Words, Music, & Outdoor Adventures

I finished around 1:08 - the water was great and I ran the fastest 5K I can remember. Results should be posted in the morning. Greg took some photos and I’ll post once he sends. Great night in Boulder.

This is a link to my new favorite song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB6Wv1wEDw0

Shout out to Bold for introducing me to this song. It will forever make me think of you and everything you’ve done. You Rock, in more ways than one.

My friends from Steamboat via Killington just became parents. Courtney June Windt was just born.

Congrats Matt & Erin. I can’t wait to meet her. For the record: I predicted a girl, and I was only 2 days off on the date.

Yeah You!

Skied today with Greg in Winter Park. I estimate about six inches of powder. Here is a great video of Greg skiing in his first-*POWDER Day.

Watch:

And, an interesting article about runner’s high.

Betsy, Byron, and I skiied SolVista Saturday night. The shadows from the lights on the trails were-*really freaky, I thought someone was skiing up to me but it was my shadow.

I think this is Jack with Scott:

I found this picture today while going through some boxes. I*think it was taken in 2002 by Bee-Rad, at his house and right before I left Bethel to move to Killington.

A picture and a Haiku:

An empty horizon on
the South Pacific
where did my pants go?

*

During Winter Carnival

Abbey Dogis bag of tennis ball and chasing snowmobiles in the back yard
Swimming at Howard Pond when itis 100 degrees*
Hikes in the White Mountains*
Camping at Moose River in St. Johnsbury, VT*
Brad doing the Pain dance when stung by a bee hiking at Killington*
Watching Friends: “Christmas Lookie / Christmas Cookie”, “How U Doing”
Walks around Rutledge*(aka Rutland, VT)
Jaunts on the trail*
Camping on top of Mt Carlo,
Swinger of Birches……*

The necklace is from*Italy in the*Moreno region, known for its style of glassware and blowers.

Where has the necklace been you asked?*Venice, Florence, and Rome, Italy; Vienna, Austria; Krakow, Poland; Prague, Czech Republic; Munich, Germany; Interlaken Switzerland; and Amsterdam The Netherlands. Very well travelled.

speak your truth

I’m reading Truth and Beauty, a memoir about the friendship of two writers. “That is one thing that I’ve learned, that it is possible to really understand things at certain points, and not be able to retain them. To be in utter confusion just a short while later. I used to think that once you really knew a thing, its truth would shine on forever. Now it’s pretty obvious to me that more often than not the batteries fade, and sometimes what you knew even goes out with a bang when you try and call on it.”*

When I ask him “what’s up”. He replies:

Going to Hawaii on March 16 for a week.
My boss’s boss fell victim to of one of my patented rants and actually reacted properly (that is, to my liking).
Asked a NH software company if they had any T-shirts and got 10 of them, for free.
Haven’t missed an episode of 24 yet this season, but think the DVD route is the way to go.
Trying to see if I can go 8 weeks without going into the office.
Listening to the oldies show on WUNH.
Wondering if my neighbors think I’m dead.
Avoiding checking for belly-button lint.
Searching for Grand Theft Auto cheats so I can catch up with my brother.
Planning a fact-finding trip to Mississippi.
Driving a Kia (rental) till they find something better.
Mourning the death of Hunter S. Thompson.
Trying to stay perfectly still so I can hear the rhythm of the Universe in B flat.

how about you?

I reply:

Went out of town skiing this weekend.
Hanging out with a new guy who after the weekend tells me that he doesn’t really like me.
He wants to tell me why; I don’t want to know.
Going snowmobiling today up on Rabbit Ears pass.
I’m doing the snowshoe leg of a Pentathlon. It’s all up hill for the first mile. I think it’s gonna hurt.
Still training for my half marathon. 4 months until I have to run 12 miles. IF I run a 10 min. mile that is 120 minutes of running. I’ve never run for that long…..
I still love Steamboat. My one year anniversary is at the end of the month.
Life is good.

When I come to Bethel, ME in August I want to:
1-have seafood alfredo and a Sunday River Pale Ale at the Sunday River Brew Pub
2-go for a hike on the AT with my friend Brad Chafin
3-See my friend Linda Howe
4-go for a long run at sea level

Got a call from my buddy in Hawaii last week. It was funny in two
ways. One, he clued me in to some stuff around me I wasn’t even aware
of. Two, in listening to him speak, I got an insight into what it
really feels like to live in a remote place and contact those ‘back
home’. Was one of those moments where you realize that you don’t
understand everything, and what you thought you understood was wrong.
It gave me a karmic kick in the pants and reminded me that everything
I think I know might be wrong. Good food for thought.

‘Its not where you go but who you’re with.”

My high school friend, Ian, said this to me on a visit home from Alaska. He met me at my house to drive with me to LL Bean in Freeport, Maine (It’s a 2 hour drive from Portsmouth). About half way he told me that he had just got back from there. I couldn’t believe he was doing the trip again. Then he said the above sentence to me; I’ll never forget it.

9-17-99
From:*Robert
To:*Kristen
Typical liberal clap-trap. Funny, too, because I feel that way about Kerouac — that he’s one of the most over-rated writers of the 20th century. “Dharma Bums” was the only thing he wrote that approached good; everything else was trash, esp. “On the Road.” Some of his poetry, though, is excellent. Besides, Henry Miller was doing Kerouac’s famous stream-of-consciousness prose LONG before Kerouac was, and he was doing it better, quite frankly. In a sense, so was Nelson Algren and John Dos Passos.
In my opinion, the best “Beat” generation book was “Junky” by William S. Burroughs. If you really want to be freaked out, try reading Burroughs’ “Lost Boys.” But only do so if you -don’t- have an aversion to extreme homosexual/pedophilic perversity. Liberal crybabies who are afraid of the alpha male -love- to bash Hemingway. But the sheer fact of the matter is that no writer has done more to create the American literary voice than Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway. Twain molded and formed the American novel, and Hemingway perfected it. There’d be no such thing as the uniquely American short story if it weren’t for Hemingway — geniuses like Andre Dubus notwithstanding. In my postgraduate education, I’ve noticed that the effete, humanities-type profs -love- to “skew” Hemingway. It’s revisionist history at its worst, and obviously the person who wrote the script to P.S.G.M. went to Emerson or some sissy school like that. Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for literature, for crying out loud.