I’m currently really excited about my upcoming ventures. I’ve been reflecting on who I am and how I become who am I. I’m very greatful to everyone who has made a positive impact in my life. I’ve considered myself to be a very positive person lately, and I have decided to take full control of my life and live it. I want to try to make as much positive impact as I can. My brain is currently exploding with ideas, energy, memories…. BOOOM! It’s a beautiful day. The sun is warm, the air is cool, and everything is grand. Have a few projects for this week, and I’m so excited. I’ve had a wonderful weekend with my brothers, but I’m so ready to get back and get to work. Also my Wordpress upgrade seemed to impact my posting ability from my phone, but I think I’ve resolved that….

I finally broke down and installed the latest WordPress, the software backend that runs my blog. It was a minor annoyance, but I’ll have to say the upgrades have been fairly easy with little downtime. Now to get around to all those posts I’ve meant to finish.

In AT lingo, zeroing is the act of taking a day off (hence progressing zero miles). I’m going to zero for a few weeks to visit my wife in Hawaii (ahhhh, she misses me…. I miss her too!). Afterwards, I’m coming right back to were I left off (at the 115 mile mark outside of Monson, Maine) to finish up Maine. When I get to New Hampshire, I have to check to see if it is safe to progress, because I recently found out that a chunk there isn’t always safe this time of year for the solo hiker. I may end up flip-flopping (the act of doing the trail in non-sequential pieces) or just section hiking (doing part this year, part next year, etc). Time will tell, but I’m excited to have made it through the roughest part already! The rest isn’t exactly a cakewalk (there are some rough climbs ahead), but I’ve proven to myself that I can do it!

II had the privilege of taking part in the bluegrass session that meets every Friday night @ the Monson General Store. It was an older crowd, so I was probably the youngest there…. in fact, aside from another fiddle player, we probably were 15 years younger than the next guy and there were even more seasoned folk than that. Toby, a banjo player/fiddler/guitarist/etc, let me play his fiddle, and I played for the first few times ’round the circle. I jumped out, because I was overheating (wearing a fleece pullover with no other shirt, in a small crowded area), but I still hung out towards the back to sing along. I hope that old-timey folk music survives the age of the iPod. I can’t wait to go back one last time, before I hit the trail again!

I made my way into the infamous “100 Mile Wilderness”, which is a 100 mile stretch that as the M.A.T.C. puts it offers “NO PLACES TO OBTAIN SUPPLIES OR HELP UNTIL MONSON”…. except for those places where you can obtain supplies or help. A minor bit of fact checking may be needed by the M.A.T.C., but they mean well. There is one place 30 miles in (going south) where you deviate off of the AT for a bit (around a mile) until you reach a lake. More on that later though. There is another place that’s 95 miles in (going south) that was also a bit out of the way. I could see no reason to go there….. I was only about 5 miles from Monson (and tacos! more on that later too!)

My first day in the 100 Mile Wilderness was great. I was in very high spirits, and it was beautiful. I found myself spending a lot of time enjoying nature and not a whole lot of hiking. I also had a bit of a late start… I didn’t actually leave Abol bridge until around 10:30am, so I only had a 7 hour day. I did a mere 8 miles. I did have this tremendous feeling of being alive and free. A hiker from Germany named INK had mentioned how he felt that the “real world” wasn’t the modern society and living centers that people have made for themselves, but this hidden one in the wilderness. I’ve given some thought to that, and decided that if anything, the “old-style” real world is really pretty. People have certainly changed the world (in some ways good, in some ways BAD), but I’m glad little pockets of the older and greener world have survived. I hope that continue to be maintained.

Today I also saw my first lean-to, the small shelters along the AT that offer a dry place to stay and an excited extended family of mice to assist you will leftover food…. they just have a hard concept of what is leftover and what was supposed to be for tomorrow. They mean well, and they are rather cute. I ended up not staying in any shelters along the way, but I may do so in the future, especially during winter months. Time will tell!

I ended up camping near the shore of Rainbow Lake in a small grove of trees that had obviously been used previously as a campsite. The scenery was lovely.

I have finally made it out of Baxter State Park! I did about 10 miles today, and stayed just outside the park at a nice little campground with a great view of Katahdin. I shared a campsite with a nice lady named Wendy who was headed north.

This was only a 6.5 hour day. I had a bug-spray bottle malfunction on the first day leaving me without any insect repellent for the second day until I reached the store at Abol Bridge. I was eaten alive this entire day, until I made it to Abol bridge at around 3:30pm. At that point, I decided that I had had enough for the day. Still it was a 10 mile day, albeit a very easy one.

I survived my first day. I went up the Abol Trail to Baxter Peak (only having to repeat the first/last mile of the AT). Because I spent to morning climbing rocks just to get to the AT, I didn’t get to start until about almost Noon. I only put in 5.2 miles on my first day, but I’m through the toughest part of the trail already!

I’m chillin’ in Millinocket, getting ready. I’ve knocked some weight off of my pack, using the sage wisdom of those who have just finished. The rule of thumb (should have been rule of wrist) is that if you can’t use it for at least two things, you don’t need it. The only exception is dental floss… because it’s so useful for sewing.

I’m riding the bus up towards the trail, and we’re listening to the bus driver’s album. The last song included the refrain “Red Necks, White Socks, and Blue Ribbon Beer”. Yee Haw! Of course, there were the “urban sounds” bleeding out of random folk’s iPods to complete the ambience.

EDIT: “Out-the-Window” Pictures.

I’ve made it to Maine….. one day and six weeks later than I’d planned, but I’m here. It doesn’t look like I can hike from the top tomorrow, because of the holiday weekend. I might try starting at the bottom of the “100 Mile Wilderness”. I’ll figure it all out later. Currently, I’m waiting on a bus that gets me from Bangor to Medway, so I can get a shuttle to the Appalachian Trail Lodge. For the record, I’m not dead (yet, much).

EDIT: Here are a few pictures of the walk from the airport to the bus station….. more interesting pictures to come!

Recent Store Activity (past 48 hours)
…
Total income: 10,722,371 Meat.

If that doesn’t make any sense, you’re missing out…..but you might not really be missing out. Can I be any more cryptic? Probably.

I just drove down to the distro warehouse in Newnan, GA and bought 10 cases of Buffalo Rock. I went down at around 5am to avoid the Atlanta traffic, stopping off at Dwarf House. Today they are honoring their advertised price from 1946 of $0.10 for a slice of lemon pie. Mine ended being free because they hadn’t implemented the sale in their POS system. I then finished my drive and hung out at a FourBucks….. where I apparently zonked out in a chair for a full hour. When I awoke, I was informed that EVERYONE who had come in the store in the past hour had voiced concerns that the coffee might not be strong enough! I then proceeded to the distro point where I purchased 10 cases of the beloved ginger ale for the nominal price of $77.58. That comes out to a little over 32 cents each. Victoly! Of course, two cases are already earmarked for Mandie’s destination at Around the World, a Harry Potter themed pub…… I can’t wait to go home and sleep…. I’m waiting on an oil change right now….

Ok! I found blogging clients for the Palm. This is the one with the coolest name, hence the one I’m trying first.

EDIT: I’m attempting to fix the catagory on this post via Plogit.

EDIT: Vagablog almost is perfect…. it just requires that you type category codes as numbers… that could work, but (if time permits) I’ll just add a feature in the code since the author has open-sourced it. I looked at the API’s, and 2 out of the 3 that wordpress support have calls for querying the server for a list of categories. When I get back to my computer, I’ll get my feet wet in Palm development (something I haven’t done in 10 years).

Wow…. Wordpress is little rough from Blazer, the built-in web browser that came with my palm. What is really suprising is that no one appears to have written a Palm client for posting to Wordpress. Facespace has a pretty workable client, but I’d rather put most of my posts on my site. Hmmmmmm. Well, time to see if this works.

EDIT: Actually, if I disable CSS in the browser, is quite workable.

By popular demand (happy Andy???)…..

I’ve been making more food. Here is an Indonesian curry with rice already added in.

And the classic Split-Pea ‘n’ Ham Soup, made with scraps from the Honey-Baked Ham Co.

I’m officially delaying my start on the trail for six more weeks so things line up better all around. I get to see my wife’s graduation without leaving the trail for it. I will also have colder weather, more homemade food, and less bugs.

Today we took a group of 18 people up to Tennessee to go white water rafting on the Upper and Middle Ocoee River, and we had an absolutely awesome time. Our outfitters, High Country Adventures, were great from start to finish…… and their guides were the best. Here are the pictures. I was in Jason’s raft. BTW - The rafting pictures today were taken by High Country Adventures, but I bought the copyrights as part of a deal. Anyone from our group today can do whatever they’d like with them any of them. Enjoy!

Patrick’s Raft (19 Pics)

Jason’s Raft (18 Pics)

Nick’s Raft (18 Pics)

If you want to download all of the pictures in one zip archive, get this.

This ????’s bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

And who can say no to “Good Old Raisins & Peanuts”??? Well….. other than people with nut or dairy allergies….. or people who don’t like raisins…. or…. nevermind.

Funny thing, all the books say to plan on about 2 pounds of food a day…. they also say that you’ll need at least 4000 calories a day. Oddly enough, 2 pounds of my mix of gorp is right at about 4000 calories. That makes it easy! I’m vacuum sealing mine into 8oz/1000 calorie packs, since I don’t really plan on eating one day’s worth of food at once…. nor do I plan on just eating gorp all day. Variety is the spice of trail life…. or so I’m guessing.

I’ve started making my food for my upcoming hiking adventure. Today I played around with pears.

We start with an unsuspecting pear.

Hooray for corers.

As we see, the core is gone.

The food processor holds the pair and slices it up.

Very nice slices.

These go on the dehydrator trays.

Once dry, they get vacuum sealed.

Oh, and just for good measure, pizza.

Lookin’ good.

I just saw Ween. Wow. They’re nuts…..and they played for almost four hours. I saw them with a few Macs from Phoenix, one of which plays guitar for the Minibosses. Pretty cool. Pictures when I get them.

I watched the movie Georgia Rule, it was interesting….. but it didn’t give me the full “happy brain rotting” feeling that “Desperate Housewives” offers. I’ve also started slogging through back episodes of “Good Eats” and the “A-Team”. The big “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” briefcase set is on its way from Time Life (they are slow to ship….%!@%!$#@). I also started an INCREDIBLE book called “The Jesus Mysteries”…. pretty intense stuff.