Mid-week. For some reason I just caught myself feeling like this was a Saturday. That would be less understandable if my daily schedule consisted of more than a rotation between staring at various screens in the house. Saturday is Hallowe'en, though. And it looks like I'll be in Madison, WI for the weekend. That'll be a nice change of pace from the past couple weeks.
From my most recent read - Bill Bryson's "Neither Here Nor There" (reflecting at the end of a couple months of traveling Europe alone):
"...tired of existing in a world of strangers... tired above all of my own dull company. How many times in recent days had I sat trapped on buses or trains listening to my idly prattling mind and wished that I could just get up and walk out on myself?
At the same time, I had a quite irrational urge to keep going. There is something about the momentum of travelling that makes you want to keep moving, to never stop."
So, most of the book is much lighter than that. It's a dangerous book to read; it makes it very easy to catch the travel bug. And worst of all, whether Bryson loved or hated a particular place, the way he describes it makes you want to see it - to go there and experience the same minor horrors associated with traveling that he faced. Mostly it makes me want a job where I get plenty of vacation time (and what I'm doing now doesn't count as a job with excess vacation - it's only vacation time if you earn money on either side of it and know when it'll be over).
Anyhow, quick update on the job search: unless it takes another two months to find a job, the position I'd applied for in Chicago is likely out of the question - funding was delayed until the end of the year. I'm still waiting to hear about the job in Knoxville at the lab, but apart from that I'm ever so slowly finding jobs here and there to apply for in whatever parts of the country seem interesting for whatever reason. But whatever happens, the GRE general test is out of the way, I'll see a couple friends this weekend, deer season opens in a couple weeks, and I have some very tasty no-bake cookies in the kitchen downstairs.
Huh. And for some reason I just realized that the distance formula you learn in geometry or algebra or whatever is just the square root of the Pythagorean theorem.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
El Otoño
After a week of fishing around Michigan City, I can say one thing for certain: fall has arrived. It has arrived in all its splendidly colored, crisp-aired, wet glory. In northern Indiana, I was able to watch it arrive by steps through last week, starting the week with most everything being green and the weather only being cool in the mornings and finishing the week with temperatures solidly in the 40's through the entire day, leaves hitting yellows with tinges of orange and red, and clouds filling the sky for days at a time. Thank you, Lake Michigan. Those clouds really are a gift to the area through the entire winter. Well...
As for the fishing, I definitely did not break tradition from my previous two years and brought home one solid fish (coho salmon, 10-12 lbs or so). On the flip side, nothing helps you appreciate climate control and insulation like 4 days standing in 40-degree weather with not-quite-enough clothing for 5 or 6 (or 12) hours straight. Winter boots and coat are coming next time. I think the rain was my favorite part of the week ...well, favorite *half* of the week.
Even camping in one spot for several days straight took me back to the time on the road during the summer. There are some things that quite simply are quintessentially camp-ish... squatting as you do dishes on the ground next to the knee-height campsite faucet, never spending any real period of time indoors, having only 1 pair of shoes that you use during "activities" and 1 pair of sandals for the rest of the time/comfort around the campsite, minimal clothing options, going to bed soon after dark and getting up with or before the sun, caring very little about what time it is or how much time has passed, limited food options, having to walk some real distance just to pee and fill the water bottle, lowered sensitivity to dirt being on you and everything else, seeing a wooden picnic table as an acceptable hygenic surface on which to prepare food, having a sore back and neck, worrying less about locking things up, being more social with random people in the vicinity, carrying multiple pocket knives (need one to carry, and then one for each bag/tackle box you have with you), and no q-tips. Okay, that was a longer list than I expected. But those are just some of the things that really let you know you're camping. And then you know you're camping in the fall when you spend spare time in the evenings not just in your tent but in your sleeping bag, because it's the only item you have the truly has enough insulation for those temperatures.
As for the fishing, I definitely did not break tradition from my previous two years and brought home one solid fish (coho salmon, 10-12 lbs or so). On the flip side, nothing helps you appreciate climate control and insulation like 4 days standing in 40-degree weather with not-quite-enough clothing for 5 or 6 (or 12) hours straight. Winter boots and coat are coming next time. I think the rain was my favorite part of the week ...well, favorite *half* of the week.
Even camping in one spot for several days straight took me back to the time on the road during the summer. There are some things that quite simply are quintessentially camp-ish... squatting as you do dishes on the ground next to the knee-height campsite faucet, never spending any real period of time indoors, having only 1 pair of shoes that you use during "activities" and 1 pair of sandals for the rest of the time/comfort around the campsite, minimal clothing options, going to bed soon after dark and getting up with or before the sun, caring very little about what time it is or how much time has passed, limited food options, having to walk some real distance just to pee and fill the water bottle, lowered sensitivity to dirt being on you and everything else, seeing a wooden picnic table as an acceptable hygenic surface on which to prepare food, having a sore back and neck, worrying less about locking things up, being more social with random people in the vicinity, carrying multiple pocket knives (need one to carry, and then one for each bag/tackle box you have with you), and no q-tips. Okay, that was a longer list than I expected. But those are just some of the things that really let you know you're camping. And then you know you're camping in the fall when you spend spare time in the evenings not just in your tent but in your sleeping bag, because it's the only item you have the truly has enough insulation for those temperatures.
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