afx_triplet

End of the Summer

2009-11-29T08:57:13Z

I'm bored right now and some people, such as my parents, were curious about what I've been doing. So, I decided to give a quick summary of what's been going on since I left the desert. Once again, I still don't have a camera. Therefore, I don't have any pictures from any of this.

San Francisco Decompression
I stuck around Gerlach for a couple of days after everybody else left. One of the things that Logan repeats as the end of DPW approaches is, "Make sure you have an exit strategy!" Well, being that I have a car and had some gas in the tank, I had an exit plan. Unfortunately, I didn't have a landing/arrival strategy. The place at which I was originally going to crash ended up falling through because they already had a large number of guests staying with them. Jeanette and I had already planned on hanging out in San Francisco, so I ended up staying with her at her friends' place. Jeanette wasn't going to arrive in the Bay Area until Thursday night, so I stuck around Gerlach until Thursday morning.

On the way to the Bay Area, I stopped in Reno to get my oil and air filter changed. Then I arrived at SFO about 1.5 hours before Jeanette's flight arrived. As it turned out, Jeanette was landing in Oakland. Not SFO. I didn't realize this until she had landed and we were on the phone trying to find each other. Once I finally arrived at the Oakland airport, we proceeded to head to her friends' place in San Francisco near Golden Gate Park. It was kinda crazy at this place. Six people lived there regularly and about 5-6 people were staying for the weekend. Yeah, it was crowded, but fun.

Decompression was quite fun, as expected. I primarily stayed between the DPW dumpster (we had 3 kegs) and the Janky Barge (a BM bus that a couple of my friends own). We ended up getting a cab at the end of the night and headed home. I took Jeanette to the airport the next morning so she could get back to Seattle. I stuck around San Francisco for a few more days to give Spikes a ride north. He was hitchhiking to Toronto and only had a few days to do it. So, I stayed with Jeanette's friends for another night and then stayed with Monk at the Vulcan Studios in Oakland again. I ended up running into Tommy the following morning at the Vulcan. Tommy is the drummer for Yard Dogs Road Show and on of the members of Beats Antique. I met Tommy when I stayed at the Vulcan a year ago. Then I ran into him a couple of months later in Seattle when Beats Antique opened for Bass Nectar. I saw him again a few months after that when Yard Dogs opened for Les Claypool. One of those weird things where you keep running into someone.

Portland Decompression
Spikes and I left San Francisco and drove to Medford, Oregon to stay the night with a friend that I worked with at GeoLearning in Des Moines, Iowa. I hadn't seen Nick in years and it was nice hanging out with him once again. We left the next morning for Portland to hang out with some other DPW friends that were staying there. As we arrived in Portland, I learned that Portland Decompression was that weekend and decided to stick around and help out with the party. Spikes decided to catch a bus to continue heading towards Vancouver.

I helped out with set-up on Friday and Saturday. The party was a lot of fun. Ended up hanging out with Melanie a good chunk of the event. I was even asked to play the sousaphone in a marching band at the event. I was a little bit nervous at first, but ended up having a blast. We marched to each of the five sound stages and played at each of them. The event went until 6am. I ended up just sleeping on a big pile of fuzzy pillows in the Artica room until morning.

Back in Seattle
Due to a bit of an unexpected situation, I ended up staying at Jay and Athena's once again when I landed in Seattle. I immediately starting looking for work. with no luck. For some reason, although it has been almost two years since I was last employed, I was eligible for unemployment. Between looking for work and hanging out with friends (mostly drinking and spinning records with Josh until the wee hours of the morning), I helped with set-up for Hive Mind Halloween, helped with set-up for Night of 1000 Pumpkins at B/IAS, and helped with setup and clean-up for SeaCompression.

I started getting a bit frustrated and a little depressed about not being able to find a job. A little over a week ago Josh sent me an email about a PM position with his group at Microsoft. I went in for an interview this past Tuesday and I start next week! So, yeah. After almost exactly two years of not having a job, most of that time traveling, I have a job once again.

So, yeah, it looks like I'll be here in Seattle for a while this time around. As for the journal, not sure when I'll update it again. This was set up as a travel journal. Looks like my travels are done for now.

City of Hope

2009-10-27T19:24:38Z

The following journal entry is from my website on GeoCities. GeoCities is shutting down, so I transferred the journal entries to this. The pictures for this entry can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/afx_triplet/sets/72157622676483868/

Thursday 12/07/2006
My first night
Karen picked me up from the airport and we stopped to get some dinner before heading to the hospital. If you are wondering about the picture of the lady in a suit sitting on her desk, I can explain. She was in a picture hanging on a wall in one of the halls at the hospital and she reminded me of the Cunningham Muffins Video. The remainder of the pics in this section are of Bryan and me playing with the phone on my new camera. Between the radiation and the chemo, Bryan's immune system sucks - which is why anybody that enters his room must wash their hands, put on a mask and gloves. It seems like it would be difficult to sleep in the gloves and mask, but surprisingly you get used to it rather quickly.

Friday 12/08/2006
Time for a walk
Bryan got unhooked from all of his tubes this morning for a shower, so we decided to go for a walk. Bryan told me that his doctor told him that he could go outside, but not to tell the nurses because they would make too big of a deal about it. We went outside for a little bit (without telling the nurses where we were going), but the whole time we were outside I thought Bryan was lying to me so that he could go outside for a bit. Because of this, I brought him back in after just a short time outside. It turns out that he wasn't lying to me (as anybody that knows him should have known). The views around the hospital are beautiful - check out the mountain view from the main lobby on his floor.

Saturday 12/09/2006
A day with no toxins
Today, Bryan doesn't get any chemo or radiation. I think he's done with all that for a while. We went out for a longer walk outside today (so I don't feel as guilty for cutting the walk short yesterday). He started the day with just 4 iv pumps, by the end of the day, he had 7.

Monday 11/11/2006
Party time
Bryan's dad, sister, and friend (Nathaniel) arrived Sunday and are staying for the week. It seems like everybody being there to visit really put Bryan in good spirits. His mom also sent an electric train, which was set up in the hall. The nurses made us put it away because of safety issues after a while. We also got Bryan a lady bug hat, that you can tell by the pic that he really loved it.

Tuesday 11/12/2006
Transplant day
Today Bryan gets his new bone marrow! We were all there anticipating the transplant to start at 9am. It doesn't start until later in the afternoon. Today is considered Bryan's new birthday.

Thailand Trip 2006

2009-10-26T16:21:19Z

GeoCities Shut Down
GeoCities, the site that hosted my website for the last 15 years is going away. So, I'm transferring all the contents to flickr and here. The contents of this entry were copied on October 26, 2009 from my website.

Also, I didn't feel like writing all the code for the embedded thumbnails to the images. So, here are the links:

Thailand - 09/2006 (Bangkok ,Khao Yai National Park, Ayutthaya)
Thailand Pt2 - 09/2006 (Chiang Mai, Doi Suthep, Khao Sok, Bangkok)

Friday 09/01/2006 - Day 1
We flew from Seattle to Narita, Japan. Flight was 10 hours but wasn't bad. This was by far the longest flight I've ever been on. There were TVs on the back of each seat with on demand movies and video games. The movies and the games made the trip go by very quickly. On the flight I watched:
- The Day After Tomorrow
- The DaVinci Code
- X-Men
I also played a single player game that was similar to Super Puzzle Fighter.

The food on the plane was actually really good. Better than food I've had on any other flight. For dinner I had rice with vegetables, a fruit bowl, a roll, and a small salad. Breakfast was rice with a berry sauce, juice, a bagel, and a fresh fruit bowl. Hot towels were provided before each meal.

Saturday 09/02/2006 - Day 2
Approaching the Narita Airport, the view was not as expected. I was expecting a lot of mountains and hills, but the land was flat and green with lots of farms. One thing that really stood out to me was that most of the houses had blue roofs. Landing in Japan, it took us a while to get our things together and get off the plane. The flight attendants were cracking jokes about how slow we were.

By the time we got off the plane and to the gate for our next flight, I wasn't feeling very well. The air in the airport was warm and it was very crowded. Natalie had me sit down and she got me drink. We spent the rest of the time at the gate watching this little boy that was about 3 years old run around throw things in the trash for his mom.

The flight to Bangkok was about 7 hours long. I finished watching the X-Men movie, started another movie called Men of Honor, and fell asleep. I did wake for dinner, of course, which consisted of rice with some beans and grains, a cake, a salad, and a roll. I slept through most of the flight.

We arrived at the Bangkok airport around midnight on Saturday. We were both tired and dreading the customs line. Fortunately, the lines were short and getting through customs was relatively painless. While looking for the restrooms, we ran into a guy that wanted to give us a ride. I continued to the restroom and Natalie took care of getting us to the hotel. I was nervous about getting a ride with some random guy, but Natalie assured me it would be okay and was confident he would take care of us. For 600 baht (about $15 US), he drove us to our hotel about 30 minutes away.

We arrived at the hotel about 1AM. Getting there made me a bit nervous. The driver turned down an alley way filled with vendors and people. Everything looked a bit run down. Once we got into the hotel, everything was good and I was once again comfortable. We were exhausted, but very excited to be there. We took some pics of the hotel room and then crashed.

Our hotel room was different than anything I had ever experienced. The room key (key card) is required for the room's electricity - lights, air conditioning, etc. It took us a couple of tries to figure that out. We were unable to turn off the lights in the center of the room, so we slept with them on. In the middle of the night, on the way back from the restroom, I decided to just unscrew the bulbs so the lights would turn off.

Sunday 09/03/2006 - Day 3
Breakfast at the hotel
We woke up around 7AM and had breakfast at the hotel. Most food at the breakfast buffet was meat, but I had a lot of fruit, rice, and some noodles. It was yummy.

Morning Adventure (2 hours)
Today was to be our day of rest after the long flight. We decided to walk around a bit and see our surroundings. Within two blocks of the hotel we were stopped by a guy that started giving directions to the many temples in the area. After about 5 minutes of telling us what we should see and marking it on our map, he introduced us to a tuk tuk driver and explained that 20 baht each (75 cents US) was a good price to see the city and that he'd take us to the temples. We said, "Sure, why not?" and loaded ourselves up into the tuk tuk. At each temple, the driver told us to take our time and he'd wait for us. Between temples, he took us to some shops - 2 clothing stores and one jewelry store. The driver explained that he received gas coupons for taking us to these stores, so we entered the stores and spoke with the people there.

The clothing stores were actually tailors. They had catalogs of designer clothing and explained that we just pick what we want and they will measure us and make the clothing. The prices were good, but all of the clothing was very nice and formal... not at all the type of clothes that I wear. The jewelry store was kind of the same thing. Nice jewelry, relatively inexpensive, but nothing that I wanted to buy or wear.

What I found to be the most interesting thing about the trip was that at each temple there was a guy that walked around with us asking us if we've been to the stores. The first guy explained how we could get custom made suits really cheap and well made. After we left that temple, we ended up at the store that made suits. The guy at the next temple told us this long story about how you can go to a specific jewelry store and purchase items tax free because the king made the day a special holiday. He repeatedly stated that you could by 3 items for personal use tax free. When we left that temple, we went to the jewelry store and the person there gave us the same story about 3 items for personal use tax free. I thought this was a brilliant plan to get people into your store. Offer the tuk tuk drivers free gas if they bring tourists to the stores.

I decided that rather than providing historical or factual details about some of the places we visited, I'm just linking to pages that contain information on them. Places we visited on the tuk tuk trip:
Wat Intharawihan

Afternoon Adventure (2:30pm)
After a nap we decided to go for another outing. We walked down a few roads and ended up on a road where they were selling plants. It was a series of plant vendors and shops about 5-6 blocks long. Several of the shops were selling fish out of big plastic tubs. It was getting very hot and humid so we decided to head back to the hotel for another nap.

Evening with Todd (5pm)
A little background info: There is a Thai food restaurant a few blocks from our house that we frequent often. The owners of the restaurant are from Thailand and go back to visit often. The owner's son, Todd, happened to be in Bangkok while we were there. So, they gave us his number so we could hook up with him while we were in town.

Todd arrived at the hotel with two of his friends to take us out on the town. We walk about a half mile to a public park adjacent to the river. The park was relatively large and was originally a fort with cannons pointing towards the river. There were a lot of people in the park. Every Sunday there is free aerobics instruction in the park. There is also a large group of people doing Thai martial arts and some are playing traditional Thai instruments. There are also groups of skateboarders and break dancers doing their thing.

After the park, we went across the street to get food. We entered a tiny shop and walked to the back and up some stairs to a tiny little dining area. Todd ordered for us. The food was exceptional. We ate in what appeared to be a closet with a small table and some short stools. Dinner was about 50 baht per person.

After dinner we took a cab to the Riverfront Hotel where we boarded a large boat that had a dining area/ballroom below deck and a huge open dining area on the top of the ship. Todd ordered about 10-15 dishes for us to try. The boat ride lasted for about 2 hours. The trip was from the hotel, along the river to the bay, and back again. By the time we returned to the hotel, we were exhausted and went to sleep.

Monday 09/04/2006 - Day 4
Morning Excitement
I woke up around 7AM today. Around 7:30AM, Natalie realized that we had not paid rent before we left for Thailand. After searching online for about 30 minutes and not being able to find the mailing address for rent, we emailed my parents to send a rent check to our apartment manager. This way the apartment manager could mail the check for us. Once our panic was over, we went down for breakfast at the hotel.

Introducing Tor
At around 10AM, Todd showed up at the hotel with his uncle, Tor. Tor is newly retired. Our plan was to rent a car and spend the next two days in Khao Yai National Park. Tor suggested that we go to the park for the day with him and then come back to Bangkok tonight. We agree and the 4 of us (Todd, Tor, Natalie, and I) travel to Khao Yai in Tor's car. It turns out that Tor has worked in the area of several years and knows the park and surrounding area well.

Khao Yai National Park
The drive to the park took about 2 hours. A good chunk of this time was spent trying to get through the traffic in Bangkok. On the drive into the park, we see a few deer feeding near the side of the road. The park is incredibly beautiful. We stop at a lookout point on the top of a hill to view the valley and hills below. While at the lookout point, Tor shows us a tree that produces tamarind. We then stopped at the information center at the park. It was a standard national park info center with the exception of the bathrooms. The bathrooms had a garden in the middle of it. There are some pics below. Our next stop was one of the large waterfalls located in the park. We took a trail that went down to the base of Haew Suwat Waterfall. Once we got to the bottom, we climbed onto the rocks at the bottom. Climbing onto one of the large rocks, I slipped and cut my knee and hurt my toe. Once I realized I was going to live after the fall, I enjoyed the waterfall for a while longer. We walked back up the trail and went to a small pavilion that was selling snacks and drinks. We got some food and drinks and stopped to rest. While we were there, some other people let us know that they had found a pit viper at the base of a nearby tree. I went over to take a look and get a picture. As we were leaving, some others had spotted a Great Hornbill and let us look through their telescope to view it. On the drive out of the park, we came across a couple of groups of monkeys near the road. We stopped and took some pics.

Trip back to Bangkok - Fruit Stand
Just a few miles outside of the park we stopped at a road side fruit stand that was selling fresh picked bananas and noina. Noina is an interesting fruit. It looks like it has a tough exterior, but it breaks apart fairly easily and is very soft on the inside.

Trip back to Bangkok - Store
We stopped by a shop that was owned by a college friend of Tor. He and his wife offered us fresh papaya and ice water. It was nice and refreshing. Their store offered specialty candies, dried fruit, and dried meat. The table and chairs we used were made from wooden beer kegs. The table top and chair tops opened to storage space below.

Trip back to Bangkok - Buddha on the hill
Our final stop before reaching Bangkok was a temple on the side of a hill. The temple had an extremely large Buddha that was halfway up a mountain. The Buddha statue was 100 meters wide.

Hotel in Bangkok
Since our plans changed and we didn't stay in Kao Yai National Park, we didn't have any hotel reservations. Tor got us a hotel that was near his house. The hotel was nice. It had a large golden elephant standing in the pool out front. The bathrooms in Thailand are very different than what I'm used to in the states. The showers are not separate from the toilet. Most of the bathrooms consisted of a toilet, a sink, and a shower head next to the toilet. There is a drain on the floor for the water to drain into.

Tuesday 09/05/2006 - Day 5
Ayutthaya
Todd and Tor took us to Ayutthaya. This city was once the capital of Thailand until Burma invaded. The invasion lead to the burning and destruction of the temples and buildings in the city. At the old capital, after viewing the temple and the ruins, we rode and then fed some elephants. We also drank some coconut milk and ate coconut meat from actual coconuts.

Elephant Kraal
After visiting the temple and ruins, we stopped by the Elephant Kraal. This place was originally used by the king to pick which elephant would be used for going into battle. This place was also used for training war elephants. It appeared that they still train elephants here, but I don't think it is for fighting.

Lunch
For lunch, we went to a small floating restaurant on the river. The food was really good. Natalie had a huge fresh water shrimp that was the largest shrimp I've ever seen.

King's Palace
After lunch, we visited the King's Palace in Bang Pa-In. The palace is a place for r&r for the king when he needs to get away from king type stress. The palace is enormous. We rented a golf cart to get around and it still took us a couple of hours to view the entire place. Since this was the king's place, Natalie was forced to borrow a dress to cover her legs. For some reason, my shorts were okay.

Wat Niwet Thammaprawat
Directly across the river from the palace is a monastary that was built by Rama V. The only way to get to the monastary is by a cable car that crosses the river. The cable car is powered by a man pedaling on a bicycle that turns the pulley system. The temple was built in a European Gothic style and is the only temple in Thailand that is not in the traditional Thai architecture. While we were at the temple, a monk came by and blessed the four of us.

Dinner at MK's
We went to a department store in Bangkok to shop for fruit and snacks for the trip to Chiang Mai. The department store was huge. It was about 6 stories and carried everything from groceries to electronics to appliances to clothing. We met Todd's grandmother, sister, and Tor's wife at the restaurant for dinner. The place was unique. You order all the ingredients rather than a prepared meal. The ingredients come to you in several small bowls. On the table, there is a large hot plate with a built in pot filled with water. For dinner, you put your ingredients into the water and boil it. They also provide noodles, rice, and a sauce.

Wednesday 09/06/2006 - Day 6</h3>
Trip to Chiang Mai - Part 1
Today starts the first day of our 2 day trip to Chiang Mai. Tor has offered to drive us since he has family and friends in Chiang Mai. On the way we stop at a rice field to see what rice plants look like. I've never seen rice out of a vendor/store setting. Walking into the rice field is interesting. It seems that rice looks a bit like wheat (since I'm not too familiar with either one).

We pass several trucks with a lot of kids in uniforms riding in the back and, at times, on the top of the truck. The children are required to be in the boy/girl scouts. Once a week, the last hour of school is scout lessons.

Once in the mountains, we stop at a rest area. The rest area had several shops. We stopped in one that served coffee and had some fresh coffee and hot tea. Although coffee is grown throughout the region, most places tend to serve instant coffee. So, fresh coffee is really nice to have. The coffee vendor had captured a large horned beetle. Apparently these are called atlas beetles and the Thai people use these beetles for fighting, similar to cock or dog fights. The shop next door was selling freshly picked tamarind. We ate some and it was good. I had never eaten tamarind before. It had a hard outer shell, like a bean pod, but the inside was large seeds surrounded by what seemed like fruit leather.

We arrived this evening at a resort on top of a mountain. It is owned by Tor's friend. The resort area is beautiful. Our room is near the top of the mountain with an amazing view of the valley below. A lightning storm over the top of the mountain was occurring as we ate dinner in the open air restaurant.

Thursday 09/07/2006 - Day 7
Morning at Resort
I woke up at about 5:30am to a thick fog covering the mountain and valley below. Music was coming from across the valley. It was very surreal. I later found out that it was from a temple in the adjacent valley.

War Memorial
On a mountain top near the resort is the Khao Kao Memorial and museum commemorating the defeat of the Chinese aided communist. Notice the huge white temple in the distance of the last pic. That's where we are going next.

Big White Temple - I can't remember the name of the temple.
Near the base of the mountain that the memorial was on, is a huge white temple built by the King. The temple is said to house a fragment of bone from Buddha. The last picture in this series has almost nothing to do with the temple. If you look in my sun glasses, you'll notice my wife taking the picture and the temple in the background.

B.N. Farm
The next stop on the way to Chiang Mai was at B.N. Farm. They were closed for tours when we arrived, but they allowed us to walk around the farm a bit. The store there was open and we bought some homemade fruit ice cream and some dried fruit that was grown, dried, and packaged there on the farm. I also had some fresh star fruit and fresh lanbutan (red spiny fruit). All of the fruit products are labeled 'pesticide free'.

Kaeng Sopha Waterfall
Our original plan was to stop at several waterfalls along the last stretch of road to Chiang Mai, but we missed our turn and ended up at the Kaeng Soph Waterfall. The Kaeng Soph Waterfall is supposed to be the largest in the region. During the rainy season, which is when we were there, the water is very brown because of all the sediment running down river. As for the big elephant skeleton... the waterfall is in the Thung Salaeng Luang National Park and the skeleton was at the park info center. Since I don't really read Thai, I have no clue why the skeleton was there.

Khao Lam
We stopped at a Khao Lam vendor on the side of the road. Khao Lam is yummy! The vendor fills a segment of bamboo with rice, beans, sugar, coconut milk, and water. The opened end of the bamboo is covered with banana leaves. The entire thing is then placed over an open fire pit. The rice and beans cook inside of the bamboo. To eat, you simply peel away the sides of bamboo and eat it like a burrito.

Rest Areas and Random Temple
We stopped at several rest areas along the way to Chiang Mai. The rest areas we say in Thailand are very different than what we have in the states. The rest areas here have a lot of small vendors that sell everything from food and drinks to fresh produce and handicrafts. The ones we stopped at also had magnificent views. Also, here's a pick of a huge Buddha at a temple that we passed by. I have no other information than that since I really don't know where we were.

38 km from Lampang
We've been driving through national parks and mountains for the last few hours. The forest is so think it looks like it may be rain forest. Roads here are narrow, 2-way roads and are winding through the mountains. At one point, we drove through an area with signs depicting falling rocks. About 100 meters after the sign is a huge rock about 3 meters tall and sitting halfway into the road. The rock left a trail of broken trees going back up the side of the mountain. I'm really glad it didn't fall as we were driving by.

Arriving in Chiang Mai
When we got to Chiang Mai, the main roads were all under construction because they are building a large highway through the city. We had some problems finding our way to the hotel. After a few phone calls to Tor's friend and a bit of driving in circles, Tor saves the day and finds our hotel. It turns out to be a huge fancy business class hotel. Man, we've been living the life of luxury lately.

Friday 09/08/2006 - Day 8
Doi Suthep
Tor picked us up first thing in the morning and we headed up to the top of Doi Suthep mountain to visit the huge temple, Wat Prathat Doi Suthep. There are spectacular views from both the drive up the mountain and from the temple itself. You can view all of Chiang Mai from the top of the mountain.

Snake, Elephants, Monkeys
After the Wat, Tor wanted to take us to see the animal shows that are scattered around Chiang Mai. We weren't really interested in seeing trained animals doing tricks, but we had a difficult time communicating that to Tor. Finally, after a few minutes, we explained that we wanted to see the area rather than the shows.

Mae Sa Waterfalls
We next went to see the Mae Sa Waterfalls. The falls here consists of 10 consecutive waterfalls spreading out over about one kilometer. None of the falls were all that big, but were all beautiful. It was incredibly hot and humid while we did the walk along the river. By the time we got back to the car, we were soaking wet and very tired.

Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden
After the hike at the falls, we visited the Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden. As we arrived, it started raining very hard, so we decided to stop and get some food before walking through the gardens. The little 'cafe' that we were directed to only had a small cooler filled with tv dinner type meals. Unfortunately, everything had meat in it. Although we were all very hungry, we decided to hold off and find other food elsewhere. Since it was still raining, we went to the green houses. After a little while in the green houses, we realized we were really tired. We stopped off at the orchid farm in the gardens for about 20 minutes and then headed back to our hotel.

Some Time to Ourselves
While we were still at the botanical gardens, Natalie and I both felt that we needed some time to ourselves. Since we arrived in Thailand, we had had little time to talk or just be with each other. Although it was only about 2pm, I asked Tor if he could take us back to our hotel so we could have some time to rest before we went to the night market. He said okay, but wanted to know what time he should pick us up the next morning. Since I hadn't actually had time to speak with Natalie, I told him we would decide later and give him a call later tonight. He offered to go to the market with us, but we declined his offer. When we got to the room, Natalie was very happy that I got us some time off. As much as we appreciated and were grateful for Tor and Todd's hospitality, we had been in Thailand for a week and hadn't had any time to ourselves. Tor took us to so many places that we wouldn't have found on our own, but it didn't feel like it was our vacation.

Telling Tor
Calling Tor and informing him of our decision was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. He had spent so much time taking us everywhere and was so nice to us, it was very difficult to tell him that we didn't want to meet up with him tomorrow. Due to the language barrier we have - Tor speaks English very well, but we still have problems communicating when it comes to nuances - I wasn't sure how to tell him without hurting his feelings or offending him. So we called Todd first, but were not able to reach him. It took several attempts to explain the situation to Tor. I stated that we really appreciated all of the time he spent with us, but that we just wanted some alone time. He seemed a bit sad on the phone, but I wasn't sure. We felt awful for doing this, but didn't know what else to do.

The Night Market
Our hotel was about a block from the night market. We found a restaurant in the market food area and got some food. the night market was crowded and interesting. There were many, many vendor booths, although most sold the same wares - watches (seemingly fake), shirts, silk cloth, wooden carvings and paintings, and lamps. At one of the watch vendors, I asked if he had a Movado. He looked around a bit and then asked me to follow him. We followed him to a small room under some stairs in the back of a shop that was hidden by a rack of clothing. The room contained several display cases of watches - all the cases were sitting on the floor since the ceiling of the room was only about 2 meters high. The room was nice and cool, which was a huge improvement over the hot and humid air outside. Luckily, I didn't have to worry about working through any ethical issues because they didn't have any Movado's. We did find the candy that Natalie's parents wanted, so we went ahead and purchased those. We also found an item for my niece, but I don't want to say what it is because this site is going live before she gets the gifts.

Saturday 09/09/2006 - Day 9
Chiang Mai - The Old City
By the time we finished breakfast and laundry, it was almost 11 AM. We decided to do one of the city hikes that was detailed in the National Geographic Thailand Traveler book. The hike was mostly to view the temples, which by this time in our trip, we had little interest in seeing. So we just wandered through the city sticking more or less to the route designated in the book. Because it was so hot and humid outside, we decided to stop at a cafe to get something to drink and to get out of the heat. The cafe turned out to be an American themed cafe that served burgers, Italian food, and Mexican food. I just had to try the Mexican food (since it is my favorite), so I ordered a burrito. Natalie ordered 2 scoops of ice cream. The burritos were your standard fair, but there was something a little off about them. I still can't quite figure it out. Outside of one of the cafes, we noticed a couple of sculptures made of metal. They ended up being sculptures of the alien from the Alien movies and of the thing from the Predator movies.

Several people approached us during our hike to offer us rides (in a tuk tuk) or to practice their English. All of them were very nice, but after a while, we just wanted to be able to walk in peace. A few blocks before the end of the trek, Natalie wanted to head back to the hotel. It was incredibly hot and sunny and the heat was taking a toll on the both of us. We found a tuk tuk and got a ride to the hotel for a shower and some rest.

Veggie Surprise
Around 5pm we decided to get dinner. I had found info on a vegetarian restaurant in the old city about 8 blocks from our hotel. We started on our way to the place. I wasn't too hot anymore, but the rain earlier made it even more humid. We were both soaking with sweat by the time we got across the moat to the old city. It took us an additional 30 minutes to find the restaurant. When we found it, there was a sign stating it was closed for 2 days. We spent another 30 minutes trying to find another place to eat. The reason I brought this up is because for most of the trip, I've had a hard time finding food other than rice with some mixed vegetables in it. Although I do enjoy rice and veggies, I'd like to have something different for a change. I've been hungry for a good part of the trip by this time.

Chiang Mai at Night
On the way back to our hotel, we noticed a string of small bars all grouped together. Each had 3-5 girls sitting out front and one pool table inside. None of the girls sitting outside were drinking or talking to each other. After a few minutes of discussion on this, we decided they were probably working girls rather than patrons of the bar. We spend the rest of the evening at the night market getting gifts for family. Natalie and I also found some very light weight pants and shirts that we purchased. I started raining really hard and a lot of the vendors shut down. We finished the night at an Irish pub having a Guinness. By the time we made it back to the hotel, the rain had drenched us.

Sunday 09/10/2006 - Day 10

Flight to Phuket
The flight to Phuket is uneventful. The interior of the plane is all purple and pink and we think Gabrielle, my niece, will like the plane.

Ride to Khao Sok National Park
Although we asked the resort we were staying at to pick us up at 4pm, the driver showed up at 1pm when our flight arrived. We had wanted to spend the 3 hours looking around. He drove us to Phuket and along the coast. The beaches there are crowded. Wat, the driver, showed us where the tsunami did damage along the coast. There was one point in which the tsunami carried a large ship 2 kilometers in inland. The drive to the resort took about 3 hours. The views along the coast and through the mountains were beautiful.

Khao Sok Rainforest Resort
When we got to the resort, it was very hot and humid (surprise, surprise!). The resort was right along the river and about 100 meters from the park entrance. The bungalow we stayed in was very small with a full size bed and a small rack to hang clothes on. The bathroom had a toilet, sink, and a showerhead (with a hole in the floor for the water to drain). Wat told us to rest and then come to dinner when we were ready. After a short nap, we went to the restaurant. They had a pretty good vegetarian selection. At dinner, Wat provided us with a book that detailed the available treks that the resort offered. Unfortunately, none of the treks we wanted to do were available. We wanted to do the lake and cave trek, but they needed at least 4 people to do it. Then, we said we wanted to do a half-day trek and spend the rest of the day tubing down the river. It turned out that the guide was only doing an all day hike. So we decided to go with that since it was really our only option. We spent the rest of the evening playing cards and dice and drinking Chang Beer.

Monday 09/11/2006 - Day 11</h3>
Bad Start
The day started with our wake-up call being late, only giving us 30 minutes to get ready, eat breakfast, and meet up with our guide for the trek. I started to take a shower when we realized that the water heater kept tripping the circuit breaker. If I hadn't already stated this, we didn't get the bungalow we wanted when we got there. Wat showed us the 'tree house' bungalow when we arrived. It had two single beds instead of a double. It also didn't have hot water. So, we picked the riverside bungalow. With all that, plus the lack of choice in our trek, Natalie was in a very grumpy mood. We got ready as quickly as possible. Natalie was unable to take a shower because of the circuit breaker issue and the short time we had to get ready. We arrived at the restaurant right before we were to leave for the trek. Wat offered up some toast and coffee, which we took, but we were still hungry when we left.

Full Day Trek
We met our guide, The Tigerman, and the other person on the trek at about 7:30am. We walked to the park entrance and had to pay the entrance fee (200 baht each), which was supposed to be covered as part of the trek cost. I was wearing convertible pants with the pant legs in my pocket. As we reached the trail head, Tigerman told to tuck our pant legs into our socks because of the leeches in the jungle. I was very glad that I had my pant legs with me. I quickly pulled them out of my pockets and zipped them on.

The first 2 kilometers of the hike was on a wide trail through the jungle. During this part we saw some black monkeys in the some trees deep in the jungle. We also saw spiders and chameleons. Tigerman cut a vine to make us some straps for our water bottles. As we got deeper into the jungle, the trail got smaller and more strenuous. the lack of breakfast was getting to us after the first hour or so. This made hiking in the hot, humid rain forest very hard. Luckily, I brought my small, hand-sized camp towel with us. I dipped it in the river and we used it on our heads to cool down. As we got deeper into the jungle, I started noticing the sound of a radial saw in the distance. I assumed they were building something in the jungle. It ended up being the cicadas. After a couple of hours, Tigerman stopped us to check for leeches. It was at this point that I noticed blood on the front of my pants. My clothes were soaked from sweat, but there was a large amount of blood on my pants and stomach. I was a bit scared at first. There was a lot of blood, no pain, and no leech. Tigerman explained that leeches sucked until they were full and then they would just drop off. The anti-coagulants lasted for a while, though. I bled for another 45 minutes after that. It turns out that I simply donated some blood to the jungle. Once full, a leech can go a couple of weeks before he needs to feed again.

By the time we got to our destination for lunch, Natalie and I were about to die. Tigerman passed out our food (rice and veggies wrapped in butcher paper). The food was so good, but I was so exhausted that I could only eat about a third of my lunch. I sat down on a large rock and just rested for about 15 minutes before doing much else. Our lunch spot was a small rocky area between the jungle and the river. The water here was a greenish color, but incredibly clear. Just 30 meters up stream, past narrow cliffs, was a small but beautiful waterfall. After we rested a bit, we decided to head to the waterfall. There was a small bamboo raft. Natalie, Tim (the German guy that was also on the trek), Tigerman, and I got on the raft and started towards the waterfall. There were too many people on the raft and it started to sink. We all eventually got off the raft swam for a while. Another guy, from Winnipeg, Canada, showed up where we were spinning. We invited him to jump in the water. He was a little nervous because he had gone tubing the previous day and the river had fish that bite. He was several months into a yearlong visit to Thailand. He teaches English at one of the elementary schools. The walk back was at a quicker pace because of the approaching rain storm. About 1.5 km from the end of the trek it started raining incredibly hard and continued until later that evening.

After the Trek
As soon as we got back to our bungalow, we took off our soaked clothes, took a shower (with one person handling the circuit breaker), ate dinner, and then went to sleep. It was about 4pm. We woke up about 2 hours later and decided to go get desert. During desert, we told Wat that we wanted to do the lake and cave trek. He said he would see if there were enough people to do the trek and he would get back to us.

Remembering the bars along the road between the park entrance and our resort, we decided to be social and check them out. We walked up and down the road and none of the bars had any patrons. So we went back to the restaurant and drank beer and played a dice game (cinco-uno) until it was time for bed.

Tuesday 09/12/2006 - Day 12
Lake and Cave Trek
Wat woke us up on time this morning so we had breakfast before the trek. Wat told us to just bring sandals, rather than boots, because we would have to cross a few deep rivers. he also said we should bring a change of clothes for swimming and a flashlight for the caves. We had noticed a laundry place last night while we were looking for a bar and wanted to drop some clothes off on the way out. It turned out the resort did laundry for the same price, so we left our clothes there to be washed. The other person doing the trek was a Brit from Newcastle named John. During the 45 minutes drive to the lake, we talked about British and US politics, as well as pop culture in the two nations.

The trek started with an hour long long-tail boat ride across the lake. The boat ride was great. The lake is man made with a bunch of limestone mountains and cliffs sticking up out of the water. We arrived at a floating lodge to prep for the trek to the cave. The trail head was a five minute boat ride from the lodge. The first part of the trail was very muddy and wet. After about 500 meters, we had our first river crossing. The river was about waist deep with a slight current. From there to the cave was another hour of trekking through the jungle and river crossings. This included muddy inclines, climbing under and over fallen trees, eight river crossings (some with very strong currents). By the time we reached the cave, I had pulled about 10 leeches off of my feet and legs. It had started raining a bit and our guide was concerned about being trapped in the cave if the water rose too fast. So, we agreed to only trek about 50 meters into the cave. We had to cross the river another 4 or 5 times while in the cave. The current was very strong and the river deep in the cave. There were many big spiders and hundreds of bats in the cave. Once we reached the point where the cave narrowed and the water deepened, we turned back.

The trek back to the boat resulted in less leeches on me (only 3) and a couple on Natalie. We boated back to the floating lodge for lunch and some rest. On the ride back across the lake, we stopped a few times to see some black monkeys and some great hornbills in the trees along the edge of the water. Once we got back to the resort, we ordered some dinner and stayed up late drinking and talking with John.

Wednesday 09/13/2006 - Day 13
To Sarat Thani
After paying for our stay, Wat gave us a ride to the main road to catch the 7:30am bus to Sarat Thani. We waited about an hour for the bus to arrive. During that time, we talked with 2 British girls that were waiting for the same bus. They were psychology students doing their residencies and were on a 4 week holiday in the south of Thailand. The bus ride took about 2 hours. The bus driver was driving kinda crazy. He was trying to pass while oncoming traffic approached. One of the passengers that had a small child with her started yelling at the driver and made him stop and let her off the bus. We missed our stop for the airport, so the driver made a slight detour and dropped us off near a bus station on the outskirts (we think) of town. We ended up taking a cap to the airport from there. The airport was small with only one gate, so we had to wait outside the terminal until our plane arrived.

Back in Bangkok
We arrived at our hotel completely awestruck. When we reserved the hotel online, we had decided to stay in a luxury hotel for our last couple of nights in Thailand. The hotel was a high end business hotel and was very, very nice. We spent the rest of the afternoon napping before we went out for dinner. We asked the hotel staff for a nearby vegetarian restaurant and they pointed us to a place about 16 blocks east of the hotel. We decided we could walk it. On the way to the restaurant, we realized our hotel was next to a bunch of working girl bars. We weren't able to find the restaurant, so we found an outdoor place and got some food. The service wasn't very good, but we later read in a guide book that that was to be expected. "The squeaky wheel gets the greese," the book said of the service there.

Deaf Vendors
The main road next to the hotel was lined with vendor booths, much like the night market in Chiang Mai, but all of the vendors are deaf. We passed by a vendor on the way to dinner that was selling photos mounted on black wooden boxes that we liked quite a bit. She tried to make the sell, but I tried to let her know (using hand motions) that we were going to be back after we ate. She pointed to her watch and let us know that she would only be there for about 2 more hours. The expression on her face displayed a look of disappointment and the thought that we wouldn't actually come back.

After eating, on the way back to the hotel, we passed the previously mentioned vendor again. She was already packing up her booth when we arrived. She was very excited that we had come back. We ended up bartering with her a bit and ended up buying a photo of a monk that we liked. We went back to the hotel, went swimming, and then to bed. It has been a very long day.

Thursday 09/14/2006 - Day 14
Royal Palace and Wat Pho
We slept in a bit today and ended up just taking a cab to the Royal Palace. It was closed until 2:30pm, so we went to the Wat Pho instead. We saw the huge reclining Buddha and many of the large temples there. Natalie got the Thai massage that she had been wanting. By the time we got to the Royal Palace (across the street), it was closed to tourists. So we decided to go back to the hotel and get some dinner.

Evening in Bangkok
We took a cab to the sky train adn then the sky train to the hotel. We had the hotel staff show us on a map this time where the vegetarian restaraunt was that we couldn't find last night. Even with the map, the restaurant was a bit difficult to find. Rather than being a vegetarian Thai food restaurant, it was more of a fancy little cafe that was also an art gallery. The food was good, but we ended up paying about 1000 baht for dinner. It was a fusion restaurant. I'm not 100% sure what it fused though. After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a swim. I wanted to go out afterwards, but Natalie didn't, so we stayed in and I took the time to catch up on this journal (the paper version).

Friday 09/15/2006 - Day 15
Hanging out in Bangkok
It looks like yesterday's entry was the last entry I made in my journal. So, i'll just write this according to memory (yeah...) and some of the pics I took. We didn't really have any plans other than to just hang out today. This is our last day here. We fly out at 6am in the morning tomorrow. We decided to take the skytrain around town and just see what is around our hotel. Since the skytrain is used rather heavily, there are a lot of things on the roofs of buildings that I haven't seen in the US. There were a couple of odd little statues and on one building there was a huge TV showing commercials. The TV was at least 5 meters tall. I also realized that during the entire time in Thailand, there were these huge posters, arches, flags, billboards, and monuments to the King. This year is the 60th anniversary of the King taking the throne. So, I took one picture of a poster of the King that took up half of a building. These tributes to the King were everywhere, so I didn't really realize how often I saw them until I got back to the US. I wish I would have take at least one picture...

Another Veggie Surprise
Natalie found a listing for a vegeterian restaurant for me in Bangkok. It was in a part of town that we had not yet visited. We had the hotel staff write the address of the place in Thai so that we could get directions to the place once we got to that neighborhood. We took the skytrain down to the end of the line at the river and decided to walk the rest of the way. After about 20 minutes of walking and not being sure if we were going the right way, we flagged down a tuk tuk, showed him the address, and we were off. He dropped us off on the street near the restaurant. The restarant didn't really have a sign, it was just the bottom corner of a building. When we finally found the place and went in, there was nobody that spoke English. It was at this point that we realized that we had always had Tor, Todd, or a guide with us that spoke English almost everywhere we went. We had left our Thai-English book at the hotel for this trip. After about 5 minutes of total confusion, a guy showed up that spoke some English. He told us that they were closed, but that they would make us some food anyways. They brought out a menu, but it was all in Thai. We didn't really know what to do. Another girl showed up that spoke English very, very well. She helped us order some food, which turned out to just be more veggies and rice and some soup. The food was good, but they gave us entirely too much food. We each ate less than half of the food on our plate and about 1/3 of the soup. When we were done, we asked the girl to let the restaurant know that we really appreciated them staying late for us.

While we were walking between the skytrain and the restaurant, we noticed they were building a new monument for the King in the shape of a boat. Somebody told me why it was in that shape, but I have since forgotten. And we passed a McDonald's on the way back to the hotel, so I took a pic of Ronnie. Notice the placement of his hands and the slightly submissive lowering of the head. All service staff at restaurants and hotels did this anytime you approached or left. I'm still not sure if this is a thank you or welcome you type of stance, but I noticed that the patrons did the same. So, I generally did likewise.

GeoCities Will Die Today...

2009-10-26T15:38:35Z

So, the place where my web site has resided for the last 15 years is being shutdown and deleted today.

Yeah, kinda sucks. I've spent a good part of the last day moving pictures to flickr. That takes care of the images, but I also kept somewhat of a travel journal that went with those pics. So, guess what I get to do now... transfer text! Woo hoo! Speaking of transferring text, I'm uploading Thailand images now, so I'll be copying the journal entries for my Thailand trip in 2006 next.

List of journal entries from my now dead website that have been transferred here. This will keep getting updated as I transfer stuff. Hopefully this will all be over in a day or two.

09/01/2006 Thailand Journal Entry and pics - Set 1 and Set 2
11/04/2006 Goldmyer Hot Springs Journal Entry and pics
11/13/2006 San Diego Journal Entry and pics
12/07/2006 City of Hope Journal Entry and pics
01/05/2007 City of Hope Journal Entry and pics
06/29/2007 Critical Massive Journal Entry and pics
07/04/2007 San Diego Journal Entry and pics

Two Months in the Desert

2009-10-06T22:12:05Z

The Burning Man DPW season finally ended today with the BLM inspection of the playa. We've spent the last few weeks doing line sweeps through the desert picking up every little piece of paper, wood, plastic, cigarette butt, string, and other random crap found in the dirt. I went out this morning with a crew of about 20 people to do the inspection, which is 65 randomly generated points located throughout the location of the event. At each point we tie a length of string to a stake and pick up all pieces of MOOP (matter out of place) we find within the radius of the circle. Each point is 1/10th of an acre. After a couple of hours, we passed the inspection. The event season was officially over.

Most of the DPW crew has already left Gerlach. I've decided to stick around another night to relax, get my stuff together, and enjoy a few extra free meals and drinks before heading out tomorrow. The last day here is odd. Everybody is both excited and sad to leave. Most of us will meet again this weekend for Decompression in San Francisco, so it is not a final farewell. But, after 2 months out here, it is weird to leave.

DPW Pre-Event
I believe my last entry was right after putting up the fence around the event. Nina and I were floaters and worked on several different crews for pre-event. For the most part, we worked together every day. We started on electrical crew, placing cables throughout the Center Camp ring. Then we went to the fence crew and worked with Cowboy Carl and George Bush setting up gate road and walk-in camping. We helped set up the REMSA tent for a day, helped with the Temple for a couple of days, helped with the Man Base for a few days, and helped install the Center Camp shade for a few days. I'm not sure what else we worked on.

We moved out to the playa just a day or two after setting up the fence. Nina and I decided to set up our tent a block or so from the ghetto so that we could actually get some sleep. We stayed there until a day or so before the event started and moved into the BWB (Burners Without Borders) camp. It wasn't all just work, though. We went to a couple of hot springs - Trego and Frog Pond - a few times, enjoyed the heavy equipment rodeo by riding on a huge tire hanging and spinning from a crane, and had a blast at the Early Man burn (where we helped build the huge pez dispenser.

Riding the World's Largest Tire Swing - This was an amazing time. I'm completely terrified of heights, but we were harnessed to the tire and spinning around really, really, really high in the air. Scary as can be, but soooooooo much fun.

Giant Pez Dispenser at Early Man - this was the largest piece of art at the Early Man burn. Nina and I helped build this after work on the man base. This was from the man crew.

Burning Man 2009
My camera died before the event started, so I have no images of the event. The event was fun, as usual. I spent most of the time running around with Nina and/or Jeanette. I don't really feel like writing much about the event because it would take forever writing about all the little things that made it so fun or because I would just give a summary that wouldn't be worth reading. So, just go to flickr and search for Burning Man 2009 or DPW 2009 and you'll get a good idea of what I may or may not have experienced.

DPW Post-Event and Playa Restoration
After the event ended, I took Nina to San Francisco so she could fly back to Switzerland. As she was packing her stuff, she realized that she had another day before her flight, so we got to spend a day hanging out in the Mission. Taking her to the airport sucked. The good-bye sucked. Leaving the airport and making the 6 hour drive back to the playa sucked. After about a week, it quit sucking so much. At least until I had dreams two nights in a row about her that were really anxiety type dreams. It sucked for another couple of days. I do miss her after 4+ months of traveling with her, but I'm getting used to her not being around again.

I ended up working with the bike shop collecting the yellow bikes most of post event. Then I helped with cleaning up and putting away the ghetto. After that it was helping Cowboy Carl and George Bush take down the gate road and walk-in camping. We had a day or so off before starting playa restoration. Playa restoration was the standard - lining up in a line and walking the entire city picking up crap off the ground.

Last year we had Earth Moon Dance out on the high playa. This year, on our weekend off, we headed up to the high playa to camp for the night and had the No Moon Earth Dance since there was no moon and it was dark as hell. Once again, it was one of the high points of the post event season.

This past Saturday was one of the most enjoyable nights in town. We had the DPW talent show, which was absolutely amazing. Then about 15 of us stayed in the bar all night playing music, shooting pool, and drinking until early morning. I went to bed around 7am and returned for breakfast at 9am. Then I ended up running the bar and played DJ at the bar until 11pm. A long night followed by a long day with no sleep. A lot of fun...

That's it.

Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Black Rock City

2009-08-11T05:45:53Z

So, this is going to be short. I'll do a better update later. Since I last posted I've been to Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco, and I'm now working DPW in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. I've been here for about 3 days. Today we put up the entire 8 miles of the perimeter fence. It was a long day. I'm tired. Not sure what I'm working on tomorrow, but we get to move out of the trailer park and into Black Rock City in just a few days. The event starts in a few weeks... Will try to remember to take my camera and take pictures over the next few days.

Almost a month ago today...

2009-07-27T16:18:13Z

... I posted my last journal entry. At the end of that entry, I said something along the lines of, "I'll try to update this more often so the posts aren't so damn long." Well, please note the word 'try' in that sentence. I'm not doing a great job of keeping this updated, so guess what? This will probably be incredibly long again. I am currently sitting in the Top Pot in Capital Hill. Nina is in Vancouver enjoying pride week and is trying to get me to come up there rather than staying in Seattle or heading south. Not really sure what I'm going to do at this point. I still need to put my car in the shop for a final repair that will take about 2-4 hours. Other than that, I'm just trying to waste time, visit friends, and spend as little money as possible. I have just over $500 to last me until I get to the desert and hopefully some money left over to get back. After that, I really need to start working. When I return to Seattle in October or November, it will have been almost 2 years of unemployment and travel. Anyways, here is where we've been and what has happened since I last posted:

San Diego
After leaving Las Vegas, Nina and I headed to San Diego to see Bryan and Karen. On one of our first days there we went to a pub in Ocean Beach to watch the US vs. Brazil game. But, before we could do that, we had serious prep work to complete. During my last visit in October of 2008, Bryan purchased an air brush painting kit. He hadn't used it. But him and his friend, whose name I can't remember at the moment, decided to get painted up for the game. They proceeded to cover themselves in red, white, and blue paint. Once done, we made our way to the pub. Surprisingly, to me at least, the pub was completely packed with soccer fans. The US lost the game 3 to 1 (actually, 4 to 1, but a goal wasn't called that probably shouldn't have been). After the game, Bryan, Nina, and I went down to the beach and walked around a bit before his soccer game at a nearby park.

Nina really wanted to spend some time in L.A. I didn't. So, we put her on a train to LA and spent the next few days just hanging out, having a poker night, and playing some madden on the xbox. It was pretty great. I don't get to see Bryan often enough. Hopefully I'll have enough money after TEITD to head down to San Diego and visit for a bit again.

Los Angeles, CA
While I was in San Diego and Nina was living it up in the City of Angels, I looked up an old friend from college, Vincent, on facebook. I hadn't talked to Vincent in years and I'm still not sure why I looked him up. But, I'm totally glad I did. After fetching Nina in L.A., we met up with Vincent for some sushi in Ventura. It was great seeing him again. We ended up hanging out at his place with some of his friends for the evening just drinking in the backyard. We stayed the night and then headed out the next morning. I definitely will try to keep in touch with him - a thing at which I completely suck.

Pacific Coast Highway
Nina and I decided to travel from L.A. to Seattle via the Pacific Coast Highway. I have traveled much of this route before and think it is one of the most amazing routes to take... if you're not in a hurry. There are so many overlooks where the PCH overlooks the ocean from tall cliffs and so many beautiful state parks to visit along the route. Our plan was to just camp at state parks and campgrounds the entire way up to Seattle. The one thing we left out of our plan was the fact that we were traveling during the 4th of July weekend. There was no camping anywhere in Southern California along the coast available. Luckily, we finally reached Lynn and Jimmy in Boulder Creek, CA near Santa Cruz. We had already stopped by several campgrounds and state parks only to be told that everything was booked up for hundreds of miles in each direction. We had wanted to visit with them anyways, so it all worked out. They have a wonderful place deep in the woods and mountains just east of Santa Cruz. So wonderful, in fact, that we ended up staying for about 4-5 days.

After leaving Boulder Creek, we continued up the coast determined to get to Seattle by the 10th for Jamie and Mary's Bachelor/ette party. Now that the holiday was over, it was much, much easier to find camping. As we were getting into Oregon, we picked up a hitchhiker that had spent the last 6 months hitching from Salem, Oregon to Austin, TX and back. He camped with us for the night and we sat up talking and listening to music by the campfire through the evening. We finally left the PCH to get him to Salem, which was probably a good thing since it was already the 10th and we still hadn't made it into Washington. We had to start taking the interstate.

Avenue of the Giants
A 30 mile 'scenic view' off of the PCH is the Avenue of the Giants. This is a small road that goes through the redwoods. This place was absolutely amazing and beautiful. We ended up spending a good chunk of the afternoon driving through and having lunch there. There was even a huge Paul Bunyan and Babe there (that Nina really didn't want her picture taken with).

Seattle
We had initially hoped to be in Seattle by Thursday or early Friday morning. We arrived at around 4:30pm on Friday. Jamie and Mary's bachelor/ette party was to start at 7pm. We were to be Santa and do a pub crawl. Unfortunately, my Santa was somewhere in storage and we didn't have time to find it. Luckily, I think, Joey had a solution. "No need for Santa if you're going to be a clown." That was a little worrisome. Joey provide Nina and me with some clothing and clown make-up. "Just start painting your face," he said. I was a bit scared and timid, but went ahead with it anyways after a little prodding from both Joey and Nina. We arrived at Moe's about an hour late only to notice a huge crowd of candy ravers hanging out. Apparently there was some rave going on at Neumo's next door. I haven't seen candy ravers in probably about 10 years. It was interesting, to say the least.

Almost as soon as I arrived I ran into Seattle Nina. It was great seeing her again. We hung out a good chunk of the night and I even gave her some huge smudges all over her face. This was the first time I had seen most of my friends in about 4 months. Santas and clowns, I think, is the perfect reunion. Outside of Neumo's, in addition to the candy ravers, were a few fire fighters collecting money for muscular dystrophy. They were holding up these signs advertising the cause, but they really looked like picket signs. So, of course, I had to run over and ask them if I could join their protest. They kept denying that they were protesting, but I could see right through their lies. After several minutes of them refusing to provide me with a sign to assist in their protest, I proceeded to tell them some jokes. I told a couple of Michael Jackson jokes, which caused them to do the same. Although they wouldn't let me join their protest, I think we had a good conversation and can possibly make a difference together.

The rest of the night was a bit of drunken blur. After visiting several bars, we all piled into the vans waiting for us and headed out to the after party at Mike and Laura's new house. The after party was a lot of fun, but, unfortunately, I can't really tell you about it in such a forum. If you'd like more details, uh, ask someone else :P

Critical Massive 2009
We spent Saturday and Sunday recovering from the happenings on Friday night. Monday, we headed up to Mount Vernon to work DPW for Critical Massive 2009. We arrived a little later than expected and started helping to set up the main stage area. We spent the next couple of days doing setup for the main stage, the Hub (Center Camp community lounge kinda area), and building wooden speed bumps to go over the electrical cables that crossed the roads.

Once the event started and people started arriving, things became even more fun. On the first night of the event, Wednesday I believe, we liberated some art cars (mainly Pinky's golf cart) and Tumbleweed's ATV. Each time we just drove around and I played Slayer from my megaphone. We realized that many of these burner events were a bit too hippie and we had to bring a little balance to the events. Unfortunately, after the antics of the night, most art car owners decided it was a better idea to keep their keys with them rather than in the ignition of their vehicles. TW even kept his key tethered to his overalls.

I spent most of my time during the event hanging out with friends at the Blues Dome or meeting new people at the Hub. In addition to the Slayer Rides on the art cars and the van, I decided that the event needed a daily dose of Slayer. So, once a day, at random times, I blasted Slayer from the main sound stage. I would say that about 2% of the attendees enjoyed it, about 2% hated it, and the rest were somewhere between indifferent and thinking it was just funny. Since the DPW Ghetto, where I camped, was right next to the road, we often set up roadblocks to stop traffic. We generally asked the drivers to stop, stand in the Designated Spot, and do something to entertain us. This ranged from singing, to dancing, to just giving us cold beer.

I spent most of the event hanging out with Hannah, Nina, Ants, and Ben. We met a couple of girls that we also hung out with a bit that ended up stealing my designated spot sign. They left a plastic flower and a ransom note saying that I could pick it up when I returned to Seattle. The Blues Dome camp, which secured their sign way up in a tree, had their sign stolen a few times. It ended up being slightly altered to say, 'BLO ME' and then secured by wire to the Treehuggers bus. They eventually retrieved their sign after several additional attempts to hide it.

One of the funniest parts of the event was when we liberated the monolith car and Ben got on the megaphone telling people to go home on Sunday morning. If I could spend the rest of my life listening to Ben on a megaphone, I would. That guy is an absolute genius. Once everybody started leaving we took down all the electrical setup and did a cleanup of the area. There was almost no MOOP (matter out of place) left behind, which is impressive since there were about 700 people at the event.

Ok, so once again, I am tired of typing and doing this. We got back to Seattle after the event and I'll talk about that in my next post. Hopefully it won't take me a month to do it. I will be in the desert in about 10-12 days. So excited!

The Last Five States

2009-06-29T16:35:35Z

So, a lot has happened since I last posted. This will be kinda long, I guess...

Austin, TX

Tuesday at the Texas State Capital
So, that Freebirds 2 for 1 deal that I mentioned in my last post... yeah, not only did I have the wrong day, but I also had the wrong info. We didn't get our two for one burrito. Yeah, I know. It was a very sad moment and it will probably take years of therapy to get over it, but we still got Freebirds and then decided to check out the State Capital. Not only was the building cool and it was a nice way to get out of the sun and heat, but it was also free. The parking was free and the visit was free. Here are some pics:

Wednesday and Thursday with Friends from College
Kris and Jon decided to fetch me from the Dead End House to go out for some drinks. When they arrived, two things were happening. First, there were an incredible number of beer cans on the floor and we started a war throwing them into the ceiling fans. There were beer cans flying all over the living room. Second, the band was getting ready to play and they asked us not to leave quite yet. We stuck around for a great cover of California Uber Alles that actually took me a while to realize what the song was. After the song, we headed out and got some drinks at a bar in East Austin. Since we had just left the Dead End House, it was a lot of conversations about the Penthouse, the 6 bedroom place we had in college. The conversation turned towards tech stuff and the economy.

The following day we went to Sam and Tricia's place because Jon and his girlfriend (who's name completely slips my mind at this point) were making homemade pizza for us all. We stayed there for a few hours just hanging out and talking. At one point, I kinda broke Sam and Tricia's kid. It was getting close to bed time and I had seen him and Sam play 'The Poking Game,' which was essentially Sam tickling him with one finger in the ribs. I started the game and it caused Kian to just start running around the house randomly and yelling random sounds. I really thought I broke their kid. He eventually fixed himself and went to bed.

Robbie Knievel, Motorcycle Convention, and Drunk Biking
On Friday we met back up with Kris to ride bicycles from his place to 6th street to see the motorcycle gathering and Robbie Knievel jump a bunch of Budweiser trucks. I have never seen so many motorcycles in my life. The estimated number was about fifty thousand bikers descending on the Capital. Sixth street was ridiculously crowded due to all the bikes, but was fun nonetheless. We met up with Squeak, Jessica, and Eli before heading out to the jump site in front of the capital.

After the jump, we hit a couple of bars, including an almost empty lesbian bar in which the dj asked us for music requests so that we would dance and hopefully get some of the other people in the bar dancing. Of course I requested a bunch of disco and funk and ended up dancing with Nina, Squeak, and Eli. For those of you that have ever been at a dance a club with me, you know I don't dance. And for those of you that have seen me dance, you know that I can't dance. So yeah, it was fun for me and probably incredibly entertaining for those watching.

When the bars finally closed we decided to meet up for some food. Nina, Kris, and I drunkenly road our bikes through the city to get to the eatery we picked, ate some food, and then went back to Kris' place. Riding a bike while drunk through Austin was an absolute blast. Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, but whatever. The next morning, Marc came by for a few minutes and then, in typical Marc style, he just kinda left instead of going out for food with us.

Last Night in Austin
We were supposed to go to an Eastern Block costume party on Saturday night, but we ended up just having a chill night at the Dead End House watching The Hudsucker Proxy. I hadn't seen that movie in a while. The next morning we met up with Sam and Tricia at Ruta Maya's for the Sunday morning kids show. Then we headed out of town.

Lake Colorado City State Park
To split up our trip from Austin to Taos, we decided to camp for the night at Lake Colorado City State Park. The park was nice and on the edge of a lake with rocky beaches. The odd thing was that right across the lake from our campsite was a huge power plant. The sunset was nice and after walking around for a bit taking pictures, we just sat around the campfire drinking a few beers before heading to bed.

Back in Taos, NM building Earthships Again!
We finally got to Taos on Monday night and checked in to the Stewart House. This is the place I stayed when I was in Taos last time and I really like the place as well as Sandy, the woman running the place. Since I was volunteering with Earthships, she gave me a discounted rate of $100/week for a room - or, only $50 each for Nina and I. A great deal when you're traveling on a budget.

We ended up working mostly on the Sutton House, which I had worked on the last time I was in Taos. I also got recruited to help move some of the batteries from the Phoenix to the Education Center. The batteries are for storing the solar power and weigh about 320 pounds each - we moved six batteries from the education center to the Phoenix, then moved the other batteries from the Phoenix to the education center. Yeah, that was heavy.

If you don't know Earthship Biotecture, check them out here. There is also a documentary called Garbage Warrior. I haven't seen the documentary yet, but have worked a total of about three weeks with these guys and really dig what they are doing. They design and build fully off the grid houses using old tires, aluminum cans, and glass bottles. I know this may sound odd and possibly ugly, but check out The Phoenix:

Here are some of my pics of Earthships while I was in Taos:

Angel's Nest
Sutton House
The Castle Earthship - yeah, check this one out!
Earthship Education Center
Experimental Earthship
Global Earthship
Earthship Community

Getting to the Grand Canyon
We ended up camping in Cibola National Forest between Taos, NM and Grand Canyon National Park. It was kind of a last minute decision since our places to stay in Santa Fe and Albuquerque fell through. The place was really beautiful and the campgrounds were completely empty. Another nice evening of just sitting by a fire with beer. :)

Petrified Forest National Park and Homolovi Ruins State Park
After leaving camp we headed towards the Grand Canyon. We decided to stop by a couple of parks on the way since we had some time to kill - our reservations at the canyon weren't until Tuesday and it was only Monday. The Petrified Forest and Painted Desert were absolutely amazing. We ended up spending about 4-5 hours in this park. Here are some pics:

After leaving the park, we stopped by the Homolovi Ruins State Park just off the interstate. We were mainly looking for a place to take a shower (as our previous camp didn't have showers), but they wanted $10 just to take a shower. The park was filled with ruins from buildings and pottery. We only stuck around for about 30 minutes before heading on. Since we were running out of time, getting tired, and didn't want to be looking for campsites that had showers, we ended up getting a hotel room in Flagstaff. We pretty much just hung out in the room watching TV until we went to bed.

Grand Canyon National Park
We finally arrived at Grand Canyon and set up our camp on the South Rim. After setting up camp and making some food, we decided to go hiking for the last few hours of sunlight along the South Rim Trail. We walked around for about 3-4 hours and caught the sunset while sitting on a ledge overlooking the canyon.

On Wednesday morning we decided to go hiking the rim in the southwestern direction this time. We had debated doing one of the hikes down into the canyon, but decided that neither of us were really up to something that strenuous. Once we got to the Bright Angel Trail, we realized we couldn't just stay on the rim. We walked down a little more than a mile when we noticed everybody coming up the trail was all sweaty and looking like they were about to die. We sat down for a moment watching the squirrel playing near us, had a smoke, drank a PBR, and decided that maybe we shouldn't head down any further. So, we started walking back up. The walk back up the trail wasn't nearly as difficult as we thought it would be and within about 20 minutes we were back at the top, not very sweaty and not out of breath, and wishing that we had walked down further. Oh well, we kept hiking along the South Rim. We ended our day by taking the bus back from Hermit's Rest to our camp grounds and then watching the ranger presentation on the amphibians and reptiles of the Grand Canyon.

Getting tired of typing
So, I don't want to type anymore. Here's the quick and dirty... We left Grand Canyon and drove to Vegas. We stayed in Vegas for 2 nights. We left Vegas for San Diego and drove through the Mojave National Reserve. We're now in San Diego visiting Bryan and Karen (and hopefully Dana) and will be heading north in a few days to be in Seattle by July 10th. Here are links to pics:

Las Vegas, NV
Mojave National Preserve

So yeah, that's it. I'll try to update this more often so the posts aren't so damn long. Luv ya all. Well, maybe only some of you. Good bye.

Stayin in Austin for a bit

2009-06-08T16:36:18Z

Last days of NOLA
Well, Camp Hope finally closed, which means we had to leave. I spent the weekend hanging out with Andrea, a friend that I worked with in Iowa. The first night there we went to a free concert in the park. It was a completely different world than I am used to. It was all upper-middle class white suburban families watching a cover band called Bag of Donuts at an amphitheater in a public park. Everybody had camp chairs, blankets, and ice chests. I made the comment to Andrea, "You live in a very different world than I." She responded in total agreement. We spent the next couple of days checking out some of the cemeteries in NOLA and biking around some of the bike trails in her area.

Sunday night I met up with Nina at the hostel in the Garden District. We went to a couple of bars and hung out at the hostel with Allen, Chris, Miami, 2.0, and Jared. Nina decided to stick around in NOLA a few more days so I headed to Texas on my own.

Arriving in Austin (Monday/Tuesday)
I arrived in Austin at around 9pm and stayed the night at Sam and Tricia's house. Eris, their 2 month old, was up and incredibly cute. I ended up just hanging out at their house until Tuesday afternoon when I met up with Eli, the couchsurfer that offered to host us for the next few days. Eli and I met up at a coffee shop, then checked out a couple of places in downtown before spending the rest of the evening just hanging out at a vegetarian cafe talking with random people we met there.

One of the funnier moments is when I texted Taryn in Houston to see if Nina and I could crash at her place on Wednesday night after Nina's bus arrived in Houston. The response I received was, 'Who is this?' It turned out that I sent the text to a wrong number. I apologized and explained that I sent the couchsurfing request to the wrong number. The next response was great, 'Oh, OK. I thought fate was setting me up for quite a wild night.' This wasn't quite the response I expected, but was funny nonetheless.

Houston (Wednesday)
On Wednesday I headed to Houston to visit my sister and her family before fetching Nina from the bus station at midnight. I ended up watching a movie called Mall Cop with my sister and my niece and nephew. I don't think that movie was intended for me, but the kids loved it. I also played some Wii Sports with my nephew before heading out to watch him at baseball practice. My nephew made the All-Star team and has practice almost daily. The practice was interesting enough and I met some of the parents of some of the other kids on the team.

While they were having batting practice, I was able to use my nephew's glove and snag balls in the outfield. That was a blast. I played baseball for many years when I was a kid and hadn't played in almost 20 years. Running around catching balls, throwing them to the infield, way more fun that it would seem. After practice, as a reward for working so hard over the last few weeks, the kids were given two ice chests full of water balloons. I don't think I've ever seen a water balloon fight last so long.

After practice I headed into Houston to fetch Nina from the bus station. Her bus was a bit late and I was a bit early, so I just hung out in the parking lot across the street and read. Since we didn't have a place to crash for the night, we decided to find a cheap motel and crash for the night just outside of Houston before heading into Austin.

Back in Austin (Thursday)
We arrived in Austin Thursday afternoon and couldn't immediately get in touch with Eli, the couchsurfer that was to host us, so hung out at a coffee shop on East 5th before deciding to go check out Barton Springs. We found that there was a Freebirds on the way and we stopped to get dinner and to introduce Nina to the heavenly wonderfulness that is Freebirds. While walking through Zilker Park, trying to find the springs, another couchsurfer from Houston called us so we could meet up in the park. We met up with Cory (Houston couchsurfer) and Trent (Cory's host from Turkey that is studying in Austin) shortly before The Hun arrived.

We went picked up some beer on our way to see the bats under the Congress St Bridge. Turns out is the 2nd largest urban bat population in the world and at dusk they all take off into the night. It was pretty amazing. There was a steady stream of bats for at least 30 minutes flying out from the bridge. After the bats we met up with Eli and some other couchsurfers at HomeSlice Pizza on South Congress. After The Hun and the other couchsurfers left, Eli took Nina and me to a bar called Shangri-La on East 6th.

When we arrived at Shangri-La, one of the local homeless guys came up to ask for money to look after my car. This used to happen all the time in college when we went into Houston to go dancing at Club Some. I only had a $5 bill, so I gave it to him. He liked that so much that he walked us to the bar and kept telling us how great of people we were. It was a funny and odd conversation. He gave both Nina and me bear hugs before we went into the bar. It was a cool bar with a huge outdoor area and they played all kinds of old punk and classic rock.

A group of 5 people (4 girls and one guy) sat down near us and asked if they could take a couple of chairs from our table. We said yes. Then they asked if they could actually take the table since we weren't really using it. We said yes. Then they asked if they could take Nina or Eli since we didn't seem to be using them. Nina and Eli laughed, but I responded with, 'Actually, you can take me, I'm getting bored.' So, they added another chair and invited me to sit with them. I ended up talking with them for a while before getting Eli and Nina to come join us. We spent the rest of the evening talking with them until the bar closed. We headed to Eli's place to sleep.

Bats and Springs in Austin (Friday)
Friday morning Eli took us to the Tamale House, a taco place that doesn't actually serve tamales. This place was great - 85 cent yummy tacos for breakfast. After that Nina and I went to Barton Springs to go swimming. After hanging out for a while, we met a guy named Brian, his girlfriend Jen, and his two kids. Brian was a total trip. Very high energy, pretty intense, and funny as can be. Brian and I ran to the store to get some Shiner before meeting back up with Nina, Jen, and the kids on the free side of the springs.

Nina and I walked back to Congress from the springs to see the bats again, this time from the top of the bridge. We were a little late, so it was a bit too dark to see the bats very well. We may go do this one more time before we leave Austin.

We were supposed to stay at Anne Bonney's and Face's place, but couldn't get in touch with them to get directions. We texted Eli as well to see we could crash at his place. After waiting at a McDonalds' parking lot for a while drinking coffee and waiting for responses to the text messages, we decided to just head out of town and get a motel. We checked in and decided to go get some beer. I left my phone in the room. When we returned, Anne Bonney and Eli had both responded, but by this time it was too late. So, we just hung out in the room and I shaved Nina's head.

Tubing, Sign Crew, 30ft long snake, and a marching band (Saturday)
On Saturday morning we headed over to the DPW house. We hung out there for a couple of hours before meeting up with The Hun and some others to go tubing. The small world thing is that the people that The Hun went tubing with a few days ago were Eli's roommates. One of the people we went tubing with was Julie, who runs the sign crew at Burning Man. When she found out that I was working DPW and Nina wasn't sure what she was going to do during that time, Julie decided to try and get Nina on her crew. We are still waiting to get the go-ahead from Logan. We ended up hanging out at Julie's place for a few hours before heading back to the DPW house.

We arrived at the house just as everybody was getting ready to leave. Several people said, 'You're just in time, let's go.' We jumped in Face's truck and headed to some pedestrian bridge to watch a marching band. We were sitting on the bridge waiting when a huge 30ft long snake powered by cyclists came slowly up to the bridge and parked. I wish I had pictures, but I don't. Behind the snake was a huge tricycle with a flag for the marching band. Then the marching band assembled and started playing as tons of bikers started appearing on the bridge. Apparently, they have full moon bike rides through the city and this was the meeting/kick-off point. We hung out for a couple of hours before heading back home. There were 7 people living in the house, all DPW, when we arrived. Kinda crazy. So, we just pitched my tent in the neighbor's front yard and slept outside. The neighbor even gave us a bunch of cushions to put in my tent. Yay for people.

Sunday at Sam and Tricia's
We went over to Sam and Tricia's Sunday afternoon and ended up just crashing there. It was cool hanging out with them, but Nina and I were so tired that we were kinda boring. Not much happened other than hanging out and playing with the kids. We ended up going to get Mexican food for breakfast Monday morning and then went to see Up with Sam and Kian, Sam's 2 year old. Tricia and Sam made us dinner before we headed back home.

The Warehouse, TC's, and Bike Jousting on Monday
When we got back to the house, it was completely empty, so we texted Face to find out where everybody was. They were at the warehouse for an Austin Burner Community Meeting. It was just down the street, so we headed over there and ran into some DPW friends that I hadn't seen since BM2008. After the meeting everybody went back to the house for a party. After an hour or so, we decided to meet up with Eli at TC's, a blues bar just down the road from us. The place was so hot that we just stayed out in the parking lot talking with people for most of the night. Once the bar closed, we headed back to the house via a free cab ride that Nina lined up for us. Almost as soon as we arrived, Face put me on a bmx bike and handed me a jousting stick. If I was sober, I probably wouldn't have done that, but yeah, whatever. It was fun. I think we jumped back in the tent around 4am or so while the party was still going on.

Well, we're about to hit Freebird's for their 2 for 1 deal, so I gotta go.

Ain't nothing good about concrete

2009-05-27T02:02:32Z

Habitat For Humanity
Today started my last week working with Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans. Habitat contracted out the concrete work for the sidewalks and the driveway. I was speaking with one of the contractors and he asked me why I was here volunteering. I explained that I wanted to learn building skills and such things while I pointed to the concrete work they were doing. His response was, "That's cool, but there ain't nothing good about concrete." I thought that was an amusing response.

We are doing the finishing work on a house and I am realizing that I prefer framing and roofing to finishing work. Finishing work is a bit more precise and detailed and less pounding nails and forcing things into place. I'll be doing this for the next couple of days before I head to the north side of the lake.

Why am I heading north for my last few days in New Orleans? Well, Camp Hope, the volunteer camp at which I am staying is closing down Thursday morning. The other volunteer camps are too expensive for me to stay there ($25-30 per night), so I found someone on Couchsurfing.com to stay with. He lives about 15-20 miles north of the city, but I found out that Habitat has some sites in that area. This means that instead of doing a huge commute to work, I'll be going to a different job site.

Last week I finally got to do some framing. We installed the floor joists, decking, and then framed all the walls for the house. Unfortunately, the foundation for the house was built seven feet too far back on the property and is not in line with the fire code. So, the flooring has to be torn down and the foundation re-done. At least they can still use the walls we built. The project was a blast and I ended up kinda running a couple of crews to get the work done.

Mississippi
Nina and I ended up staying at the farm for a few extra days and were able to experience the Batesville, MS SpringFest. This was a 'big' festival/carnival in the downtown area of Batesville. It was interesting, kinda. There was live country music both nights and a bunch of carnival rides. There was no alcohol served at the festival. There was only one bar in downtown (from which we left after 30 minutes of not getting a drink). We went to the store to get some beer to take back home and were informed that you couldn't purchase alcohol after 10pm in the county. Yay.

Overall, the trip to the farm was great. I even got to spend some time with my uncle, Felix. He's my dad's youngest brother and I likes him much. We only got to spend a short time hanging out, but hopefully I'll get another chance before I leave The South (although, I don't think it will work out).

What's Next
The tentative plan at the moment is to head to Houston on Sunday or Monday to see my sister's family and spend about 3 days there before heading to Austin to visit with some friends. From Austin, we plan on eventually getting to Taos, NM to work with Earthship again. We have no hard plans after that but plan on doing the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Vegas, San Diego, L.A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, and then Burning Man. Not sure how it will all work out, but that's kinda the plan.

My budget is incredibly tight for this trip, so I'm keeping costs to a minimum and splitting gas/transportation costs with Nina. I think I can make my bank account last until Burning Man. If not, well, I'll figure it out when it happens. If you feel the intense desire to contribute to the 'Keep Trey on the Road, but Off the Streets' fund, go for it. :P Or, better yet, if you have some quick, paying, work that needs to be done in any of the places I'll be, I'll be happy to work for some cash (or food or lodging).

My main camera broke and my other one doesn't work so well, so I'm a bit lacking on pictures lately. I hope to start taking some pics again soon.

Birf-day, Mom's Day, the Deep South, Hurting

2009-05-14T14:42:33Z

My Birf
After two weeks working with Habitat for Humanity, my birfday decided to occur on Friday, May 8th. Rather than sleeping in my car again, Nina and I decided to get a hotel in the French Quarter. We ended up mostly just hanging out in the hotel room with Sara, this nifty painter girl from New Jersey that we worked with at a couple of Habitat houses. After she took off, Nina and I just walked around Bourbon St. a bit, had a couple of drinks, and then headed back to the hotel to sleep. In all, it was a good birfday - roofing a house during the day, hanging out with Nina and Sara in the evening, and having some drinks with Nina into the night. Also, I was a bit surprised by the number of facebook posts about my birf. It made me feel special :P

The Family Farm
Saturday morning, nursing a somewhat mild hangover, we left New Orleans and headed towards northern Mississippi to see my mom for Mother's Day. I hadn't seen my parents in about 5 months and hadn't been to the family farm in about six years. This is a place that I loved as a kid - hand picked fresh vegetables, cows, horses, fishing, hunting, ATVs, motorcycles, and 360 acres of land on which to enjoy it all. Granted, the fishing and hunting are no longer activities in which I participate and the cows are all gone, but it is still a wonderful place. My parents retired and moved to the farm about 8 years ago. They built a new house with a huge front porch on top of a hill overlooking most of the farm. A pretty amazing view and a great place to hang out and watch electrical storms.

After my grandmother died, my cousin, Jake, and his family moved into the farm house. This was my first time at the farm since they moved in. They completely remodeled the interior of the house and made some really amazing upgrades to the old place. It was weird seeing the place with some parts of the original interior still in place. One of the things that really made me remember being on the farm is that one of Jake's kids started showing me his guns. A family of seven with a house full of guns. Makes me wonder when the ATF will arrive ;)

Other than eating completely amazing southern food (butter-beans and okra - made the way only Mom can do it), and after looking at all the muddy fields from the front porch, one of the first things we did was get suited up in camouflage overalls and head out on the ATVs. This has always been one of my favorite things to do out on the farm. Nina had never been on an ATV, so we spent a little time getting her used to driving one. After that, we headed for the bottom - the part of the farm that runs along the river and tends to stay wet and muddy. We spent the next several hours riding around through the mud and trails throughout the farm. Nina even commented, "Now I finally understand how people can live out here and not be completely bored. This is fun!" Yeah, it really is.

Another fun and safe activity enjoyed on the farm is shooting guns. Nina had never shot a gun before and I had not shot a gun in several years, so the obvious thing to do was pull out the guns and start shooting. We set up some cans and plastic planters on some tree stumps and did some target practice. We started with the Remington 700 30-.06, then on to the Dan Wesson 357 Magnum Revolver, and finished with the Remington 1100 12 Gauge. It turned out that I was still a decent shot, hitting most of my targets. Yay!

Memphis
My parents took us to Memphis to go check out Graceland, Beale St, and to quickly cross over the border into Arkansas. Tours of Graceland were a bit much in price, so we just looked in from outside the gate and took a couple of pictures. Down the street from Graceland, in a random parking lot, we noticed a ton of Trans Ams pulling in. Many were of the style from Smokey and the Bandit. After walking around for a bit, looking at the cars, we learned that The Bandit Run was an annual event in which people with Trans Ams did a tour from a different city each year, each ending in Atlanta, GA. Although seeing the Trans Ams was interesting, the best part was in the back of the parking lot. Someone had an old Dodge Charger painted to look exactly like the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazard, along with a cop car that looked like Rosco's car from the same show. The Dukes of Hazard, when I was a child, was by far the best show on TV. Well, until Knight Rider. Duh. I don't care how cool watching the General Lee jumping a river is, it is not nearly as cool as a talking car (driven by David Hasslehoff).

Okay, back to the actual events of the day... We ended up on Beale St for a couple of hours and watched a blues band play for a bit. It seems that Beale St was the place for the blues back in the day. Well, I guess it still is. My dad, when he was in the Marines in the 60s, was forbidden to be on Beale St. If any serviceman was seen on Beale St, they'd be arrested by military authorities and taken back to the base. It seems that Beale St was a bit dangerous and full of drugs and prostitutes. Sounds like fun to me.

Decision time and a hell of a fall
After going muddin' on the ATVs for a while, Nina and I came back to the house to get some more beer and some food. My mom offered to pack us a lunch, so we grabbed a sleeping bag and decided to have a picnic up on a hill in the pasture overlooking the farm. After hanging out there for a while and talking, we started thinking about maybe sticking around for another day or two. We were planning on leaving at 4pm. It was 3:30pm already and we didn't really want to leave yet. We packed up our stuff and started heading towards the house.

My Aunt Jean and Uncle Buddy live in an underground house right next to my parents. Buddy had polio as a child and has always had problems with his legs. Apparently, the doctors even told him that he would never walk. Yeah, that didn't happen. Buddy is a tough, stubborn man and has always managed to stay active and work through any issues associated with his legs. He broke his legs a little while back and since then hasn't been able to walk without the use of two canes that he uses to pull himself along.

While we were out having our picnic, Buddy was trimming the grass along the driveway. At one point, my dad noticed that Buddy was laying on the driveway and not moving. My dad ran down to Buddy to find his face completely covered in blood and talking in a manner that made it obvious that he didn't really know what was going on around him. He called an ambulance and notified my aunt. As we came riding through the yard, we noticed the ambulance in the driveway and went over to see what was going on. I ended up helping to hold the stretcher so that they could get buddy on it. It seems that Buddy most likely passed out while he was trimming and fell face-first into the concrete driveway. This caused a huge cut across his forehead just above his eye, he broke his kneecap in one of his legs, and his arms are really messed up, bruised and swollen. After the ambulance left, we decided to definitely stick around for a couple of days since my parents will be leaving Friday morning to head to Chicago for a wedding. This happened yesterday, today is Thursday, and Buddy is still in the hospital in Oxford. We're not completely sure how he's doing. So yeah, that kinda sucks.

For the most part, this has been a great trip. I've visited with a bunch of family that I haven't seen in years and have been able to give Nina a taste of life in the deep south. She's been able to experience a lot of firsts including: Taco Bell, shooting guns, muddin' on ATVs, staying on a farm, Shiner Bock, butter beans, fried okra, and fried catfish. We even taught Nina how to play pinochle. When we were setting up the score sheet for pinochle, we realized what the teams had to be. My dad and I share the same name, Pascual. I am called Trey because I am the third, he's Jr. My mom's name is also Nina. So, the teams obviously had to be the Ninas vs. the Pascuals. Yeah, kinda weird.

Living it up in the swamp lands

2009-05-04T15:59:06Z

Plans Changed as Usual
So, I had initially planned on heading to Austin, TX on Friday to visit with friends after my class in Houston. But, Jess missed her flight and was going to be in NOLA until Sunday. So, I ended up driving to New Orleans Friday afternoon and got to spend Saturday with Jess! It kinda sucks we only got a day to hang out, but it is better than nothing. I miss that girl. What a great person. :)

I arrived around 11pm on Friday night and we met up at Camp Hope, a volunteer housing center in an old school outside of Violet in St. Bernard. She showed me around a bit and introduced me to a couple of other volunteers before she headed home to get to bed. One of the volunteers, David from Kanuckistan, invited me to a small party off campus. I was a little tired, a little wired, and didn't have anything else to do. It ended up just being four of us hanging out with some drinks. Jess came and picked me up in the morning and took me around the city to show me some of the projects and some of the neighborhoods.

One of the neighborhoods had the headquarters for Common Ground, another organization working out here. Depending on how things go with Habitat for Humanity, I may try to work with this group for a week at some point during my stay. The Common Ground headquarters is in a neighborhood directly next to the levee that broke. Most of the houses there now were funded by Brad Pitt and have more modern designs and solar. Here are a couple of pics of the Brad Pitt houses:

There was also a neighborhood in which several blocks were built, maybe by Habitat but I'm not sure, with different colored houses that Jess took me to (Some pics of that street below). She also drove me through several neighborhoods in which a large majority of the houses had been abandoned. After the flood, groups went through the city checking all the houses and spray painted the front with an 'X' that included the date the house was searched, the number of bodies found, the number of pets found, and the name of the group that did the search. Pretty messed up. It is hard to comprehend the number of the these houses. It seems that in some neighborhoods, there are 60-70% of the houses have been abandoned (some pics below of that as well).

Meeting up with Nina
Saturday afternoon I received a call from Nina letting me know that she now has a phone. When I told her I was already in NOLA, she kinda shrieked a bit and told me I needed to come find her. After finishing my tour with Jess, we said our goodbyes since she was leaving the next morning. After battling some horrific traffic on an elevated freeway, I finally reached Nina around 11pm. We hung out at her hostel and then went to Bourbon Street with a huge group from the hostel. We spent the entire day on Sunday in NOLA as well before heading back to Camp Hope around 10pm.

Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity builds on Tuesday through Saturday with Sunday and Monday off. Nina and I worked on the same site all week. The first couple of days was building the frame for the roof overhang and sheathing the roof. The rest of the week was odd jobs like siding, sheathing the heater closet, rehanging some of the trim, and tar papering the roof. In just a week the house has changed so much more than expected. It is pretty exciting to see the progress and learn how to do a lot of building. To my knowledge, there are no houses doing framing at the moment, which is what I really want to learn, but whatever. I'm still having a good time and getting better at general building techniques each day.

Back in Texas

2009-04-23T17:42:54Z

Albuquerque, NM
I spent my last day in New Mexico going hiking in Cibola National park with Joey. Click on the title of this section to see the pics. I left the next morning for Dallas.

Dallas, TX,
I arrived in Dallas on Tuesday, April 14th to meet up with Will and Kristine - friends from college. I hadn't seen either of them in 7-10 years. Kristine showed up first and we had a drink. When Will showed up, he brought a surprise with him - Debbie, another friend from college. I hadn't seen or spoke to Debbie in years and it was a nice surprise. We spent the evening just hanging out at the bar and mostly talking about college and what we were up to these days.

The next day I met up with Bonnie. Bonnie and I had known each other since high school and perioidically over the last few years would randomly run in to each other. I spent the day hanging out with her and her family. Her two year old is absolutely adorable. That evening I went to visit Marshall, another friend from college, for poker night with some of his friends.

Overall, it was a good visit. I ended up hanging out with several people that I hadn't seen or talked to in a very long time. It is interesting meeting people that you partied with in college or hung out with in high school and then to see them 7-15 years later. Some change dramatically, like Kristine's new Texas accent that she didn't have in college, and others don't seem to change too terribly much.

College Station, TX
I arrived in College Station Thursday afternoon after meeting up with Marshall to have lunch at Freebirds in Dallas. I couldn't believe how much that town has changed. It used to be that the only thing there was Texas A&M and not much else. Now it is like a small city. The urban sprawl includes big box stores out past Highway 6 and north past Bryan. It was a bit confusing. What used to be grass fields or forest is now suburban hell.

I met up with Jason and Pixie for the first time in probably 7-8 years. I think the last time I saw them was for their wedding. I also met up with Chrystal and Kali for a little bit. Funny how they all left and just ended up back in CS.

Houston, TX
The Houston trip didn't quite turn out as expected, but has ended up being a lot of fun. I'm in Houston specifically to take PMP Certification Course. A classmate from middle school found me on facebook and after a few conversations he offered me a free seat in the class. It is hard to pass up a $2-3K offer like that. The class is at New Horizons and I've completed four out of five days of the class so far. It is a lot of information but the exercises are good and the instructor seems to know the material pretty well.

I had initially hoped to stay a couple of days at my sister's place so I could see her and her family, but I wasn't able to get in touch with her in time. So, I ended up getting an extended stay studio and am there all week. Based on her kid's schedules, it doesn't look like I'll have a chance to visit with them on this trip, but I'll be coming back through Houston soon enough.

I have been able to meet up with Lindsey, a friend from high school, and Sean, a friend from college. I hadn't seen either of them in many, many years. I've been hanging out with Sean the last couple of evenings, including yesterday where I met up with Nick Cooper.

If you didn't know me in high school or early college, you have no idea how obsessed I was with a Houston band named Sprawl. They were a ska band that I completely fell in love with my sophmore year in high school and I've seen them live too many times to count. Well, I only had their stuff on tape. I haven't had a tape deck in years. A few months ago I was talking about Sprawl with a friend and decided to look them up online. I found Nick's website. He was the drummer for Sprawl and was selling old Sprawl vinyl and CDs. I emailed him and met him last night at Mangos on Westheimer to pick up 3 CDs - 2 of which I previously owned on tape and new one with just live material. He was playing with his band, Free Radicals, and the show was good. I'm not really sure what to call them. They are all instrumental - drums, bongos, bass, guitar, alto sax, bari sax - and a lot of fun. They are playing in Austin on Saturday. I'll be in Austin on Saturday. I may have to see them again. Anyways, now I am once again listening to a lot of Sprawl. YAY!

Austin, TX
Tomorrow, Friday, is my last day of class and I should be heading to Austin (unless something better comes up) to visit with Andersson and the Ueckerts + 1 - their new underling has arrived and is just a few weeks old. I should be in Austin for a few days to visit them and meet up with some DPW folks to help build some stuff for Flipside, for which I still need to figure out how to get tickets.

New Orleans, Louisiana
After a few weeks of no communication with Swiss Nina, not to be confused with Seattle Nina or my mom Nina, she called me a couple of days ago and is doing fine in New Orleans. I was starting to worry a little bit as I wasn't even sure she had made it to the states. I plan on meeting up with her in NOLA sometime next week. From there, I don't know what the plan is. I expect to work with Habitat for Humanity for at least a few weeks before heading back west. Possible things along the way:

Flipside - Austin, TX (May 21-25) - still need to figure out how to get tickets

North American CS Campout - Colorado (June 10-14)

Camping in the Grand Canyon (whenever)

Don't know what else - if you have any suggestions, let me know

Albuquerque, New Mexico

2009-04-13T06:09:41Z

Getting There
So, the trip from Taos to Albuquerque took about 3 hours. It was mostly uneventful except for driving through Española. I drove through at what must have been rush hour. Traffic was moving at about 10-15 MPH at the most. That part isn't the interesting part. The interesting part was the fact that at least a third of the vehicles were low riders. Yeah, really, low riders. There were cars bouncing up and down in the middle of traffic. They were everywhere. And I would have to say that at least ten per cent of the traffic were motorcycles. I figured that there must have been an event going on, but once I got to Albuquerque, Joey mentioned that Española was the Low Rider Capitol of the World.

Albuquerque, New Mexico
I haven't seen Joey in, what we determined after a few minutes of talking, 7-8 years. Joey was a good friend of mine in College Station, Texas and we ran a production company together throwing parties and spinning at Club 2010 on Thursdays. We spent Friday evening just hanging out, drinking beer, and talking for hours. Saturday we ended up bar hopping from about 4pm until midnight, ending the night drinking PBR at a punk show in downtown. I love small punk shows!

What's Next?
Dallas - I leave for Dallas around 6AM on Tuesday morning and expect to end up in Dallas around 5 or 6PM Tuesday evening. I'm meeting up with Will and Kristine Tuesday evening in downtown Dallas and will be meeting up with Bonnie and Marshall while I'm there as well. I haven't seen any of these people in years. Should be fun.

College Station - I should be in College Station by Thursday afternoon and meeting up with some old friends from college that I haven't seen in about 8 years. And I'll be eating a Freebirds, of course. I should be in CS until Saturday.

Houston - I have to be in Houston for my PMP Course that starts on Monday. I will be there for about a week. I hope to meet up with a couple of friends that live in Houston and visit my sister and her family. I still haven't lined up a place to crash for the week yet, but I figure I will be able to find something as the time approaches. I'm looking for something inside or near the west loop, which is where the class is. My sister's place would give me an hour to an hour and a half commute each way and I really don't want to deal with that. So, if anybody has floor space or knows of a cheap hostel, please let me know.

Earthships... potential use in disaster relief?

2009-04-08T01:58:25Z

Disaster Relief Solution?
If you don't know what an Earthship is, check this out first - http://earthship.net.

The primary reason for me coming to Taos, New Mexico was to better understand Earthship construction and how it could be used in disaster relief scenarios. I have been here for about a week and a half and have worked on four different buildings - all different models of Earthships. During this time I have come to understand several aspects of Earthship construction and implementation.

The first thing I noticed was the incredible level of labor involved in the construction of these buildings. Many aspects of the construction require very little construction experience. The exterior walls (tire walls) are tires filled with dirt. Again, this is very labor intensive, but cost is minimal. Many of the interior and some of the exterior walls are composed of layers of cans or bottles lined inside the concrete. This again is a bit labor intensive, but the cans reduce the amount of concrete involved. These construction methods, in my opinion, could definitely be used in disaster relief in developing nations. With either a volunteer labor force or with cheap labor that is available in those areas, in combination with the inexpensive materials, I think this is a viable option.

The main concern I have regarding using Earthship technology in disaster relief is some of the more technically advanced energy and water usage aspects of the construction. I have read some of the information on how the water and power systems work in an Earthship, but only have a basic understanding of them. But, from what I can gather, these do require someone with experience in these technologies and the material costs are much, much higher. This part may not be a viable option for residential in developing areas, but could be useful for larger public spaces (such as schools) or larger commercial spaces (such as tourist centers, restaurants, etc.).

Additionally, a lot of the designs include a greenhouse area that is constructed of wood and glass. Both materials tend to be incredibly expensive in developing areas and are not viable options for basic residential, but again, could be options for larger public or commercial buildings. Also, one thing I noticed in Peru was that windows were very limited in most buildings due to crime issues. An entire street facing wall constructed of glass may not work in poor areas with high property crime rates.

So, yeah, do I think that Earthships are an option in disaster relief operations? Hmmm... maybe. This will take more time and somebody with a bit more construction and design experience than I to figure out how to make this work in each situation, but I think certain aspects of Earthship construction can be used. Like anything else, we don't have to build to a specific design, but can borrow certain construction methods and use them where they are useful.

When I leave on Friday, I will have been working here for two weeks. Although I have learned a lot, there is still much, much more to learn. I am considering coming back. In addition to just coming back to volunteer, I wouldn't mind doing an internship here. The internships are a month long and include Earthship seminars.

What have I been doing?
Want to know what I have been doing over the last week and a half? Well, I've been doing mostly manual labor - digging trenches, digging large holes, installing ceilings, lifting and placing huge logs on top of a building, pounding dirt into tires with sledgehammers, concrete work, and plastering. Wanna see some pics too? Yeah? Well, okay...

Earthship Educational Center
I spent my first day at this site digging a 30" deep hole for the foundation under a door. This included building the forms and cutting/shaping the insulation. On my second day at this site, I filled tires with dirt and pounded the dirt in the tires with a sledgehammer. You wouldn't believe how much dirt you can fit in a tire when you are compressing it with a sledge.

Experimental Earthship
I spent about a day and a half working on the new Experimental Earthship. My first day was mainly adjusting a tire wall, building up a can wall using mud, and helping to carry two of the viga logs up to the top of the main room. The second day was helping to place the other viga logs with the use of a crane this time.

Global Earthship
I spent two days working on the Global Earthship. The first day was installing a wooden ceiling. The second day was plastering to smooth out one of the exterior walls. This was my first time doing either of these things.

Sutton House
I didn't take my camera with me on this day, but I should be heading back out to this house today. I spent the day here widening a foundation trench and cleaning up the end of the trench up to the tire wall. I also helped trim down the cliff under the main tire wall and plastered the sides of the cliff.

First few days in Taos, NM working with Earthship

2009-04-01T03:22:22Z

I'm in Taos, NM
So, I'm in Taos, New Mexico. Jessica, a friend from DPW, has been here for the last month and gave me the idea to stop by on my way to Texas. I've been staying with her until she leaves in a couple of days. I was initially going to just live in my car for the two weeks that I'm here, but the amazingly cold and windy weather has caused me to reconsider. I'm going to end up staying at the B&B we're at now. Turns out the owner is willing to give me a private room for $100/week. Not a bad deal. It included breakfast, hot showers, my own room with a comfy bed, heat, and TV. So, I'll be staying at a B&B for the next week and a half. Far cry from living out of my car.

My first full day here was mainly just going around town and getting myself some work pants and boots. I found some steel toed Cabella's work boots, brand new with the paper stuff inside, for $20. I also found some Carhartt work pants for $12. So, I'm all ready to work and don't have to mess up the only two pants I own. So, I'm all ready to work.

A little hiking
On my second day here, Jessica and I decided to go check out Tres Piedras just outside of town. A bunch of huge rock formations jutting out of the forest. I got some hiking in! Here are some pics:

Additionally, we stopped at the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge. Other than the absolutely amazing views, accompanied by the incredibly cold wind, this bridge is cool as hell. A scene from Natural Born Killers was filmed here. Yay! Some more pics:

First day at work with Earthship
My first working with Earthship was working on the Earthship formerly known as the Euro Earthship, now known as the Global Earthship. I spent most of the day installing tongue and groove wooden ceiling. Here are some pics of the building:

Second day at work with Earthship
On my second day, I helped with a new experimental building that is going to be part of the Visitors Center. Here are some pics as well:

Made it to Taos, NM

2009-03-28T02:37:04Z

So, I'm here. I made it to Taos and have already met some of the people I will be working with at Earthship. I finally left Seattle on Thursday morning after a week spending time with friends, old and new. It was a little bit hard to leave after only being back for 4 months, but opportunities are elsewhere at the moment.

So, I drove from about noon until 3:30am on Thursday. I was at the top of a mountain pass when my body and my mind finally told me to give up and sleep. So, I pulled over at the edge of a bridge and crawled into my sleeping bag in the back of my car. When I woke up there was ice on all the windows. Being that my sleeping bag is a -15 degree down mummy bag, I didn't notice how cold it was until I unzipped it. I quickly got dressed and started the car. My temp gauge said the temperature outside was 2 degrees. I drove a couple of miles until I reached a store to get some fresh, but not so tasty, coffee. The owner said he saw my car this morning and that I should be glad I wasn't there a couple of nights ago when it was 'really cold.' Makes me wonder why people live in places like that.

I managed to get to the Earthship HQ at around 6pm and met some of the outgoing interns and some of the regular staff. Currently hanging out with The Hun until we head out to someone's house for the evening. Well, it is now my time for the shower, so I'll finish this later.

Yay, I made it to Taos!

Slight change of plans already

2009-03-19T18:08:18Z

So, a couple of days ago I received confirmation that I could work with Earthship in Taos, NM. On Monday morning of next week, I'll be heading in that direction. I'm not sure which route I will be taking or how long it will take to get there, but I am expecting to be Taos by the end of the week. I should be there for at least a week or two and then I'll be heading on to Houston for my PMP course. If you haven't heard of Earthship, take a look:

http://www.earthship.net/

Current Plans - I'm out of here

2009-03-12T17:49:33Z

So, after 4 months of unsuccessfully seeking employment, I have decided to move on. Sitting on a couch all day, every day, looking for work tends to get not only boring, but also incredibly depressing and frustrating. I plan on spending the next few days wrapping up loose ends here. This includes going to the doctor, moving my stuff out of storage, and turning off those extra monthly charges (eMusic, WoW, storage, 24HourFitness, etc). Essentially, once my driver's license comes in the mail (I went to the DL office 2 days ago to get my license renewed), I'm leaving Seattle once again.

Here's the (incredibly tentative) plan:
1. Pack a backpack and throw it in my car.
2. Gather all of my sleeping bags and blankets and throw them in my car - I imagine that I'll be sleeping in the back of my car a bit.
3. Start driving south.
4. CA: Visit SF and SD for a day or two each.
5. TX: Visit Austin and H-town for a day or two each.
6. Meet up with Jess in Louisiana and help build houses w/ Habitat for Humanity and other similar groups near New Orleans - hoping to learn framing, concrete, and plumbing.
7. April 20-27th - Houston for PMP Certification Course (Thanks Jason!!!!!)
8. Back in Louisiana for more building
9. Travel with Nina (yay! Nina will be in the US!!!) around the US and work at regional burns to offset event costs.
10. Go to Burning Man.
11. Drop Nina at the airport (waaahhh she's going back home)
12. Head to Panama for a few months starting in October.

So, this is just kinda what I'm thinking about doing. I'm not sure how much of this will actually happen, but that's the plan. If you've read this blog over the last year and half you realize that my plans tend to change based on the opportunities that present themselves to me.

Yeah, that's the plan. We'll see what happens. I hope to be gone by the end of next week. Also, I'm hoping to continue doing volunteer work until I can find a job. I have been unemployed since December 2007. So, if you want to contribute to the 'Keep Trey Volunteering Fund', please do ;)

Possible move to Panama?

2009-03-06T22:21:42Z

CocoVivo Home
So, after 4 months of looking for employment, I'm starting to lose my optimism. Maybe paid work will need to wait for a bit. But volunteer work in beautiful tropic locations doesn't seem so bad. I met this guy at the BWB camp last year at BM. He's a German (if I remember correctly) Burner that has a reserve in Panama. He's looking for volunteers to help run/manage a 55 acre property there. I'm thinking about heading there in September. Figured I would pass the info along to anybody else that may be interested.

Apologies and broken noses

2009-01-31T20:12:36Z

So, yesterday two funny things happened. Well, one was not as funny as the other.

First the Apology
I am currently living with some friends that have a 3 year old (and a 1 year old). Athena, Vega (the 3 year old), and I were eating dinner. Vega decided it was funny to put her spinach on her fork and then flick it onto the floor. Athena asked her not to do that a couple of times but she kept doing it. So, she ended up in timeout. Vega, not Athena. After coming out of timeout, Athena asked Vega if she knew why she was sent to timeout. Vega responded, 'Because I threw my food on the floor.' Athena, satisfied with this answer asked Vega if she would apologize for doing that. Vega replied with a yes and then proceeded to say, 'I'm sorry spinach.' and then she walked over to the table and again said, 'I'm sorry spinach.'

I attempted to control my laughter since she was just getting over being punished. So, I put my head on the table and tried not to laugh out loud. Until, that is, I heard Athena laughing as well. I ended up laughing so hard that tears started to run down my face. If you don't find this that funny, I guess it was one of those things where you had to just be there. After Athena and I calmed down a bit, Athena told Vega, 'You have no idea how hilarious you are.' Vega replied, 'Yes, I do mommy.'

Now the Broken Nose
Last night I went Neumo's to see Mark Farina spin. After a few drinks and lots of dancing, the lights came on and I left for home. Once inside, I bent over to take off my boots. I untied one boot and then proceeded to untie the other. I stepped forward only to find out that I was standing on one of the shoestrings. The way I realized this was by my foot not able to make the step forward. I was leaning over (because I was untying my boot) and ended up losing my balance and the floor quickly came up and smacked me in the face. Apparently the face smacking was loud enough for Athena to hear it upstairs. My face hurt, but I thought nothing of it because one's face should hurt after being smacked by the floor. I went to bed.

This morning my face still hurt. While brushing my teeth, I noticed that my nose was swollen and there was a little blood spot on the top of my nose. A little later my nose itched. When I itched it, little crusty flakes of dried up blood fell onto my finger. I, of course, then had to stick my finger in my nose to see how much more of this there was. There was a lot. So, the swollen and painful state of my nose, combined with the large amounts of blood, lead me to believe I broke it. Yay!

It was only five weeks ago that I slipped on the ice in downtown and hurt my shoulder. So, due to my own clumsiness, I have a hurt shoulder and a possibly broken nose. Both from falling down. Both from falling down on my own with no assistance from anything knocking me over. I'm starting to think that my decision not to be a ballerina was a good one.

Odd Things

2009-01-30T03:12:15Z

Big Fun Things with a Potential Future
Last week I responded to a request for volunteers to help out with a public art space. I decided to go down there for a couple of hours. I ended up spending about 12-16 hours per day for the next 4 days working with Dan Das Mann's crew getting the passage installed. I met some cool people and had a good time. I was also invited to come work on his next project.

Cheap Expensive Things Provided by the Distant Past
Since I can't seem to find a job, I decided to start looking into getting my PMP Certification. Most of the training for the exam costs between one and two thousand dollars. A classmate from middle school, that I haven't seen or spoken to in over 15 years, offered to get me into a class for free after I posted on Facebook that I was thinking about taking the class. So, now I have a ticket to Houston in mid-April to take this class.

Far Away Potential Things From the Recent Past
In December I applied for a job with Build Change, an organization that builds sustainable housing for devastated areas. They quit accepting applications about 3 weeks ago and said they would only contact people that made it onto their short list. I assumed that since I hadn't heard back from them, I wasn't on the short list. Today, I received an email from them stating that they needed my resume in an older version of word. The person sending the email also asked if we had met in Peru last year. After a brief search online, I found a picture and realized that yes, we had met in Pisco while Build Change was looking at doing some work there. Small world, eh? Keep your fingers crossed, please. The job is in the Sechuan region of China as a Program Manager for their organization there.

Not So Far Away Scary Fun Things
A week from today I will be jumping in the back of a little hybrid car to start the drive to San Francisco. We're only going to be there for a couple of days. There will be a party. There will be a hotel. There will be an actual bed on which I can sleep. There will be lots of people. There will be more than one clown. There will be way, way, way, waaaayyy too many opportunities for getting into trouble. Fun or Scary?

Now It Is A National News Thing
I have been looking for a job for the last two and a half months. I haven't had an interview in two months. A few new jobs are showing up that weren't there before, which gives me hope. Tonight, while watching The Nightly News (is that still with Peter Jennings?), there was a spot about how even the economy in Seattle sucks. Expecting something like 50,000 jobs lost. Yay!

Wonderfully Funny Not Mine Thing
This is a friend's email sig...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she
meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.
Rick Polito, Marin Independent Journal's TV listing for "The Wizard of Oz"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wonderfully Happy Makes Me Dance Thing
I have a ticket to see Mark Farina in about 26 hours at Nuemo's.

Wonderfully Happy Makes Me Smile Thing
I am currently living with some friends that have 2 little children, ages 3 and 1 (well, almost one). On a daily basis I hang out with, play with, and talk with these 2 kids. Well, with the one year old, it is more of a talk at, than a talk with. On a daily basis, at least one of the kids does something that makes me laugh, smile, or want to cry because it is so damn cute. I'm starting to hate kids. I was enjoying being able to suppress human emotions.

Over and out

2008-11-04T18:27:53Z

So, I started this journal for the sole purpose of tracking my trip for myself and friends/family. My trip is over. Am I done writing here? Most likely. We'll see how things go. I am thinking about hitting this from time to time to add little detailed shorts about events while I was traveling that never made it into here, but we'll see. Otherwise, I'll start logging events once I'm on the move again.

BTW, I'm still homeless and unemployed.

I'm home... well, back in Seattle.

2008-11-01T18:14:05Z

So, I arrived in Seattle Wednesday afternoon. The drive up was beautiful. The trees along highway 101 were all kinds of red, orange, and yellow. Some of the old bridges along the route were absolutely amazing. In all, even after several days of driving, it was a very nice trip. Here are some pics:

Being back is a little odd, but not as bad as I expected it to be. As I arrived in town I met up with Joey for a couple of drinks and a vegetarian chili dog at Shorty's. It was good seeing him again. Kinda missed the guy. I played some pinball and then we headed out. I stayed over at Joey and Harpy's place. The next day I took care of my license tag that had expired while I was gone. Then I went to see Jay and Athena's new baby. Well, it was new to me. He's 8 months old, huge, and cute as hell. Yesterday I got my laptop out of storage and spent the day in coffee shops not sure what else to do. Met up with some old friends for Beer Friday and then ended up at a bday/Halloween party at the Big Red House. Actually ran into Shoshana there. Wasn't expecting to see her until next Thursday. That was nice. It was late when I left the party and I had been drinking, so I just crawled into my car, laid out my sleeping bag and comforter and went to sleep.

Something crazy cool...
The Burien Interim Arts Space is something I heard about for the first time while at Beer Friday last night. This is what I gathered from the conversation with the guy that made this happen:

A 4 block space was being developed in Burien. The economy sucks. The developers were contracted to start/finish building within a certain time frame, but wanted to delay some of the construction for a bit. The city and the developers were contacted to have the space leased for the the temporary use of one entire block as a community art space. The developers agreed and the city gave $10,000 to make it happen. It will be an art space for 1 full year. It will initially contain 'The Passage,' a large sculpture that was at Burning Man 2005. Pretty cool, eh?

SF to Seattle Pics
I believe that in my last post I said I would post some pics. So here they are.

Vulcan Studios (Oakland)
This is where I stayed my last 2 days in Oakland. It was an industrial complex that was turned into apartments for artists and musicians. Very cool place.

Arcata
We met up with SissyBitch and Charlie in Arcata. We spent the day hanging out and checking out the coastal views.

Yeah, good times... and back to Seattle

2008-10-28T23:16:43Z

Bay Area - Trip 3
So, other than Noel, I didn't end up hanging out with anybody I was planning on seeing in SF. Instead, I ended up partying with a bunch of people that I didn't know where still in the bay area. I stayed my last two nights in the Vulcan Studios with Monk, Silly, and Ire. This place was pretty amazing. Essentially a huge industrial complex converted into an apartment complex for artists. All the walls and public spaces were covered with art and all the people I met there had some interesting stories. I'm glad I ended up there. I'll post pictures later when I have time.

Arcata, CA
After leaving the bay area, Ire and I headed up to Arcata to visit SissyBitch and Charlie (Faggot). We spent the day with them and then started heading north again. It was good seeing those two. I kinda miss them, but I'll never admit to it. I am in Eugene, Oregon right now at the public library in the city center. I can't get in touch with Sandra, so I'll be heading to Portland tonight, most likely, to visit Craig, a friend from my last contract at M$.

Back to Seattle
Right now it looks like I will be back in Seattle on Thursday. I'm both excited and scared. I haven't really talked to many people from Seattle in quite some time and I'm not sure if anybody knows that I'm coming back. Which may be a good thing. Settling in a bit before meeting up with people would be nice. Although, I still don't have a job or a place to live. So, if anybody has any suggestions, please send them my way.