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Posted on June 10th, 2008 by admin
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JDPriest, our favorite local musician stopped by, check him out, purdy good stuff.

Posted on June 10th, 2008 by admin
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I just got done with the PE class, hiking and backpacking, and today i take the final exam in music art, and finish my essay. For this essay, poor Sarah fell asleep during our screening of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Technology has come a long way. the 2.5 hour long opera could probably be done in a half hour with special effects and still tell the same story now. Next disc is Der Valkirie, a 2 disk set. I am still pondering if i will post about the part i don’t sleep through. Anyone interested in the story of the ring by Wagner is probably more likely to stay awake reading  this book.

Posted on June 8th, 2008 by admin
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Want to see what makes an old geek like me moist in the eye?

check this out

Posted on June 6th, 2008 by admin
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We Packed out on schedule Sunday morning. Packing went like this: shake snow out of pack, stuff in sleeping bag. Shake snow off of rain-fly, stuff in sack, try to pack everything before pack fills with snow again, shake dirt out of tent, collapse tent, shake snow off of tent, fold poles, shake snow off of tent, stuff tent, shake snow off of pack, insert remaining stuff. I carried 52 lbs in, I should have carried several pounds less out since we ate and drank the stuff. I probably made up the difference in snow. I warmed up on the hike back, actually started sweating. At the vans, I was standing in the falling snow wearing a sleeveless workout shirt, trying to cool off so I didn’t smell to bad.
On the drive back we stopped in Ridgecrest for lunch at the traditional Johns Pizza, a joint the teachers father discovered in the 80s. I don’t know if it was really good because we had been camping, or if it was on its own merit. They had peanut butter pizza, not too bad. The Home made ice-cream came in exotic flavors and was excellent. I got home around 5pm that evening, and spent the next day showering. I may actually do this again soon, but I want Sarah to come next time.

Posted on June 5th, 2008 by admin
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I don’t like cold. I’m a desert rat, if I’m gonna be in extreme temperatures, I prefer hot. (keep an eye out for when I complain about heat). Saturday evening at camp it got cold. Me and Joe learned a card game from another guy, most of us entertained ourselves around the fire, some drying off soggy shoes and socks. I didn’t eat much that night after the possibility of sleeping in pairs was brought up to keep us warm. I didn’t want to freeze, but I sure as heck didn’t want to be in a tent for 8 hours with some of those people. Some did group up, and some of us stayed by the fire as long as we could. I eventually got too sleepy and ran out of Sarah’s marshmallows, so I went to bed. Off in the distance still by the fire, some guys kept me up arguing about politics and cars.
I slept warmer than I thought I would. The next morning I woke up early, and was happy I had been commissioned to start the fire so I had something to do. It was snowing. I thought I had seen snow before, but I guess I hadn’t. I went “to the woods” for my morning donation and saw, for the first time in my life, real snowflakes. They really do have a shape, its not just for cartoons and Christmas.
It was hard to start a wet fire, but Joe helped, and we got it going. All those stupid geek tricks on you tube don’t work. I am happy the others in the food group, Rebecca and Kelly, weren’t picky. We had pop tarts and oatmeal for breakfast, but stopped at the pop tarts. We had to pack up and ship out that morning.

Posted on June 4th, 2008 by admin
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This is a repost from the bulletin posted on myspace.

this is probably way more amazing to me than it will be to many readers, but i saw a bear this weekend. Not a picture, or a zoo animal or something, a real live huge black bear.
We were hiking back to base camp from Jackass peak and saw fresh bear tracks in the snow. the footprint was about 12″ long, and 8″ wide. big bear. about a mile later, as we were entering the meadow where the Bonita springs are, the teacher in front stopped and dropped to one knee and gave the hold and hush sign. right in the middle of the meadow, playing in the water was a black bear. we sat and watched for a while, then teach told everyone get up and start walking toward the meadow we did, and after a few yards the bear stopped, looked our way for a couple of seconds and darted off into the woods. I caught it on video running away, but flicker wants me to leave money on the nightstand to display it, so you‘l hafta see my Myspace home page for it at Myspace.com/geekwrench.
Near the same meadow, we had our lunch break at an old Indian campsite (see last entry) It was interesting to contrast this with the “white people” campsite, it was more secluded, protected from wind, and even a little warmer. The hike back to camp was uneventful after that, other than me being thankful for waterproof boots to hike through the meadow in.

Posted on June 2nd, 2008 by admin
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When my sisters and i were in our early teens, we lived near the Montclair Plaza, here in So Cal. We had Korean neighbors that new how to throw a party. Its all about the food. I have no idea what they were celebrating, and it didn’t matter. At their events, there was a constant flow of food to any plate held in front of a face. This is where i was first introduced to Korean Barbecue.

At the camp we grouped ourselves into 3 or 4 person teams to share food, to save weight, time, and learn to cope with others i guess. My group had mostly food i came up with, and i thought we did OK with meat & potatoes and an oriental noodle ansamble. Another food group got the attention of the rest of the group when on the day hike lunch break, Joe pulled a crumpled foil pouch full of king crab legs from his pack. then Julia unwrapped some professional looking sandwich shop grinders that she made herself, My tuna burrito and gallon of trail mix lost its appeal. That night they had Korean barbecue for dinner as we ate potatoes and sausage.

Joe has a reputation. It is very unusual to see him without food. His trademark is to thank everyone that gave him food at the campfire meetings. This is a man after my own heart, especially since he looks like a younger Korean version of me. However, he thinks its fun to climb a mountain so hi and cold that you hafta crap in a blue bag and carry the frozen result with you. He was my favorite person to hang out with though, because he always had fun. I think he was the only one on the trip that didn’t complain about anything. of course this was probably a cake walk for him. the month before he climbed Mt Ranier in Washington. But hey, this is about food.

They gave me several good ideas for food that could be stored in a backpack and eaten on the trail. the best however, i heard from Duff, the teacher; Bobboli Pizza. You just stuff the bread and sauce packet, some cheese and peperoni. they dont need much refrigeration. you assemble the unit, slather olive oil on the top of some foil and the bottom of the crust, wrap it up in the foil and rotate it in campfire ashes. i will elaborate further when i have tried this and found the places where this could go wrong.

Hows that for a recipe segment?

Posted on May 31st, 2008 by admin
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It sleeted on and off, sometimes pretty heavily during the adventure, but I was never miserable. Many others were though, and verbal about it. If I can digress here for a moment, this is the one complaint I have about most outings I’ve been on with other people: the conversation. If I am near the front, the teacher hasn’t much to say. If I am not near the front, out of earshot, the teacher has interesting things to say to those that are in earshot. At that time I am moslty around people having a conversation about something they hate, like their job or some celebrity or the weather. To get out, I pretend to adjust something and fall back a tad. I usually end up hiking between to clumps of people by myself. (There are a few exceptions, you know who you are, cuz i like you. :o) OK that’s enough.
The hike was mostly level ground, until the last ¼ mile, where it was a rock scramble. We saw a natural spring, a couple of other meadows, and an example of a not so good campsite. It was awesome at the top of Jackass peak. For a moment the sun came out and it even felt a little warm. I was up there with a small group that needed close supervision due to the potential danger of falling a rather long way. One girl in the group, I think her name was Julia, was just too tiny to reach some of the holds, so some of us helped her in a couple spots. Her and Michelle, who seems to be her BBF were in a cooking group with another guy named Joe. I really got to like these guys, and not just because of the food they brought.

Posted on May 30th, 2008 by admin
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The next morning, as usual, I got up when the sun did and no one else was up. Condensation had crystallized on the rainfly window, so I couldn’t see outside. I twiddled my thumbs and played “what is that noise” until I heard others shuffling around. It was cold. I put on thermal undies and as many socks as I could fit between my feet and my shoes, and got out of my tent. There were patches of snow on the ground and it was sleeting. I grabbed my potty kit and went out to make a donation to what felt like “away” from the camp. I walked around a rock out of a stand of trees and saw what I could not see the night before: a real live Little House on the Prairie looking meadow. I didn’t have time to enjoy it yet though, had to find another place to “go”.
At what felt like almost noon, the rest of the camp started flopping out of their bags and soon the campsite was a medley of zippers vwipping in quadraphonic sound. I took the first food shift, made and cleaned up breakfast for our group, and sat around the fire with the others. That’s when it finally started to feel good. Around 10 am we were to make the 6 mile trek to Jackass peak.

Posted on May 29th, 2008 by admin
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