I need some rocks to climb on.

I feel like I'm kind of winding down on this blogging thing.  Maybe it's just because there's a new season of Eureka on tv.

I'm gearing up for this year's "long hike", although to me it won't feel that long.  I'm taking off two weeks to hike north on the AT from Woodstock, VT, to wherever I get.  And then a couple of months after that I plan to thruhike Shenandoah.  I should really count it, it'll be nearly two weeks, but it'll be on known territory.  I've lost track of how many times I've hiked some of those pieces of trail.

So, pretty much focusing on the New England hike.  I need to start doing some specific training for it.  In addition to regular walks, weekend hikes, my PT which I'm now doing at my gym, yoga, and horse back riding (whew), I need something to get my big step / climbing muscles engaged.  Not sure what, entirely.  A few trips to the Billy Goat trail will help, but something I can do more regularly would be good too.  Maybe finding a stadium and going up two steps at a time?  Or going up and down the stairs at home two at a time?  I don't know.  I'll figure something out.  Or I'll just suffer a lot on the trail.  Maybe both!

As usual I'm focused on lightening my pack as much as possible.  It's probably futile, as looking at the guidebooks I think I'll have to carry a lot of food once I get past Hanover.  That, or I'm going to be hitching into tiny little towns to get myself some grub.

Actually I'm not sure where, if anywhere, I'm going to take a zero day.  Which means I'll need to wash clothes on the trail and figure out a place to charge my electronics.

He's so hip he can't see over his own bum

Andy does not have the tolerance for recreational drugs that you would expect from a cat of his evident hipness.  He got totally wasted last night.  It was embarrassing.

I noticed a couple of days ago that he had a small mat of hair on his belly.  Unlike the Schnork, he is not a fan of the belly rubbing.  Especially when the rubbing involves scissors.  My options were taking him to the vet, trying to figure out some system of restraint that wouldn't injure everybody involved, or drugging him.  I went with the Xanax.

We used to give Trouble 1/3 of a tablet to zone him out for fluids under the skin.  I figured with Andy being both larger and more healthy than Trouble was, that 1/2 tablet would be all right.  And an hour after I gave it to him, he was pretty relaxed but not dopey.  I figured I had gotten it right.

However, an hour after THAT he was still overbalancing and then pretending that he meant to do that.  He had that "I know I'm drunk, but I'm going to pretend to be sober and hope the cop doesn't notice" look.  I ended up sleeping in the guest room so I could keep a sleepy eye on him during the night.  It took hours for him to sober up.

I guess in retrospect, you'd expect a grizzled veteran like Trouble to be able to hold his licker better than a middle aged lad like Andy.

A very nice day

In case you are one of the three people who haven't noticed, today is my birthday.   I was planning a low key, under the radar birthday.  But I forgot about Facebook, which prompts everybody with a "wouldn't you like to say happy birthday?" type message for every birthday.  At last count, 145 people wished me a happy birthday.  So, not so much with the radar.

I had a nice day, though.  JD left me a special yummy breakfast.  It was a lovely day, and my coworkers were both out so it was nice and quiet in my office.  For the first time this week, I actually got to go for a walk.  And JD and I went out for Thai food for dinner, which totally rocked.

So, pretty much, 42 is looking like an excellent year.

There's no place like 127.0.0.1

Oh, internet.  You do not even want to know what my day was like.  But, apparently, I'm going to tell you.

A) Day 3 of migraine.
B) Also, stiff neck.
C) DNS was totally effed up in.  In completely different ways from last week.
D) We kind of lost a spacecraft.  A little.  Just the orientation part of it.  Was this related to the DNS problem?  Why, yes.  Yes it was.  (I hear the spacecraft is going to be fine, though.)

DNS, in case you aren't a giant nerd, is the thing that takes the name of a computer (say, www.cnn.com) and turns it into a number (157.166.255.18) because computers like numbers.  If you give them a name with no number attached, they just flip you the bird.  The names are only for the convenience of us human beings, who like words.  If DNS gets broken, we keep putting in www.cnn.com, and our computer keeps telling us "WTF!" or more technically "server not found".  Either way you're not getting to your website.  But if DNS is working, you can put in www.cnn.com, or any other website, and your computer translates it into a number and then goes on its jolly way finding the machine somewhere in the world that matches up with that number.  It's a miracle, really.

Why was DNS effed up?  Well, that's a complicated question.  I know a lot of the answer, but I'm pretty certain you don't want to know.  The real reason is that we chose to use the friendly, non-mission DNS, which lets us get to youtube.  Non-mission DNS doesn't block any websites.  But it also doesn't have delightful 24x7 support, or any kind of service level agreement.  This was a lot less real to my boss until today.

So, I spent today on the phone.  Because there was not so very much I could do about it other than harass technical people in other places.  Can you guess how much I like spending the day on the phone with people who all insist that the problem lies elsewhere?

Anyway, that was today.  I'm hoping for no more migraine tomorrow.  And no rain.  And no DNS problems.  And only minor dentistry.

I swear to god I'm never doing that again. Again.

I cannot have caffeine.  I know this.  I know that I can have a little bit, once in a while.  Say, real coffee every week or two.  I know that if I have more than this, I become addicted and bad things start to happen.  They happen subtly, at first.  But eventually my body stops being subtle and tells me, very directly, that I have been bad.

I know this.  I have been through this more than once.  And yet, I keep going back to it.  Do I feel invulnerable, once I've been away from it for a while?  Do I forget?  Am I just that stupid?  Evidence points toward that last one.

I've had caffeinated beverages several times in the last few weeks.  WELL over my limit.  So, this morning, I acquired a migraine.  And not the gentle, friendly migraines I've been having for the last few years.  This was a full on feral migraine.  It slapped me upside the head and called me names.  It made the light too bright, the sounds too loud, and my stomach too unstable.

And those feral migraines are wily.  It waited to strike until I had no migraine meds left at the office.  I instead took advil and a cup of coffee, because when I do get the inevitable migraine, caffeine sometimes helps.  And then I put on my sunglasses and my beach hat, and asked my office mates if we could turn off the lights.

When I got home I took my meds, and I'm gradually recovering.  But the headache, like a hangover, is a reminder to me of things that I should not be doing.

Not feeling wordy

DeLee adjusting her poles before we left.

Our fairly nondescript starting location

It's still spring in the mountains

It was at least our second time crossing that day.

Sitting on the bench at PenMar

This rock wall interested me so I walked around to see what was on the other side of the hill.  It was a huge hole.  I'm pretty sure that's a retaining wall for the dirt dug out from a small mine.

The view of the storm (which avoided us) from the much-graffitied hang glider launch pad at High Rock.

1.2 mile round trip with 2-3 gallons of water.  Ugh.

Raven Rock Shelter is *really* nice.  The builders / maintainers visited while we were there.

Action shot!

The woods were overwhelmingly light green, with that pale color that says the leaves are new.

Walking through a field was a novelty

Gotta wonder how long that bike's been there.

Pluto: approaching planetesimal size again

Significantly rounder

Disapproving horse says "Stop taking pictures and let's do something."

I went out after work to check on Pluto.  The rain rot on his back is definitely conquered.  Now he has it on his hind legs, but not enough to cause him discomfort.  You know what that means:  I can finally ride!  I just have to find time.  Possibly after work one day next week.

De Schnork had a really bad day yesterday, but she is feeling much better today except for the part where Beauty blissfully whacked her with her tail, causing the Schnork to go flying down the stairs.  (I'm feel Beauty would feel bad if she had noticed.  She appears to like the Schnork, for some reason.)  Schnork does not appear to have taken any additional damage.  She begged at dinner and then asked to come up on my lap at the desk, so I'd say it's a very schnorky day.