Planet Zorphskee

The Quest for the Cold Soda

2012-08-18T20:55:00.000-04:00

I know it has been a long time since I last posted. Over half a year. Well a lot has happened, including the (very early) birth of our daughter and me finally finishing my book! The Quest for the Cold Soda is now available in color and black and white editions. Please visit this page to purchase my book and fund my next adventure!

The Quest For The Cold Soda

Back on the AT again?

I am a jedi

2012-02-12T21:15:00.001-05:00

Went to see Phantom Menace in 3D and I dressed up as a Jedi. I was the only one dressed up. Oh well. I have been trying to work on my book between Skyrim sessions. I did beat it the other night and am now trophy hunting. The baby is good and in 3 weeks we will know the gender which is exciting. Football season has ended with my Patriots losing to the Giants in the Superbowl...again. Oh well. At least in Skyrim I control my own destiny. A fan can do nothing to help their team win. Going to go work on the book some more now.

Uncle Froggy

2012-01-29T23:47:00.000-05:00

I have been pretty busy lately with work and Skyrim. Yep, Skyrim. Its an amazing game and will suck up vast quantities of your time. I could go on and on about how great the game is, how good the graphics look, etc, etc, but I won't. I have also been trying to work on my book, which has been tough because my desktop is dying - one of my hard drives crashed already. Luckily that stuff was backed up and my book is stored online in my dropbox account. But that is not the biggest news. My sister had her baby yesterday and I am an Uncle! Technically I am already an Uncle on Joyful's side but this is the first on my side which is cool. His name is Abel which is a very cool Biblical name. They are doing well and we drove up to NH to see them today along with my parents, sister, brother and his wife. To top it off, my Dad had 4 tickets to see the Celtics and our seats were in a luxury box! We arrived a little late but we got free food and drink and had our entertainment for the night. The Celts lost by one in a very close game but it still was a lot of fun. Soon we shall have a baby of our own and as much as I look forward to that, I also think of all the adventures we will not get to do. Once our child arrives though I am sure all my thoughts will be about making the best possible life for him or her. As I work on my book I can still remember a lot of what happened and how awesome the whole trip was. I long to be back there, on the trail, in nature, roughing it, exploring, battling nature, and staying in hotel rooms once in a while. And maybe one day I will get back, with any luck, maybe by myself but hopefully with Joy. Yet I know that being a parent will bring its own challenges, its own triumphs and joys, and rewards.

Snow

2012-01-21T23:42:00.000-05:00

It snowed a couple of inches on Thursday night and today it snowed close to 7 more inches! Luckily we didn't have to do anything today besides lounge around. This was the first real snow storm of the year after getting pummeled last year. But of course when I saw the snow falling and swirling outside I longed for a little adventure outside. So after lunch Joy and I suited up and took a walk around our neighborhood. It was just an hour and half but it felt good to be outside battling (and enjoying) nature. It may be the middle of winter but thoughts of the Trail are upon my mind. We never had to walk through snow although it was cold enough on several occasions and there was precipitation.

2095

2012-01-16T20:24:00.000-05:00

Finally got my desktop up and running. Told me the year was 2095. I need to upgrade. Or maybe this computer will last until 2095? What version of Windows will it be then? Windows 95 the second coming? One of my goals for this year is to finish my book and I need a decent computer. Until then, save early, save often! Saving in the cloud of course - yeah cloud!

The Dream Terminator

2012-01-11T19:51:00.001-05:00

I had a dream last night that I was in a big spaceship filled with other humans. It also was filled with Terminators of the T100 type, like Arnold in the movie series. And just like the movie they started to take over. Humans were getting captured and killed. We were getting herded into rooms like cattle as doors (I assume they were blast doors like Star Wars) were shut tight all over the ship. A few us managed to hack into a computer terminal and then...then Joy woke me up. Not sure if I wanted to know the end of that dream. Although maybe the resistance would send somebody from the future to save me!

In real life, I don't remember if I mentioned it but I bought Skyrim for PS3 and the Lord of Rings extended edition on bluray. LOTR was only $48 on Amazon, normally $120! Awesome deal and I plan on doing a marathon soon (yes I guess that's pretty nerdy). I did get the Star Wars original series on bluray as well, not sure if a marathon is coming for all 6, or just the 3. I don't really want to buy DVDs/CDs/books any more. They just take up space and with movies, I'll watch it once a year and I could just get it on Netflix anyway. Digital music is easy, just download it. Books? Kindle or the library. Video games? Well that is tough. I am on the fence about Gamefly. It seems worth it for games you only play once. The cost would be equal to buying 3 games a year, which I probably do anyways, but wont do once the baby is here. At any rate I bought Skyrim and it is every bit as good as people say.

Ninja Time 2012!!

2012-01-07T22:18:00.000-05:00

I woke around 11:30 today. Looked at my phone and saw a message from an old co-worker asking if anybody wanted to go for a ride today. Oh yeah, today is supposed to be pretty nice out! It was already above 50 so I responded back and quickly got dressed. I headed over to my parents house to get the bike ready. The battery was dead so I had to charge it but it started right up after that. I met my friend at a gas station where we fueled up and headed south. We took some back roads, jumped on the highway for some nice s-curves, and made our way toward the beaches. It was noticeably colder as we neared the water but it was well worth it as the ride was fantastic. Riding down the coast with the ocean on our left made me realize that this is one of the most beautiful spots in Rhode Island and also that I need to ride this route more often! Joyful was off at a baby shower so she didn't get to experience it and she loves the beaches! I'm not sure how much riding I, or she, will get to do once the baby is born, but it was nice to start riding on January 7th! Usually, even if it is warmer out, there is snow on the ground and sand everywhere, which makes riding a lot more dangerous, so you don't ever get to ride this early in the season. Fun times!

Beautiful RI Coastline


The Ninjas - 500 and 650

Laptop or desktop?

2012-01-06T19:22:00.000-05:00

You know what I had to use the other day at work? A floppy drive and diskette. They don't even make computers with floppy drives anymore! But alas, when dealing with XP, SATA drives, and RAID controllers, sometimes you need a floppy drive. At least it was a USB floppy. That stupid computer took me all day to get working right. It can be frustrating when you think something will only take a couple of hours and then it takes the whole day. At least work goes by quickly!

My computer, which was setup at my grandma's, is still not setup at the apartment. The way my desk is now I don't have that much room and as far as computers go, it is really outdated. My phone might be as fast as it is! I really want something that I can play the next wave of games, do my bills and such, media, movies, etc. It doesn't need to be super fast or have a super-high framework for games either. Just enough to play Diablo 3, which comes out in March. I built this computer about 8 or 9 years ago and it has served its purpose, so I think a replacement is not out of the question and is in fact justifiable. Computers are my profession so it definitely helps to have a decent one at home. The question is, do I go laptop or desktop? I have been wavering between the two ever since they announced Diablo 3. Every time I think I've made up my mind, I change it. A laptop would be nice because it would be portable (obviously) and could be just as powerful as a desktop as far as gaming. When I am at home, I would just hook it up to my LCD, keyboard and mouse, and then could take it with me for mobile gaming and such. The problem is, a decent gaming laptop is expensive, probably close to $2000. You could build a comparable laptop for a third of that price. For the price of a laptop, you could build one screaming fast desktop. The desktop is not mobile, but even a cheap one gives you a lot of options for upgrading in the future. And with the baby coming, cheap is better. Or maybe not at all is better. Time will tell. Being a Dad is more important than gaming and probably won't leave much time for it either. I'm taking a break from Magic as well. My last tournament was a Top 8 performance at FNM at Die Hard Games on New Year's Eve.

Fedex me a happy day

2012-01-04T19:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at work, we ordered a blackberry and had it over-nighted to us. Fedex delivered it to us today, but not before running it over with a truck. I kid you not. The box had a huge tire mark on it and the phone was a bit warped. Fedex even told us they ran it over! Why deliver it then? Needless to say, they are getting us a new phone.

In other news, I found my slippers! I have been looking for them since we moved in, and it turns out they were in a bag in my trunk the whole time. Oh happy day!

Big News!!!!!

2012-01-03T23:31:00.000-05:00

Last time I had big news, close to a year ago, I announced that Joyful and I were going on our Appalachian Trail hike. When I said we had big news last year, most people thought we were pregnant, which wasn't the case. Well I am happy to say that Joy and I are expecting!!! The trip was to be our last grand adventure before having kids and we told many people on the trail that we were doing this so that we could have kids. So was our hike the end of one chapter of our life, or the start of a new chapter? Or is having a baby the next chapter? Or perhaps you can say that the journey we started last year has ended and a new journey is beginning. However you look at it, we are excited for the birth of our first child, and still do not know how everything will work out with jobs, money, and the likes. Our little bundle of Joy should be born in July - yes it is in the middle of hiking season but we won't be doing much hiking this year. The next great adventure has started!

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-01T09:45:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year!! Happy 2012!! Last year was pretty awesome with our Appalachian Trail hike and all and I hope this year has plenty of adventure as well! In fact, I have some exciting news that I will be sharing in the next few days. Joyful and I finally got the apartment looking decent and although we still have lots to go through, it is a big improvement from having boxes everywhere. We finished 2011 with the movie Rocky. Perhaps a fitting movie for last year, although Return of the King would have been nice. I remember watching The Two Towers at the Hiker Hostel the night before taking our first steps on the trail. Speaking of movies, another one I really liked was Conan the Barbarian with Arnold. I just saw it for the first time the other day and enjoyed it, especially the soundtrack. At times during the movie, it was not dialogue moving the story forward, but the music. I even downloaded it I liked it so much.

Goodnight 2011 and hello 2012!

Gift card fail

2011-12-27T15:30:00.001-05:00

I hope everybody had a happy Christmas full of family, food, and fun! On Christmas Eve I was at my parents house where we ate KFC, pizza strips, Subway, exchanged gifts, and watched the Patriots come from behind to beat the Dolphins. I received a $50 Amex gift card from my parents, as did my wife. On Christmas we went to her parents for more family, food, presents, and fun, but no football (or basketball for that matter). Yesterday we were home organizing, breaking down boxes, etc, until around 8:30PM, when we decided to drop some boxes of donation items off at Savers. When i got dressed in the morning, I put the two Amex gift cards in my pants pocket, or at least i thought I did. When we got in the car to leave, I gave one to Joy since it was hers. So theoretically I should still have one in my pocket. Well we dropped the items off, went into Savers, went next door to Best Buy, then down the road to Target where we bought some house things that we needed. As we were checking out, I went to pull my Amex gift card out of my pocket, but it wasn't there! It must be at home, I thought, so we went home and looked all around the apartment and outside in the parking lot. The only reason that I could think of why it fell out was when I had pulled my keys out of my pocket. Our search turned up nothing so we traveled back to each store's parking lot (the stores were closed by then) to see if it was there but alas, no luck. If anybody found it on the ground and took it, hopefully they needed it more than I do!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

2011-12-24T01:59:00.001-05:00

Ok, I am a little late because its actually Christmas Eve here in EST zone land. But somewhere, somebody is having a happy Christmas eve eve. I actually got in the mood this week with a little gift giving at work and some Christmas music (Transiberian Orchestra of course). But then again it was almost 60 out this week, so it still feels a little like Spring. Still on the subject of Christmas, I don't ever think I believed in Santa. In fact, I will not pull this blanket of lies over my kids heads either. Rationally and scientifically it makes absolutely no sense and I hope they can see that. We live in an age of unparalleled information, all available to us at our fingertips. With a smartphone and an Internet connection any knowledge in the whole world is immediately discernible. Santa? Santa is a relic of a time long gone, not to mention he has nothing to do with Christmas. One person at work said that Santa is Jesus' brother. Ummm, I don't think so.

No Christmas Tree, No Christmas, not lit up like a star

2011-12-18T21:40:00.000-05:00

One week until Christmas! And we are still unpacking boxes! Thus we shall not be putting up our (fake) Christmas tree this year. I'm still not sure whether or not this feels like home yet. Or perhaps, after a long time of living out of our backpacks and suitcases, I feel at home wherever we are. I do like having our own place though. Having a dishwasher is amazing. Also, living in Warwick is great too. Everything is close by and visiting our parents, both sets, is now a ten minute drive.

Game of Thrones

2011-12-17T00:32:00.000-05:00

I just finished watching Game of Thrones on HBO. Actually I don't have HBO. Or cable for that matter. But I do have the trump card: the Internet. In the past this meant watching it on your monitor or LCD. Well my 22" LCD is nice, but not nearly as nice as my 40" TV. Which would you rather watch something on? I can either use a VGA cable to hook up to my TV or I can copy AVI files to my PS3 for my viewing pleasure.

But back to Game of Thrones. I finished reading the book a little while ago and I really liked it. My brother recommended the HBO series so I started watching it and was really impressed. They did it in ten, hour long episodes which game them plenty of time to develop characters and tell the story exactly as the book did, with almost no literary license. The characters and speech were spot on and the visuals were great. It gave you that epic feeling like Lord of the Rings did. The only downfall is the amount of nudity, which was not really in the book. Perhaps this is just HBO being HBO though. I wish all book to "movie" adaptations could be done like this. Imagine Lord of the Rings as 30 hour-long episodes! You would get to see and experience so much more of the book. I will start reading the next book in the series soon and should finish by the time they make the next season in April.

Boxy Brown

2011-12-13T00:52:00.001-05:00

The mountains of boxes have been reduced to piles of boxes but there is still a lot to be done. It feels great to have our own place again. I love being able to come home at a decent hour, grab a cold soda (Mountain Dew of course), and kick it for a few hours. Maybe some PS3 or watching a movie with the wife.

The suburban life is nice but I still remember the trail. At least once a day my mind drifts back to my time spent backpacking through the South. We humans are nostalgic creatures, are we not? Perhaps another event, another moment in time will capture my heart like my adventure did, but for now it is the AT.

The move is over, now the real work begins

2011-12-07T22:16:00.002-05:00

I don't like moving. It was one of my big concerns before the trip and was no less worrisome this time. To put it plainly, moving sucks! Last time, my brother and I lugged down all our crap down from our third floor apartment, completely filling up our 24 foot (if I remember correctly) truck. It took us maybe 5 hours. Then we drove to CT, around the back of my Grandma's house, through a very narrow passageway in the brush, to the basement door. With the help of my Aunt and Uncle we were able to unload the truck very quickly though, in something like thirty minutes. That part was nice. I should have taken a video of how tight the trip through the woods was. When I did it last time, I had to back through it too. Have you ever driven a giant moving truck? There is no rear view mirror so at times you feel like you are driving blind. Especially when you are backing up. Always get the insurance!

This time we got the 26 foot truck as we were taking an extra couch with us. My friend was along with us to help us load up (and hopefully my Aunt and Uncle would be able to help as well), and my brother and another friend would help unload at the apartment. My friend showed up at 8:30 and our plan was to get breakfast then head to CT to pick up our truck around 11. Now let me explain what the plan was on Friday. I had called U-Haul and requested to pickup our truck at 9am, since online it defaults everything to 12pm for some stupid reason. They said OK but later called and said it wouldn't be available until 11. Then as we were eating breakfast I check our reservation and it said 3pm. So I called and they said that 3 would be the latest it would be ready but that they would let us know. Well there was not much else we could do so we headed down to my Grandma's house to wait for them to call. There was a few things to pack up and load into Joyful's car so we did that but still no call. Around 11am we took a walk for a little bit, but still no call. We decided to drive down to the place, get some lunch, then check in with them again. It was about a thirty minute ride to the U-Haul place. The truck was still not ready, so we ate lunch at Wendy's. While eating lunch they called and said the truck wouldn't be ready until 5! I was frustrated, but there was nothing we could do, so we headed back to the house to watch Netflix and wait some more.

Let me tell you a bit about U-Haul as I understand it. First let me just say that there was no way to cancel and get another truck somewhere else. You can't just get a 26 foot moving truck on an hour, day, or a few days notice. There are not many of them, thus they are in high demand. When you drive by a U-Haul place you will see ton of the smaller 14 foot trucks, but not many big ones. So, if you order a big one, you are probably going to have to pick it up at a place not of your choosing. This place will probably be where the last person dropped it off. Which also means you are at the mercy of the person returning it, as we were. Our trouble was not U-Haul per say, but the person returning it. If they had returned it on time, we would have had our truck a lot sooner. Furthermore, you only get so many miles and you have to pay for the gas you use, so having to pick up the truck at a place not of your choosing really cuts into your mileage and gas. At least you get to drop it off wherever you like. This has been my experience with U-Haul, I have no idea if other moving companies are better or worse, so please let me know.

Back to our story, I finally got a call at 5pm that our truck was ready, as we were thirty minutes into Food, Inc (a very interesting movie), so we drove back and finally got our truck. They knocked $20 off, which was decent considering it was $180 altogether or something like that. Now the real fun was to begin. The first battle was going to be getting around to the back of my Grandma's house for easy loading. It was dark out so my Grandma said to drive around the other side, which was clear but had the septic tank, so we could only do it with an empty truck. Ok, thats good, better than backing the truck through some brush in the dark. Or at least I thought! I had a very narrow space to navigate around and the ground in the back of my Grandma's house slopes down into brush and wetlands. Not the kind of place to get a truck stuck in, and boy was I close to getting it stuck! I made as sharp a turn around the corner as I could, but came too close to the house so I had to back up and try it again. Well this time I was extremely close to the edge of the yard and on a dangerous slope. The wheel was cut all the way and if I continued to take the turn the front right wheel might end up in the brush, the truck stuck, or even worse, tipped over. I decided to try and and back the truck up to get a better turn but I couldn't! The tires were just spinning, caught in mud. Well, just one course of action now! Forward we went and the truck made it! We were perhaps a foot from the brush. Phew!

It was 6:30 by the time we started loading up. The relatives were all away, so it was just me and Diesel. After about 2.5 hours we sent Joyful to get pizza and Mt. Dew. She came back in thirty minutes so we could fuel our tired bodies and after that it was only another 30 more minutes to finish the loading. Not bad for only two people and I think the fact that the truck was right outside the door really helped. It was something like 10:30pm so there would be no unpacking tonight but I at least decided to get the truck back to our apartment. This time we got to drive through the passageway (as I keep calling it) and after the first section of scraping branches, it was actually pretty easy to get it around to the front of the house and off to RI. The drive home was life as usual in a giant truck. It takes forever to accelerate and stop, going up hills takes more than forever, every bump makes you feel like the whole back of the truck will be jumbled up, and going around a right handed corner is a pain. Not to mention that the truck will not fit in a park space so even parking crooked at the apartment I was on the grass and took up 5 spots.

As we slept in our sleeping bags on the floor, we were really not sure who was going to be able to help tomorrow. Our help was for today. My friend was available, but he didn't say what time he was coming and he shut his phone off. My brother couldn't come until later and my other friend was busy during the morning. To top it off, the truck had to be back by 5.

I was a little stressed going to bed and waking up that morning. I haven't been stressed about anything in a long time, but after showering I resolved that everything happens for a reason and that God would take care of it. I resigned myself to start unloading the truck and hopefully my friend would get there soon. My awesome wife had my back though and while I was in the shower called a friend, who graciously offered to skip church and have herself and her husband help us out. That was a Godsend and they brought breakfast! My gracious thanks to them and another friend who also came after a while to help us out! My other friend also showed up after church to help with the last few things, including helping me drop off the truck. The apartment is filled up with boxes now and it will take a while to get everything all situated and unpacked. We finished unloading close to 1pm and I still got to watch most of the Patriots game so everything turned out great! I wish I could have moved the truck closer to the door of our apartment as I think it would have made unloading easier and much quicker, like at my Grandmas. As it was, I had to park a short walk away from the door because the truck was so long and maneuvering around all the cars would be nigh impossible. This caused to have a slightly longer unload time. I thought it would be quicker then loading up the truck because you have to worry about "Tetrising" everything in the truck and here we were just putting stuff anywhere.

At one point, we tried to move what would be later known as the heaviest couch in the world, when it was just the two of us, and we got it stuck at our doorstep. Somehow my friend and I had moved it no problem the other night but now we could barely lift it. Luckily our other friend showed up so the three of us managed to strong arm it around the back of the building and through the sliding glass door. The only other snafu was that we forgot the cross braces for our bed at my Grandma's. So after all was said and done, we had to drive the hour back to CT to pick those up, so we could get our bed put together. And what a wondrous sleep that was! I have not slept on a bed that soft since the last time I slept on that bed, 8 or 9 months earlier! Well this has been a long post and there is still much unpacking to do!

The 26 foot beast

Home sweet home!

2011-12-02T22:55:00.000-05:00

The moment has finally arrived! Joyful and I have a new home! Granted, the only thing here is a TV, Xbox, PS3, 2 camp chairs and we are sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags. It is still home though. Tomorrow we will be getting the big ole moving truck and transporting all our junk back to RI. It will be nice to finally have all our stuff in one place, to sleep in our own bed, to have a fridge where I know all the food is mine, to get back on a routine, to wake up without a dog barking at me, and to stop wearing the same clothes over and over again. Seriously, I have about a week and a half worth of different outfits, so getting some variety in would be nice!

Dinner without furniture, silverware, plates, forks, or knives...unless you count Bear Grylls

Almost there

2011-11-26T22:39:00.000-05:00

The lease has been signed, the first month has been paid for, the internet is ordered, and the U-HAUL has also been ordered. On Wednesday we will get our keys and sleep in the apartment for the first time! Ok, so we will have zero furniture and will be sleeping in sleeping bags, but it will still be our first night in our place!

Thanksgiving was the typical affair. Good food, watching football, and throwing the football around. My brother and I also climbed up to the "ledge" to get a view of the CT countryside in full autumn swing. With all the family being around, or at least not far away, all the ladies got together today for my sisters baby shower. This will be the first grandchild so my parents are excited. At any rate, my Dad, Uncle, Brother, and myself got away to bowl some frames. 125,165, and 182, not a bad three games considering I haven't bowled in a while.

It was very warm out today and I wanted to ride the motorcycle, but I didn't get to. I did ride it last Saturday though. I think that instead of winterizing it I will try to start it up every month, being that I will only be 5 minutes away from it.

So hopefully my next post will be from our new place!

Almost there...almost there!

A (permanent) place to live...

2011-11-21T22:24:00.000-05:00

It has finally been confirmed that we will get our apartment. We will get the keys next Wednesday! Finally! But we are not there yet; there is still the whole moving process. I dreaded the process last time but it turned out ok. Let us hope it goes good this time. I am hoping to move in a week from this Saturday. Joyful and I are back at my parents this week babysitting the dogs while my parents are away (Washington State) for my Aunt's funeral. We will miss you Tina and I am sorry we didn't get to see you more! Thanksgiving will be at my Aunt's house which is right next to my Grandma's house. We switch off between families every year which I find just makes it easier for now. Black Friday will find me working but I did not see any good deals in the adds so that is ok with me. It will be a slow day at work. Not much more going on. Halftime just ended on the Patriots game so back to watching that...Happy Thanksgiving All!!!

I am Turkatron. I have come from the year 9595 to save this bird that lies before you for he is the great, great, great, great grandfather…of Goblox…the turkey that’s destined to lead the rebellion against master chickens.

A tick on my...

2011-11-16T00:14:00.001-05:00

I went to bed on Sunday night and felt an itch in my "private parts" as they say. Having brushed some ticks off my pants during my hike, I decided I better check it out. The spot I was itching turned out to be nothing, but I decided to do a full examination anyways. Sure enough, there was a tick on my testicle. During all the commotion Joyful had woke up, and she confirmed that indeed, it was a tick. So I opened up my multi-tool (the awesome light but very useful Gerber Cloth) and used the pliers to pull it out. A whole body search ensued and I pulled another tick off my thigh. Luckily they had not started sucking my blood. With all the ticks I've pulled off me the past year though, I am amazed I don't have Lyme or any other disease. But time will tell!

Exploring the woods of CT

2011-11-13T23:11:00.000-05:00

I worked some extra hours at work this week. At least when I work more, I spend less. So yesterday I spent most of the day on the couch watching TV and playing on my computer. Today I felt more adventurous so I decided to finally explore some of the woods behind my Grandma's house. I packed a lunch, donned my hiking clothes, grabbed the Bear Grylls Ultimate Survival Knife and headed off into the warm November air.

There area directly behind the house is wetlands which flow into a small brook. I had to walk parallel to the road for a little bit before I could find a good place to cross the brook. After that there are a bunch of ridges that slowly climb upwards. When we were kids staying with my Grandparents, my Grandpa would take us up there somewhere, to show us historic spots, or on treasure hunts. But that was a long time ago and I have no idea what is actually up there.

I slowly made my way up, at first following the path of least resistance, then following a small stream up. There was several small streams, and plenty of water, and I imagined that must be a spring somewhere, the source of all the water. If the trail (the AT) was near here there would be no lack of water. I soon abandoned my quest for the spring and instead just started trying to find the high ground. Technically I was bushwhacking, although my only real problem was thorn bushes, which would block my way several times. I hiked past several stone walls, of which there are miles of around here. I love stone walls. They mean history and usually old boundary markers. But the amount of walls around here was crazy. Usually you just see one long line. I saw stone walls intersecting and one spot where I was surrounded by stone walls. They were decent walls too, some four feet tall, and well built. The other feature I saw throughout my hike were what I would call "woods roads". In spots you could clearly see where the tire ruts were but you would follow it for a while and then it would just disappear, completely overgrown. I loved finding spots like this on the AT. What was interesting to me was that the roads would pass through the stone walls, meaning there was a gap in the wall. Now was the wall built that way originally or did people move the stones for the road?

Now I didn't expect to find any sweet views when I finally reached the high ground, but I did come across a stone quarry. Not the view I was expecting but oh well. I found a stump to sit down and after an hour of hiking and maybe 300 feet of elevation, I ate my lunch. And read Game of Thrones. A nice peaceful lunch on a hill in the middle of the CT woods. Well it did get a little breezy but it was all good. I was unsure exactly where I was in relation to roads and such so I decided to use GPS to check it out. I was on the highest hill in my immediate region, but there was a slightly higher hill nearby. Next time I will head for that hill! But for now I would focus on getting back.

I didn't want to go the same route back; what I really wanted to do was follow the woods road back to where it came out to a small pond across from my Great-Grandma's old house. I think that was were the road originally started. After painfully traversing a wall of thorn bushes, I found the road. I quickly followed it downhill but it soon disappeared into more thorn bushes. I hopped up onto a stone wall and circled around the bushes, but could not pick the road up until I traveled downhill more. Then I saw a cool site: three connected stone walls, recessed into the side of the hill. It was an old cellar, basement, or foundation. There were some trees growing in the middle of it, so I'm sure it is fairly old. Very cool though.

I finally made it down to the small pond, which feeds the stream and wetlands behind my Grandma's house. The woods road starts there and connects to the roads. Some day I may try to follow the road from there, but hopefully my time here is growing short.

NY NY

2011-11-06T22:08:00.000-05:00

Where to begin? Let us start in Florida. As you may remember from last post, I woke up in Jacksonville, FL on Monday, hoping that our office down there was working. Well it was, except for the phones. Calls were being routed wrong and there was dead air. To cut a long story short, after talking on the phone with vendors, going over the switch config, checking wires, etc, I finally realized that all the cables were plugged in wrong and got that fixed and working just in time for me to test out a few calls and drive my Mustang to the airport. Phew!

Tuesday and Wednesday were work as normal in RI. Thursday was driving with Joyful across to Marathon, NY to be in my brother-in-law's wedding and all that goes with it. That was a fun 4 days. One family together is enough drama and excitement but when you have two families coming together with all the stress that comes from a wedding...well lets just leave it at that. I'm glad to see them married though and hope they have a great marriage. We drove home today. Home was my parents house so we could watch the Patriots lose a very close game during the last 30 seconds of the game. Its tough to win when you turn the ball over 4 times but the defense has to get better. After the game we got all our stuff and drove to CT, where we will spend the rest of our time until our apartment is ready. It should only be the rest of this month, but 4 weeks of commuting will still be tough. I guess that is life though. We have been homeless for 7 months, what is a few more weeks? Our new car was great on the trip though. Tons more space than we are used to, comfortable, and on the audio side, it can read MP3/WMA CDs and has an aux input so I could connect up my MP3 player or phone. Sweet!

Two more things about the wedding. One, we TP'ed my brother-in-laws car, which was a sweet feat considering we stole his key, staged a walmart run, committed the crime on his car which he purposely parked at the hotel, and returned the key without his knowledge. Two, we watched V for Vendetta and finished it early morning on November 5th, their wedding day. Remember, remember the 5th of November!

Sunny Jacksonville FL

2011-10-30T19:49:00.001-04:00

The life of an IT Pro gets pretty crazy sometimes. I walk into work on Friday with the news that our entire Jacksonville office is down. No phones or internet. Turns out that a core switch is down (a la blackberry). So guess who gets to fly down and install it? Me. Who is fighting a cold? Me. Do colds and early morning airplane flights mix? Not very well. I got seven hours of sleep but still managed to run out of tissues and experience some serious pain in my skull. I say skull pain because I have no idea how to explain it...maybe it was more like a sinus headache. Sharp pain, but I made it alive to Florida.

I got upgraded to a Ford Mustang for my rental car, which is a plus. On the down side, Fedex couldn't deliver my switches because nobody was there to sign for it, although there were a number of people in the office. Luckily a call to Fedex got them to re-deliver and I sat outside for close to 2 hours to make sure they got there. Everything installed just fine but we will have to wait until Monday when we get some heavier loads on the systems. I fly out Monday afternoon and Thursday Joyful and I are off to NY for her brothers wedding so it will be a whirlwind week. At least I missed the snow in the northeast!

My Rental Car

Costuming Man

2011-10-26T22:12:00.000-04:00

Halloween is upon us again, the days are getting shorter and colder, and alas, hiking season is long gone. My thoughts still dwell on the trail and the simple life, but less now. My arm feels so much better. Saturday it felt like it would fall off, and yesterday it feels normal. Crazy. Friday Night Magic this week involves wearing a costume. And since I am living out of a suitcase (new move in date for our apartment is December 1st...sigh) I don't have access to my army man or Jedi costumes. Joyful is a great seamstress but I'm not sure how much she can do when all she has is tomorrow. We went to the Halloween stores and the first one seemed expensive but I suppose being right next to the mall helps. The next one was more moderately priced but still, do I went to spend $50 on a costume that I will wear once? Actually I would be able to wear it twice: once on Friday night and once to work on Monday. Don't get me wrong. Dressing up is fun, but without all the free candy, its not worth it.