virginia Beach. It is cold here too, below freezing this morning, but the temperature is predicted to climb into the 50’s today – a definite hint of spring. I can almost imagine walking on the beach… in June… with Laura, but that would be summer. And summer is a long way off.

I can feel it though; a promise of Spring is in the air, even in the western part of the state where it hangs upon the boughs of trees as clumps of melting snow and falls to the ground as crystal drops of water, each a fleeting sparkle in the morning sun… each a whisper of the renewal to come.

Raggle Taggle Gipsy

Take a 300 year old traditional Scottish tune (“Raggle Taggle Gipsy”), give it to a kick-butt Irish band (the Waterboys), and throw in an Irish button box extraordinaire (Sharon Shannon), and you get music that speaks to you across three centuries...

Woods, Path, and Wishes.

When I was young, I never thought about the days ahead. And for sure I never thought about the day I would say, “When I was young”. 

 

But here I am. We all get there… sooner or later. 

Well… when I was nothing more than a curious child growing up in the shadow of the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, I would often play in the woods near my house. I would enter through a gate in the back corner of our neighbor’s yard and from there follow a path that wound its way deep into the woods. I remember it well, even now, when it has been over forty years since my feet last marched upon it, in a manner not much different from that of one Christopher Robin. 

 

The path was well worn, but not by me, nor even by my older brother. From the point of view of my life, the path had always been there. It was there when I first walked into those woods, and I like to imagine it is still there today. 

 

I remember wondering who made it. Who was it that blazed the path and then wore it down so well? Back then, I liked to think it was made by children who came before me… other kids, like me, who played in those woods. 

 

I also liked to think it was made in my grandfather’s time (his farm lay across the field, its grey house and red barn an image affectionately engrained into my memory)… or even earlier, when the founders of our small town may have hunted in those woods.

 

I liked to imagine things… I was that kind of kid.

I do not know how far the path delved into the woods because I never walked it to the other end. I always turned around… eventually. But I did often wonder how far it went and where it ended. 

 

But, I was young, and even though I loved to play in the woods, I knew better than to wander very deep into them… not out of fear of what might lay waiting for me (although I did often imagine bears, bobcats, and other sharp-clawed pointy teeth animals being in there), but a simple fear of the punishment my mother would provide if she found out I had strayed too far. 

Today, I look back, with the added experience of being an older person, and wish that I had walked further down that path. I would have loved to discover where it went. Perhaps a clue about who made it lay at the other end. Or perhaps, the path led to the other side of the wood and passed through another gate where another kid would often venture into the woods, but like me, never too far.

I miss that path. I miss the feel of it beneath my feet. I miss the woods of my youth.

“When I was young, I came upon a path. A path made by someone many years before… perhaps when they were young. And I walked upon it with wonder in my eyes and a smile upon my face.”

The Weather, Michael Jackson's Doctor, and the French Quarter

It’s early morning… quiet… snow covered ground out my window… beautiful… the sun is coming up… a golden orb beginning to peek through the trees. I turn on The Weather Channel. I’m looking for information concerning the next storm coming my way… tomorrow as a matter of fact. The Weather Channel person is standing in front of the east coast as she talks… the map continues to cycle behind her… I have no idea what the map showed for where I live. The weather channel folks do this a lot.

Between this and not being able to obtain current weather information (“Storm Stories”, “It Could Happen Tomorrow”, “When Weather Changed History”, other doom and gloom programs, MSNBC news [if I wanted that I’d change to MSNBC], and their talking, discussing, and editorializing about non-weather topics [climate, recycling, being green, going green, staying green], and the abundance of commercials), it’s a wonder they pass on any weather information at all. 

All I need (want) from The Weather Channel is… weather. But it’s been a long time since they were a 24 hour weather information channel. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve tuned in for a forecast, or much needed information on an approaching weather system, only to find myself in the middle of a program about hurricanes of the last century or the plight of Greenland’s glaciers.

In the time it has taken to write this, I have learned nothing new from The Weather Channel concerning the approaching storm. But I do know all about the weather for the upcoming Winter Olympics (three times over), the current temperature and snow cover details for the White House, a new show called “Weather Proof”, today’s forecast for Boston (too bad I live in the mountains of Virginia), and the top ten romantic drives in America. I take comfort in the fact that, before I change to a local channel to obtain the weather information I desire, The Weather Channel has brought me up-to-date on the charges being filed against Michael Jackson’s doctor, the Super Bowl score from last night, and the current temperature in the French Quarter (43 degrees).

While Marshmallows Melt

I’m in Virginia, in the shadow of the Blue Ridge, preparing for what should be 24 hours of snow… it's forecast to begin later tonight. The previous storm (the weekend prior to Christmas) dumped almost two feet on us; therefore I should have no problem taking this less significant storm in stride.

I like snow… with hot chocolate at the table and the blinds wide open… heavenly.

I will be staying in tomorrow… and off the roads. Snow is like a magnifying glass when it comes to driving skills. It makes good drivers better and bad drivers worse. For that reason I will enjoy the event from inside, where I can sip hot chocolate and ponder the Adirondack winters of my youth… while snowflakes fall and marshmallows melt.