day 0

I've got email, thanks to Sea-Tac's free wifi. And I am waiting for a plane. So I snapped a picture and am writing something, since people seem to want to know what goes down on my trip to belize. It will probably be awesome, and perhaps the price of me doing all sorts of cool things, is to share them with other people, who are not afforded the opportunity.

There must be deeper meaning though. It's not good enough talking just to talk. Does it help? Does it inspire? does it make people smile, uplift them when they're down? I have no fucking idea how to do any of that, but I'd like to, nonetheless, and sometimes I do, miraculously. It's not something I can control though. The best I can do is keep an eye out for opportunities to do good for other people.

byron katie has an exercise, where you try and do three nice things for people, every day, without being found out. If someone finds out it was you, you have to start over. I love that game idea. I want to do it. Every now and then I try, but it's really hard to figure out things to do. Perhaps I'm thinking too big. I should remember that little things still count.

my computer is periodically making an alarming scraping sound. I'm pretty sure it's the fan, but it's still unnerving. The whole idea of this teeny little netbook was it would be travel-friendly because it had solid-state memory, so no moving parts to break. But the way it sounds, it might be on it's way out. But perhaps it will manege for another year or two. if I can get four years out of it, it will have been worth the price (400$) And I'll get another one, hopefully slightly better quality (read: no alarming fan problems) and a bigger screen and a longer battery life.

jeesus, it's really going. it's probably just a loose screw, but it's quite irritating. maybe I can send it to the computer shop when I get back?

Anyways, I think I'll post everything when I get back, not now. If simply because this fan is really irritating me, and it would be frustrating if my computer died mid-sentence.

[note from much later on: I think it's the fan, as it only happens when the laptop gets really hot, so I just have to coddle it and move it to a cool surface if I do long-term work on it. This is how we step by step get lead into making ridiculous compromises for technology.]

Belize

I'm heading off to the airport in a few hours, heading to belize for twelve days, and adventure. I'm not sure for what part of that I'll have internet contact. I will update as I can. Don't expect anything over that time though. I'll be trying to keep a journal and take lots of pictures.

see ya later.

-i

I'm going to blow the shit out of that fucking plane

aside from being a dirty double entente, haven't you ever had the almost uncontrollable urge to shout shit like:

--"holy fuck motherfuckers I'm strapped down with seventy five goddamn pounds of C4!"

or

"I have a everloving shiv in my boot and I'm going to kill all of your asses dead as soon as we get off the shitasscocking ground!"--

when your in the airport security line? No? Just me then. It's just so deliciously naughty. So taboo. You are really, really not allowed to say those things. People will jump you and beat you down with billy clubs and you will be locked in a room until your bags are searched and your family notified and your background checked, and you will probably be severely fined, and you might just stir everyone around you into a panic. Or, even more deliciously, you might just make everyone pause, in a moment of dumbstruck unbelieving awe, and then burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of what just happened.

even just a turrets style ejaculation of "I'mma gonna crash the plaaaaaaaaane!" said almost like a five year olds plea to go to the bathroom mixed with a ganstah's death threat. even just that would probably get you in serious horse shit. and somehow that fascinates me. I would miss all my flights. I would waste a tremendous amount of money, I would probably be put on watch lists for the rest of my life, I might not get to fly out at all. Or maybe: nothing. some uncomfortable stares. silence.

Oh, by the way, these musings happen because it is night and I am not in seattle, but in Phoenix, arizona, at an airport hotel, because my flight is canceled, because there weren't enough people to man the planes, because whether hit some places where whether wasn't expected to hit, right during the holiday season, and the airlines are only legally allowed to have there pilots fly a certain number of houres without sleeping. thankfully.

so I'm going to miss my primitive skills school monday (sadface) and probably tuesday too (ultra sadface beam :C ======X ) So I'm thinking about airlines and trying to decide how early I want to try to get to the airport and wait around on standby. I should probably get there pretty dang early, so I should probably go to bed a few hours ago. so I'll go do that now.

'night

i

I suppose I should

give some information that is actually relevant to this place/time, for those of you interested in and expectant of such things from a now public blog...

That's tricky though, because I think this blog will be most interesting and fun if I just pretend no one else is going to read it. No longer possible, I suppose. Just be warned: if you are someone who gets offended, ever, you might not want to read my uncensored thoughts.

I'm going to Seattle, except I already went. I don't keep this blog very regularly, you see.

I'm going, or wenting, to be a part of a wilderness skills school called Earthwalk Northwest. I'm doing the Apprenticeship program for a year. But not the whole year. The program is only two days out of the week, until somewhere around April-May, when it will go up to three days a week, and then, in June, down to one day a week, until October, when it all ends.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't want to make this long, because it's not particularly interesting for me, because I've already done it, but people are curious about the road trip.

Three days of driving, one day in the middle of r&r at my uncles awesome mountain hideaway in Montana. 2300 miles.

Nature and friends supplied me with a driving buddy. Austin Trout, who was going back to school in Olympia and needed a ride out.

Austin is tall, blond, bearded, with a laid-back demeanor and soft deep voice that is misleadingly relaxing. Like surfer dudes, that seem chill until they're out on the sea, paddling like mad to catch a wave that has a 30% chance of killing them.

The first day was short and uneventful. We talked, ate from our comfortingly excessive food supply of fruit, almond butter, granola, nuts, and healthfood candy bars. We slept at a campground right outside the Badlands, and the next morning, drove through them, watching the sunrise.



Shit, blogger is being an asshole with formatting. DAMN you computers, stealing my time, my very life.

Anyways, then we stopped by devils tower

very briefly, and drove on until about 11:00pm, to arrive at my uncles permiculture homestead/ranch/spiritual retreat. I would have stayed longer probably, but Austin was keen to get back, and I didn't care that much either way. I'm definitly coming back for a longer stay though. It seems like a perfect place to write a lot or be creative in some way. No people around to distract, and plenty of nature to inspire and energize.

Wish I had some interior shots.

I love mountain homes. I love being comfortable while storms rage just outside of large scenic windows. I love the feeling of being hidden above the world, secluded and safe. I like high places, with views that give you vertigo, make you aware of how small you are and how big the universe gets, and what the earth would look like while flying. And I love being surrounded by rocks to play with and admire. A piece of broken, purple slate with mica in it, sparkling in the sun, is just as precious and beautiful to me as rubies or diamonds. I like talking to rocks. Feeling them and getting to know there personalities. And if they're really shiny, fantasizing about chewing and eating them like candy. I think Jung said that means you want to assimilate something into yourself. I guess I need more Rock in my life, as well as Funk.

That day traveling to my uncles house was a great sunset.








Also, I think we briefly drove through Wall Town after the Badlands, looking halfheartedly for the dinosaurs and feeling like dirty tourists, which, of course, we were. Austin had mentioned that he had trouble being patient, and wanted to get back to Olympia, so we did precious little stopping.

My preference is to do a few things, but do them well. Otherwise it's just tourism, driving all over the place and snapping pictures like it's some kind of treasure hunt or status symbol, "look, here's a picture of a bunch of places you've already seen, but with my ugly mug stamped in front of it. VALIDATE MEEEEEEeeee!" Ahem. To each his own.

Really I just don't like driving, so if I'm going to go somewhere, it had better have a big payoff. Since I'm so easy to please in terms of scenic scenes (I was mesmerized for a half hour by a daddy long legs extracting it's self from it's old exoskeleton (and by the way they are NOT poisonous! Check Snopes before you believe weird things people tell you.)) scenic scenery is almost never a good reason to go traveling for me.

However, apparently traveling is an excellent way for the universe to show me where my uncomfortable spots are, so it's always finding excuses to get me on the road.

The next day we took a long route by Mount Rainer. That was gorgeous. I crashed at Austins place for the night, and arrived at the TM center the next morning. Been here ever since. More as time allows (pictures make everything take longer)