Darryl's Amazing Blog of life

2005-08-22T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hi. I recently moved to Green Lake. I am renting a sweet house with two guys named Eric and Nathan. It will only be for one year as the owners are working for the UN in The Hague for that period. It's better than your regular rental so it will be cool for a year then I'll have to figure something else out. We got a piano though and I just had it tuned. The tuner was cool. His advertisement in the yellow pages said, Blind Mike's piano tuning. And sure enough he was blind. It was cool to see a guy take apart, fix a couple strings, tune the whole thing and put it all back together using just the senses of touch and hearing and one tuning fork. I watched the whole while and asked if he wanted a flashlight just because the light was sort of bad. He declined. The most interesting part was that he was tuning the keys very rapidly while holding a rather sincere small talk conversation with me about life. I was pretty impressed. He was an old guy too, so that made him even more interesting. If you had to guess whether and old blind piano tuner is a cool person or a total jerkwad you'd do well to guess in favor of the former. Of course I haven't ever met any piano tuners before but now I think it's probably an interesting job. Just going to and fro leaving harmony and consonance in your wake. It's probably a lot better than leaving a wake of poop behind you, which is what horses do. I'm obsessed right now with the documentary called "Fog of War." If you haven't seen it or heard of it, let me just tell you that it's great. It's kind of like having a really cool conversation with a really old interesting dude who's seen a lot of shit go down. The fact that you're not really having a conversation is mitigated by the fact that the particular dude in front of you happened to participate in the most interesting events of the 20th century. And by participate, I mean he had a major role in most of them. If you lived in Japan in 1945, ever owned a Ford Falcon, or were affected by the Vietnam War then hearing Robert McNamara speak openly about these things is profoundly important. While I don't satisfy any of those conditions I still found it amazing because of the style and manner of the protagonist. In other news, my sister just had a baby on Friday night. She got hemmorroids from having to push so hard. But I guess it's worth it because now she has a son to protect her three daughters. So she now has four, Brad has two and Brian is holding steady at three. I can't copy any of them. That means I'll have to have five, because there's no way I'm having an "only child." They routinely suck ass as people. Let's catch you all up to date. I still work at Children's and I still adore the work. But since I've last posted I've been pooped on, hit, kicked, spit on, and sweared at more times than ever in my life previous to my last posting. But I've got to play a lot of gin rummy too so it all evens out. I helped a couple of couples buy houses in May and June so that was fun and there are a bunch of people who talk like they want help as well. I just completed an hour phone interview for a longitudinal study that I've been a participant in since before I was born. They contact me every couple of years and offer me $125 to talk about myself in intimate detail. But earlier today I spent $202 at freakin Bed Bath and Beyond so I'm actually down for the day. And all I got were spoons, towels, racks, and curtainy parts. Nothing cool like a scented candle--wait, what am I saying? If everything is relative then I just spent the worst $202 of my life. Unless you count the times I've paid to drive fast. As part of the interview the lady asked me how many speeding tickets I've ever received. I came up with 7 and gave 2 more for good measure becuase I usually forget unpleasant events. Either way that's a lot of tickets. Well, I'm off to get some dinner. The summer's almost over now. hmm. Nice talking with you.

2005-04-19T22:42:00.000-07:00

It's funny what happens when you spend some time in one place for six months. You folks who never go anywhere listen up. I'm getting bogged down. When I was in Skagway we used to go on road trips up into the beautiful lands of the Yukon, or Alaska, or the Northwest Territories. It really is a beautiful place. (This summer's seasonal task force is beginning their migration as you read this, so it's got me a little sad.) But as I was saying, we were going on these roadtrips and two hours into the trip, in the town of Whitehorse, we would routinely stop to get provisions. This was a fairly logical stop. Whitehorse is on the way to most places from Skagway and prices for a weekend of groceries are much better than in our little village, as is the selection. So we would be all jazzed up for a weekend of campfires or bike races or kayak adventures or what-have-you and we'd find ourselves bogged down in Whitehorse for hours. It never failed to happen. You could have gone to the military war college and majored in logistical support and it wouldn't have mattered. When you get a van of 20-somethings driving by a Mcdonalds for the first time in 2 months someone's going to beg to get some fries. Well I feel like I'm in Whitehorse right now. And for the first time in my life there are people who would be adversely affected if I flew away spontaneously for two months. It's weird. But that's not the problem. That's just a by-product of trying to be entreprenuerial. So it's a good sign. What's not so good is the path of carpet that's being worn between my bedroom and the bathroom where I shower every day. The pile of neglected paper that just piles up and demonstrates to me that I'm not as functional as I think I am. Being functional is a new way of thinking that i'm trying to incorporate into my mental constructs. Basically the idea goes like this. We all have mental health issues but when we have mental health problems is when those issues get in the way of our ability to function effectively. For example, many people have obsessive compuslive traits. We tap our teeth together in a pattern when we're driving, or we are compelled to finish our finger tapping pattern at the end when we're figiting. A little o/c behavior is fine. But if you can't step on a crack in the sidewalk or succeed in a job interview because you have to repeat the same sentence three times then you may need to work on your issue. The test of health is how do I function. It's not going to replace my current thoughts on health which are more traditional, and bathed in common sense milestones of health, but it is an influence. It's funny, I can now look at people whom normally I would disregard as fluff and say wait a minute, I can learn something from them because in the area of fashion or business, they could teach me a thing or two. It's not compartmentalizing, but it's disaggregating what makes people who they are. Do you want to know what finally got me to start writing now after all this time? Well a few hours ago I listed my weight bench on craig's list. It was an impulsive move in response to this feeling of being bogged down. I haven't used the thing in years and I don't intend to, so I should just lose it. Well I listed it for free then left the computer for about 45 minutes. I told my Mom that I had listed it and she said I should really charge something. I decided she was right so I returned to revise the listing and there were 11 responses to my ad. In less than an hour! So I made an apologetic email to the mass of people and intended to list it again at $75. Well one guy was still excited to get it so at 11:14pm he's driving to my house to pick up this weight bench for $75 bucks. Craig's list is effecient. But I can tell I'm getting sedentary, because he offered to come right now and pick up the thing and my initial reaction was whoaaaa, it's almost 10:30. Can't it wait til the morning. I know he's not going to bench press at midnight. But my reaction is a sign of the times. I'm getting less spontaneous. It used to be that I wanted the whole world to be instant. But now I'm less urgent. It's like tomorrow will be the same as today, what's the reason for pushing it tonight. Tomorrow will be just as good because there's nothing to look forward to anyway. I'm not going caving in New Zealand or jumping out of an airplane or anything. Why don't you just come pick it up between my laundry and my trip to the bank. So my point to all this is that when you travel a lot there is a savoring of every day. At least for me. I shouldn't generalize it and say that it's the only way to savor each day. I just need some help at carpe diem-ing when I'm not planning a trip to some far off land. I heard a comedy bit tonight on the radio of Chris Rock talking about married people. He said you can be single and lonely or married and bored. It was so funny because he talked about how married people just talk about BBQ grills and other ways to decorate their living space. He was so disgusted with it. It was funny becuase it does seem to happen. I'm not even married and I'm developing the domestic boringness that goes with it. There's a freaky thought. But seriously, I almost bought a $300 lateral file cabinet because I thought it would look nice and organize my stuff well. Where is that guy? I'm not really making any sense right now, and I'm sure the quality of my writing has tanked since I haven't done it in a while. Well, that's not exactly true. I've been writing a lot in the last few months. At Children's we have to fill in these little boxes with blurbs of what the kids are doing each section of the day. So if I'm watching 8 kids for 8 hours, I have to write 50 little descriptions of how they were behaving and if they were hitting their target behaviors, why I think they're doing it. And what I did to try to intervene, and if it helped. It doesn't make one particually eloquent. I have write things like, "Jimmy transitioned to school well but refused to begin reading and threw his chair at staff. Hypothosized function: task-avoidant, low skill at dealing with frustration. Intervention: emotion coaching (didn't work), set firm limits, (didn't work) called for support and put hands on for safety." Okay he came and picked up the bench. Well that was easy. See you all later. I'm trying to get rid of my old Roland HP-700 digital piano as well. It would work as a midi controller but one of the keys is wacko and only works if you hit it hard. It's on ebay right now but I think it will eventually be free as well.

2005-01-24T13:39:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago Luke called and said he was an extra on a movie set with Ewan McGreggor and freakin Scarlett Johansson. He said he was selected early in the morning to be in some of the close up scenes with them. I would have thought that was a dumb process and that audiences would get wise to it. I mean, you think you'd notice that there are the same people in all the cafe scenes or mall scenes or battle scenes in a flick. But I've seen this before. When I was in high school my friend JP was a close up extra in Mad Love. A dumb movie but nevertheless, fun for us all to watch. We could see him four or five times talking or dancing as Chris Odonnell and Drew Barrymore walked by. People who didn't know JP wouldn't have had the impression that he was stalking the two stars. But I guess that's how directors do things. They pick some trusty ugly folks (so as not to detract from the stars beauty) and use them a bunch in the movie. So I was simultaneously playing a prank on Luke whereupon I had had a mean friend call him posing to be a cop and tell him his drivers license had been suspended. He called to ask if I was responsible and I confessed. Then he had me try to guess what he had been doing all day. I was just about to guess that he'd been downloading photos of Scarlett Johansson when he told me that he was actually right next to her. So that pissed me off a little. But I doubt he even talked to her. So there was some satisfaction in knowing how much of a coward he is. But then later that evening, I was with Kevin and we met up with our friend Bruce from Alaska. Bruce told us about how this summer he had spent a whole day showing Robin Williams, Giovanni Ribisi, Holly Hunter, and Alison Lohman around Skagway. So that was crazy. I once got karate chopped by Daryl Hannah and I sang "Beauty School Drop Out" to the real Frenchy (Didi Conn) from Grease, but they were both past their prime when I saw them. I haven't seen any superstars lately, and unless some messed up child actors come to Seattle to be hospitalized, I'm not likely too. But enough about all this. Can I tell you all something very very strange? Okay. Last night I was at Children's and it was a strange night. I've been working with messed up kids now for a few months and some nights are just extra wiggy. The schizos are extra-hallucinatory, the depressed one's are suicidal, the predators sob their eyes out, and the defiant ones mutiny. Last night, One of my co-workers, Greta, said "I know it's a new moon but you'd think it was a full moon from all that's going on tonight." I asked her what in the hell she could mean by that. Greta replied, "Full moons make the kids crazy. Just wait, you'll be a believer." I thought that was pretty mysterious and I looked forward to seeing for myself. Later after I drove home I looked up as I was getting out of my car. Right above me was a plump round moon in a beautiful clear sky with an icy crystal halo around it. Greta was mistaken. It was a full moon.

2004-12-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everybody. I'm writing while on my first half hour break of my 16 hour shift today to celebrate the holiday. Believe it or not, it's been a great morning. The pace is laid back. I'm working with the same kids all day. Santa was just here and we all got presents. So life is good. One of the kids is pushing my buttons a bit. But Christmas is usually the time of year where we get our buttons pushed by someone. It's just usually members of our extended family. Today, I'm being annoyed by a girl who burps and then refuses to say "excuse me" because she says the idea of courtesy is just an opinion. Charming, really. I haven't written in a while. I've turned another year older since I've written in fact. And I've gone through the anniversaries of the two most impactful days of my life. One of those was yesterday. Ah yes. It's been 13 years since the Christmas Eve when I crashed my car. That was the first Christmas I got to spend in a hospital. So maybe that's why I feel so comfortable today. I've done this before. Only last time, I had 56 stitches in my nose eye brow, and chin, and was waiting for the swelling to go down so the plastic surgeons could go to town on my mug. So my break is almost over. I think I'm going to practice the guitar so I can play some Christmas carols with the kids. I think most of them will enjoy that. And Miss Burpy Burperton, might burp along with us.

2004-11-13T01:12:00.000-08:00

My photo gallery is beginning to look much like the rest of my life. It's something messy with loads of cool stuff in it, and an ardent intention to clean it up, when I get around to it. I've just added some more photos tonight. Some more from the fall and a bunch from Europe this summer. There's something wiggy going on with the gallery software and the farther I get away from working with computers, the more tolerant I get of a barely working system. Kris, I need you!! I can't engage with troubleshooting anymore. I'm like the New Kid On the Block who following the break up of his band went into hiding and developed a fear of people. So that's all for now. This year is waning fast. Since I've gotten a busy schedule, the weeks have taken off. In less than a month I'll be 29 years old. Amazing. I had lunch with a 21 year old today who is dating a 30 year old. That seems like a stretch to me. When did 21 become too young? Lets see, according to Lance Fisher's divide by 2 and add 7 rule, I'll be able to date someone 21.5 years old for the next year. So I guess it's ok. But that guy who's 30 is breaking the rule. You divide your age by 2 and then add 7 to come up with the lowest possible age to appropriately date. It works for any age. Try it. Anyhow, I'm doing homework on a Friday night because regardless of age, I didn't have anyone to date. Work has been a blast, but my bud Brian the other day pointed out that all my guy friends are married or in a serious relationship now. I actually hadn't noticed, but of course now I have a complex. I'm pretty good at executing a plan, I just need to figure out a way to systematically incorporate a chick into the plan. Ah, then I'll be set. Not to mention, filthy rich, (because I'd sell the system to lonely rich guys).

2004-11-05T19:46:00.000-08:00

This week has seen an unusual amount of activity in the blogosphere. All the blogs that I frequent, whether hosted by blog zealots or fair-weather expressors, were spattered with newborn posts in the last couple of days. What catalyst could have compelled such a curious alignment of the heavenly bloggies? Is it simply a coincidence that everyone sat down on November 3rd to purge their head of quotidian angst? Are people who blog sleepless in the confusion concerning Yasser Arafat's steady march toward the light? Or is the spontaneous posting of countless opinions the result of depression brought on by darkness associated with daylight savings time? Perhaps I'm being too esoteric. Maybe it's nothing more than the law of large numbers. Yes. It could be that the harmonics of the blogosphere are bound to synch up from time to time. It just happened to be on a Wednesday. Yeah, that's probably it. I bet there's no precedent set here for a massive cathartic deluge every time we encounter a climax of unusual cultural stress. I, for one, went against the flow. I posted just before the election. I made a prediction. And I was wrong. But I'm glad I tried. I also inoculated myself from bearing the shame that democrats fear Bush will continue to heap onto our national identity. I can always say I voted for Kerry. And if Bush somehow makes it all okay, (thereby proving once and for all that cowboys and mountain men understand Islam better than urban folks,) then I can ride the coattails of their ethnocentric ideals all the way to world peace. So either way, I feel pretty good. It has been fun reading up on everyone else's thoughts. Maybe later, like when Martha Stewart returns from exile, we'll see another massive eruption of personal and national anxiety expressed in public online diaries.

2004-10-31T21:51:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween folks. I have not been writing lately because I've been journaling privately. I wish it was because I had stories too criminal to share with the general audience but it's not. I am merely recording my entrance into a new job with ardor. To sum up at this point, I think it's going to be a great experience for the next year or so. Today I got to play dodgeball, teach a class to 14 adolescents about life skills, and sit in on a class with discouraged parents who are way out of their comfort zone. In other words, some quality parts of life. Next time I write we should know who our president will be. Won't that be interesting? I think Kerry will win because of P. Diddy's campaign to rap the vote.

2004-10-10T01:32:00.000-07:00

I had my 10 year high school reunion a week ago tonight. I've been thinking about it ever since. I took some pictures and I'll post them when I update my photo gallery. My prom date called me out for getting pictures with all the pretty girls. It was true but it wasn't my fault. I had a short list of people who I wanted to see. Most of the key girls on my list showed up and only one guy. So there it is. I took pictures of the people I was happy to see. All the usual things you hear about people's reactions to high school reunions were the same for me; people got fatter, you get stuck in boring conversations part of the time, and you tell your 10 year story over and over again. But there was much more than that. At one point we projected a video that I made for our senior breakfast ceremony. The only guy on my short list who showed up was standing next to me when we watched it. Jon Farley. He was also in video productions with me and he remembered the video so well that he was calling the moments just before they happened. It felt amazingly familiar with him standing there whispering his comments at me. When we saw a funny shot someone would make a comment and we'd all laugh. For a few minutes the time that has past vanished and it was like high school again. It was a nice moment. Those years are sentimental to me. I had some conversations that picked up as if they were left off just a few days ago and there were two that actually made me ache for how long it had been. It's amazing how we move along in time. At times we're just surviving and other times life is filled with hope and excitement. One day can be just a bridge to tomorrow or it can contain all the adventure of an epic novel. How can that be? Today, my dad invited me to go hunting next weekend with him and his friends from his childhood. I used to take a week out of school every October and go on this exact hunting trip. They've stayed in the same site for over 30 years and told the same stories. They fart a lot and they play a lot of cribbage. For me this is an essential memory of my childhood. I can't believe I have the privilege of doing this again. I'm sure to have some good thoughts. Maybe not thoughts that are easy to articulate, but it will be good. I am not really saying everything about my reunion, but you can be sure there was sadness for the loss of JP and there was amusement when people brought up my big accident. These people were around for those events. For that, there's a connection that goes deep, even if there's no future in the story. Ok it's late. I just watched "Big Fish" and it's got me in a mood I suppose. It's a great story. Makes you want to have a good life.

2004-09-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick post to let people know that I've finally transitioned out of my wandering period and I'm fully entering a new chapter of my vocational journey. It seems that my volunteering at Children's Hospital has paid off because I'm now the newest pediatric mental health specialist in the inpatient psychiatric unit. It's a pretty cool thing. I also am taking a few classes this fall to lay the groundwork for any Masters or PhD program if that's where this little experience leads me. And now that I'm signed on with something that will force a routine and eliminate spontaneous travel, finding quasi-permanent housing is a high priority. So here's to me tricking people into hiring me for something I'm only barely qualified to do. It's funny though, the day after I got hired I started forming plans for a trek to Nepal for next October. I guess a part of me needs to have travel on the horizon somehow. But that's okay. I'm also still planning on learning the ropes of selling real estate with the broker I'm affiliated with. The Children's job is only 24 hours a week so I need some more stimulation to be completely out of the wandering phase. And I still like real estate. Can't wait to watch Kerry and Bush duke it out tonight. It should be fun. I predict Bush, in the fourth round, will wear Kerry out by saying "Whatever, shutup, nope, I'm right, you're wrong, I win, you lose, ha ha... I'm not listening" TKO.

2004-09-14T22:11:00.000-07:00

It's just not right to have words of travel and summer madness lingering on the page anymore. It's like keeping a bite of one night's pizza in your mouth without swallowing until the end of the following workday. Time to get moving. It's autumn. Officially my favorite time of the year. I love crisp dry leaves crunching underneath my feet as I run or wheels as I roll along. I love when it gets colder and you have to start thinking about pulling out the thick winter jacket. Autumn is arguably the most depressing season because it's when you have to say goodbye to the warmth and hello to the dark evenings. But I think it's the most comfortable season of them all. The season of mud puddles, cold clammy wet hands, and needing to replace old windshield wipers. It signals the end of life in nature, when things begin to die and turn many colored, but it signals the beginning of the new school year. You can feel the energy of the kids in the drugstore looking for pencil pouches, and the new clothes on nearly everyone under eighteen years old. Alas, I won't be buying new clothes this fall. I didn't work hard enough this summer so for me, autumn will mean even more soul searching and looking for something to do with myself. I failed in my plot to build or remodel a house. I came close, lost a few bidding wars, got distracted by travel, then the window shut and now I'm out of time. But it's okay because I learned a lot and will be ready next time to pull the trigger. I still haven't normalized my schedule. I'm taking some classes this fall, volunteering and eventually getting a job before too long. I knew September would be the end of my freedom to play in any event. It's been so long, I don't know how I'm going to deal with the transition. Just for kicks, I'm trying to give myself a $20/day budget. Yesterday I blew it because I bought a six dollar thing of dental floss. And I have to get gas before I drive anywhere so I decided to stay at home today to save up for tomorrow's drive to the hospital, (where I play cards with troubled kids). Discipline comes in many forms and I'm going to try to ease my way into the ones most out of practice. Does anyone really want to read any of this? Well if you do, then you're in for a treat because one of the forms is journaling. That means blogging too. So we'll see how this goes. Let's see if I have a fun story for you. Oh yes. On Sunday I picked up a couple of crew members from the cruise ship in the morning for a day of hanging out. When they got in the car at the terminal they said that the ship was broken so they had until 9pm to be back at the ship. Actually, they had to be on stage at 7pm so we decided to get them back by around 6pm. This was an unexpected gift, as the biggest drawback to living on a ship is that you have to cut your day short at every port. In Seattle the all-aboard time is usually 3:30. So they were very happy. I took them to Snoqualmie pass and then Falls because they had never really been in the Cascade Mountains and it was such a nice day. It was a good day also because I got to deliver this trashy British tabloid magazine and English candy that I hauled across the planet at the imploring requests of Bridie. No one is going to appreciate this next part unless you've been on a cruise before and not fully unless you've been on the crew of a cruise ship. As I was rounding the turnround in the terminal to drop them off at about 6:10, a girl came running out and met us. As we got out of the car for our salutations, she cried,"are you crew members?" They said yes, and she said, "good, they have been ready to go and waiting since 5:00. You're not in trouble or anything but please hurry along" We busted up and as they ran off I looked up 15 decks to the top railing to see hundreds of cruiseship passengers' smoldering eyes towards me and my little car. To have made 4000 people wait is a strange feeling. I used to go up to the railing at every single sail away and often enjoyed the scripted conversations that occurred as the last stragglers kept the gangway down longer than necessary. There were always the same comments. And I will share them with you all now as I can assure you they were directed at me on Sunday night. Oh, look there they come, can you believe those people, Look they're not even hurrying. Some people. Who do they think they are? A few hours later Bridie called me on the satellite phone to say that they were getting joked with by everyone on the crew. So that was nice to hear. Next Sunday is their last week in and I think I'm going to take them up Mount Si. They were pretty interested in getting closer to the hills. If anyone reads this and fancies a hike with some cute British people then come along. It should be fun, seriously. Ah, what better way to say hello to Autumn than with a hike amongst the ferns and evergreens.

2004-08-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

I've been in London this weekend and I've done some touristy stuff but also some good fun local stuff as well. The highlight had to be going wakeboarding or cable skiing near Heathrow. I don't know if we have any of these places in Seattle but I've fallen in love with yet another activity. It's basically wake boarding around a lake without a boat nor a wake. There is a cable system that pulls you off the dock and takes you in laps around the lake. I was pretty happy to start out successfully my first time and make it around the lake four times without getting wet. By the time I felt ready to try out some tricks and take bigger jumps my time ran out and I was out of energy. I'd love to do it again but today my upper body is weak and sore. Also I'm snotty and sick so that doesn't help. Ed has been a super host yet again (third year in a row), he's introduced me to his friends and we've just been hanging out and socializing. I met a travel writer who had just returned from Egypt that day who has an awesome job. She basically submits ideas to magazines and then goes on trips to write her articles. Crazy. Where do I sign up? I'd probably have to improve my grammar and have some kind of point to my stories but it's a thought. Don't have much time as I'm at an Internet cafe. Today is all about relaxing. I watched the last two episodes of "The Office" this morning, and now I'm off to check out the two floors of the Imperial War Museum that I didn't see last time. It's a pretty packed museum. And then I don't know what. So London is still a good town. I've been watching the listings for houses in Seattle during this trip and it's terrible. The inventory is pretty weak right now so I don't feel so bad about being away. Hopefully some good homes come up so I can come home and get a place before school starts this fall. But Ballard is a hard town to look in. We'll see what happens.

2004-08-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Amsterdam. I must admit, I wasn't too excited about this portion of the trip. Well, I was quite looking forward to hanging out with Scott, Holly, and Heather for five days but I had never had a huge interest in Amsterdam. Most of the Dutch people I've known have been weird. But, Amsterdam is cool. It's better than cool. It's near the top of my list of cool towns. And I'm glad we've got five days to explore. There's so much to see and biking around is a total blast. What's also funny is that hanging out with Scott hasn't even been that quality. It's not really his fault though. He's got a new girlfriend and they're both pretty absorbed with each other. So Heather and I are rolling our eyes and having fun too. So far we've spent a day at the beach, checked out some markets, seen a museum or two and watched Spiderman 2. (It rained so that's allowed.) It's been super hot and luckily we have the coolest hotel room ever. It's cheap, has three windows, in the middle of town, looking down on a canal and with free breakfast. It's nice to have good accommodations. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to getting to a town called Zanse Schans. It's going to be a windmill extravaganza. My travel day here was sick. I had to take four flights and I don't even want to get into that saga. My bags left four days before I ended up leaving so it was nice when I saw them in London. The best part of the travel day was that in true Darryl fashion, I left my wallet at Brian's house when he drove me to the airport. So I'm without my wallet. I have a Passport and my backup ATM card so I'm ok, but seriously, I think I have a memory disorder. Some day I'm going to face some dear consequences for my forgetfulness. Until that time, I'm going to keep on going. What choice do I have? I've been reading a good book lately. It's a sci-fi, which is my guilty pleasure, but this one was given to me by Jason, a member of the crew of the Sapphire Princess. He and I had a good talk about religion and human nature, and he said I had to read it. It's called "The Forever Hero" It sports a cheesy futuristic cover with a blonde hero standing triumphantly in front of ancient future ruins with a lurking scraggly kid in the background. In my book snobbery, I fight the urge to hide the cover while I'm walking around the airport. But it's quite a thought provoker. My time's almost up. Boo. Well I'll tell you more about it next time.

2004-08-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm heading to lunch but I figured out some problems with my photo gallery and there should be a new album with 14 new pictures of my summer. The album is hiding at the end of the stack of albums. I couldn't get it to move to the front. I'm heading to Amsterdam tomorrow so I might give play-by-plays if I turn into an internet-cafe-junkie-backpacker again.

2004-07-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

That was a quick trip. Back to life in Seattle. I'm finally posting some photos from the last few months. I left my computer bag in the real estate office in Greenwood last night and for about an hour I was certain that it was stolen out of my car. So now I'm trying to follow through with all my intentions for my little possessions as if I was given a second chance. I would have lost over 300 pictures-- three or four of which were actually good. I guess I'm kind of scatterbrained. I was confused to see the bag this morning sitting right where I had left it because I thought I had it all evening yesterday. I even invented memories of taking things out of it when now I know that that would have been quite impossible. Lapses of memory like that are somewhat concerning to me. I'm much to young to have senior moments. Maybe it's a tumor. Leah Stalsmith picked me up at the ship and drove me home yesterday. That was nice of her because for someone who lives in Seattle, the drive to Bothell is quite long. But I had tons of her underwear so she had to at least come meet me to receive that. She had been on the ship the two weeks prior to me and when I replaced her she left an entire drawer full of bras and whatnots. Upon driving home she commented that after all the trips with the Gates Foundation she had never left anything in a hotel room. My response to that was incredulousness. I think I lost on average, a shirt a month. And anytime I hung something in a closet it was like kissing it goodbye. Even today one of my errands is going to the Seattle Police Department's Evidence Unit to pick up my wallet that someone found somewhere this month. Yeah, no kidding. Back in June I got some gas, went to Sarah Sweeney's and then couldn't find the wallet. And the cop on the phone said it still had $15 in it. The moral of this story is if you ever want some nice stuff, just follow me everywhere with a garbage sack. I leave some nice kit around. That's all for now. I've got to get my shit together.

2004-07-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

I'm in Skagway. I've spent the last 3 Thursdays here as well. I just thought I'd check to see if I still like this town, and I do. I'm teaching classes this month on the Sapphire Princess. I'll be done in a few days. I don't know why I haven't been into blogging my stories this time around. It's been a fun summer so far. It's hard to remember everything that I've done since June 6th. A little hiking, a little sightseeing, I got my real estate license and tried to buy a house. I applied to grad school, but I don't know if I'll go this fall or defer to get into a different program. I climbed Mt. Hood with Dusty, which has been my favorite activity in recent memory. (But my body was offended to get up for a hike at 2:00am.) Still sorting my options, taking life slow. So the last 3 and a half weeks have been very routine. Seattle, Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway, Victoria, and then repeat. It was surprising to fall into the routine so quickly after walking up the gangway. I'm glad I signed up for a four week tour this time. I'm going to go enjoy Skagway for a few more hours.

2004-06-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

I'm getting a lot of response from that last post about siphoning. Oh, not in the form of comments mind you, but in person or on the phone. It seems that my readers like to disclose their affiliations with me only to me. Should I continue to be disappointed at this? Perhaps I should just realize that my life is different from other people's lives and I should resist measuring my success in the ways that are obvious. Other bloggers get lots of comments but that doesn't mean mine sucks. Many times over, my life has appeared to be super lame at face value, only to yield surprising coolness when viewed from just the right angle. For example, I have commented often about how I am unemployed and live with my mother. How more loserish can you get? But in my case, the ladies are all after me and I seem to be held in relatively high repute amongst my fellows. How does this happen? Well, I don't know exactly, but maybe it has something to do with my name. I have uncovered a slew of Darryl Grahams who are very cool in their own way. With a simple "Darryl Graham" in quotes in the google search field, I uncovered many brothers-in-coolness. This is, how I measure up; there is a boxer, a crack dealer, a fishing guide, history professor, submarine captain, marathon runner, a president of an internet company, and a football coach. I found that all on google, in the first few pages. But even in this cadre of coolios I was not to be brushed away. Leading the charge with no identity but a lack of identity was the real Darryl Graham, at the top of the list; me. The fishing guide was a close second. When viewed from the right angle you learn that if there was an army of Darryl Grahams I'd be the general. That's why I'm at the top of the list. Who can argue with this logic? So if I ever complain about low comments again, just remind me that I get graded on a different scorecard. After all, it takes a rare talent to blow up a vacuum cleaner.

2004-06-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

Man I really needed that three day weekend. Memorial day is the traditional first weekend of summer for most of us and the weather was pretty so so. I went to the folk life festival at the Seattle Center and had a pretty good time. But what I really want to talk about is what happened just a few minutes ago. My good buddy Luke, who used to be my good roommate, moved to LA last fall where he is making a go at sketch comedy writing and chasing his dream of becoming the next big thing. When he moved he left his motorcycle with me, but we recently arranged to have it shipped down to him so he can enjoy it, or sell it or whatever. My only obligation was to be around when the truck came to pick it up and to have it emptied of it's fuel. Luke invited me to drive it around until it ran low but I ran out of time. I found myself with about an hour before the men were to pick up the bike and it was still full of fuel. I wasn't overly excited at the notion of letting the bike run wide open for an hour, wasting all that precious petrol and making a fair amount of noise pollution. Instead I thought I'd try to syphon the fuel into the lawn mower gas container. Syphoning is a mysterious process and I'm not sure why it works but I've seen it enough times and I knew if I could find a hose I could get the fuel from the tank on the bike to the can on the ground. The only hose I had was a 25 foot garden hose so it had to do. What follows is an example of how a little learning is a dangerous thing. I inserted the hose into the bike's tank and then wrapped the 25 feet of hose in a spiral on the seat of the bike. The final three feet of the hose trailed down to the right of the bike where I was squatting next to the gas can. Knowing it would take a good amount of suction to get started I formed a tight seal around the hose and began sucking. I tried to get away with wimpy suction for a while until it became clear that I was going to have to inhale serious fumes and gas to get the needed pressure differential for syphoning. It wasn't long before I got my first acrid taste of gasoline in my mouth. It was not yummy. But more concerning to me was the fact that I had to be inhaling the gas fumes deep into my lungs to get this thing going right. After about four or five tastes of gas I thought I'd get smart. I decided to employ the help of a common household vacuum cleaner. I went into the kitchen where I found a dirt devil type vacuum but it had weak suction and did not look easily adaptable to my hose. I then opened the hall closet and looked at the 8 pound wonder, also known as the Oreck. Plenty of suction here but still no hose extention. My final applicant was the old canister vacuum that has been banished to the basement. I tried it out and found it plenty strong and it looked like it would form a good seal with a little help from my hands. I carried it up to the driveway where my operation was taking place and I plugged it into the garage outlet. Putting the ends together I felt pretty confident that this would do the trick in no time. I turned on the vacuum and heard it's pitch rise as I wrapped my fingers around the ends of the hoses. I held them together first for only a couple of seconds and then checked to see the progress. I was happy to see a trickle of gasoline coming through the garden hose. I was a little concerned about getting gas into the canister of the vacuum but I thought I would be done in a few more seconds. Besides, I figured, how likely was it that the vacuum would actually ignite. The syphoning was proving to be a bit more stubborn than I had thought and after four or five trickles I was happy to see the suck and trickle rhythm turn into a suck and flow routine. But still, syphoning hadn't taken place, because syphoning is a chain reaction and eventually shouldn't need any sucking. I was observing a decent flow seem to lose it's unction when I was startled by a loud report. My surprise changed to amazement as I witnessed 8 inch flames shooting horizontally out of the back of the vacuum cleaner. It looked and sounded like a jet engine about to take off. I ran over to kick the plug out of the wall and after I did so I was watching the jet turn back into a vacuum cleaner. I then looked up at the sound of a cascading beverage flowing onto the driveway. My syphoning process had finally started working and was going quite rapidly now, sending a river of gasoline from the hose where I had dropped it straight towards the flaming vacuum. "Shit!" thought I, as I kicked the vacuum safely away onto the grassy lawn. I then picked up the hose and placed it into the mouth of the gas can. The motorcycle finished draining and I went over to verify that the level of gas in the tank had actually made it to the bottom. After being satisfied that I emptied the tank sufficiently, I stood back and admired my handiwork. I looked at the driveway, with a puddle of gas under a car and a motorcycle, a garden hose and the nearby now smoldering vacuum, and I thought, "that was quite stupid." Just then the truck arrived to load the bike bound for California. If you go to my pictures on yodarryl.com, you will see the back end of the vacuum cleaner. I just added it along with some other pictures of the recent weeks. There's a new link to my picture gallery at the top of the green margin.

2004-05-19T20:45:00.000-07:00

Just finished my volunteer day at Children's which was great. I've been visiting in the Psych unit on Wednesdays for about a month now and I've been surprised at how mellow the kids have been. But not today. Due to confidentiality and appropriateness I suppose I can't talk about the wildness but tonight was more like what I expected. I'll just say that as I drove by the QFC entrance directly afterwards, I wasn't at all phased to see police holding a screaming man down on the ground. Kids were having all kinds of issues and I got to help out with a class designed to promote healthy ways to deal with stress. It was a lot of fun. Both the kids and the staff are great to learn from. Earlier today I helped my buddy, Kyle Shei, scope out a campground/hike in the snoqualmie national park for a weekend event that he's holding with his church this summer. Kyle is one of those guys who you look at and are amazed that he's doing what he's doing at his age. At 25 he's married, with a house, his wife's got a bun in the oven, and he's a pastor of a church. And he's an avid paintballer. He thinks shooting people is fun. Last week I went to Georgia with Mom and her Bill for Mother's day. Why Georgia? Well, my sis and her little troop live in Marietta, where she goes to chiropractic school. Since I hadn't even seen her latest addition to the family (born on Oct. 28th) I figured I should go pay a visit, and it was actually a ton of fun. For 5 days I slipped into my weird family role. Son/brother/uncle. It's a weird thing to be and I think we all understand that after an extended weekend I was glad to be back home, but I also really enjoyed going to school for a day with my sis and getting to know her husband a little more. Watching Devyn, the six year old psycho claim that she wants to be cool rather than cute was amazing. And Deija, the 3 year old clown was pretty cool. The last time I saw her, she didn't really have a noticeable personality yet so this time was cool. She's hilarious. I'm sitting here at a coffee shop in Seattle because I got a phone call around 2pm that said there was a fun group that wanted to hang out tonight after eight. But now it's 9:12pm and Scott's not answering his phone and I'm tired of waiting. So I'm going to head out. What the heck?

2004-05-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at Starbucks now enjoying the hotspot technology. It's interesting how many people use Starbucks for interviews and business meetings. I haven't been very active lately since I wiped out on my board. It's been so long since I've had a big wound on my arm that I'm not sure if I should be concerned about or not. My neck is mostly better and my hip only hurts when I turn over in bed. So I think I'll be fine. I am trying to get through some of my books because there are so many books to read. I'm really interested in Woodward's "Plan of Attack." George Bush actually poked fun at himself by saying that he's working wonders for the book publishing industry. That's amazing. Jeanine Garofalo said last night that she considers a vote for Bush as a character flaw. Pretty funny stuff. I've got about 5 books with bookmarks in them and I don't really like to read that way. I much prefer one fiction and one non-fiction. I came to Starbucks this morning with the plan in mind that I would get through one of the books I'm reading but I'm learning that broadband doesn't necessarily make you more productive, you can just poke around through more stuff in the same amount of time. That's a crushing realization. I ran into Raven Yates the other night, a girl I haven't seen in 10 years, and it turns out we're both being recruited for our high school reunion planning committee. It's pretty wack that it's going to cost $75. Don't they know that people have kids by now? Well it's not until September, it will give me time to save up. Not to mention move out of my Mother's house. If you told me that I'd be living at home ten years after high school I'd be very concerned. That is until you told me how much travel I'd done. Then I'd only be slightly concerned. Hey there's a lunar eclipse tonight. Gotta love that.

2004-04-30T01:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight I received a request to update my blog so even though it's quite late I'm going to get ya'll up to date. I never know where to start. Well, let's talk about what happened tonight and I'll work backwards from there. As I sit here I have a bandage on my right elbow where skin is supposed to be. I spent the whole night longboarding around the University of Washington and Medina and a 7 story parking garage. It was a lot of fun. I think the highlight had to be the parking garage on the last run of the night. There were five of us and we were playing follow the leader. I won't go into too much detail because it involves outdoor nakedness. But I will say that feeling the wind on my cheeks was refreshing as I skated down the parking garage ramps. The lowlight had to be when I was taking the lead riding through the University campus. I was going down a hill quite fast transitioning from the sidewalk to the street when I thought I was going over an apron or driveway when actually I was dropping off a curb. Had I noticed a second sooner I might of prepared for it and been okay, but it was a complete surprise to me. Skating in the dark in unfamiliar places is probably not so smart. Anyway, I fell off and tore my shirt and skinned my elbow and my palm of my right hand in the classic places. But to try to recover my dignity I rode the rest of the night. Earlier I was sitting in a coffee shop reading "Around the World in 80 Days", and I was feeling somewhat down. I had eaten dinner by myself in my car in a grocery store parking lot while listening to NPR. I used to do that a lot when I worked for the Gates Foundation and had to eat by myself in small towns across the country. It's a tolerable way to pass the dinner hour when you're away from home but I wished I had been invited to a BBQ or hosted one or something. Earlier than that, I had spent an hour longboarding by myself at Greenlake, which was a nice time, but I guess it made me feel lonely. Greenlake can do that if you look at the girls walking by and wonder why they're not all your girlfriends. Earlier than that, I had a meeting with a real estate agent about a property I'm considering buying. It's got some cool things about it but too early to tell. So I won't talk about it too much now. Before that I spent the afternoon surfing for properties online in Edmonds. I like Edmonds now because it's in Snohomish county (making the building process much easier), it's 10 minutes to Seattle, it's not Lynnwood, and the fire department is one of the only ones that use volunteers anymore. Before that I don't recall what I did. But It wasn't a very productive morning. I don't usually have productive mornings. It's something I'd like to change because other times in my live I love the mornings. Now I stay up until 1 or in tonight's case, 1:28 and counting. I think this morning I got out of bed at 8:26am. Oh wait, no, Jazz had started on KPLU by the time I got up. That's embarrassing. But I did listen to stardate and learned about Jupiter's moons, which I got to point out to Scott and another guy when we were skating in the dark. We also saw Venus to the east. I learned about Venus the other night on cable from the flamboyant cable guy who gets overly excited about astronomy. He'd be a great professor actually. Jupiter and Venus were way brighter than any of the stars tonight. Okay I'll summarize the past few weeks. I traded in my Subaru for a Volvo, because the Subaru wasn't big enough. I felt claustrophobic and smacked my head when I did blindspot checks. So it was no good. Also Volvos are cool. I traded in some miles to get a ticket to Georgia yesterday to visit my sister next week. It was interesting comparing American, Delta, Alaska, and United, all of which I have enough miles for free tickets. United won because it had doable flight times, only cost 25000 miles and 7.50 out of pocket. That should be a fun weekend. I'm also volunteering at Children's Hospital now. I started out in the volunteer office as a messenger to learn the lay of the hospital but now I'm just helping out in the Inpatient Psychiatric Unit. It's really cool. For one week I was doing both but I quit the former this week. I actually felt guilty like I was quitting on the volunteer office. But I only wanted to do one day a week in the first place so I shouldn't. Last weekend I helped Mark actually build his new deck. We spent three days on it. You really use different tools when you're building something new as opposed to tearing or replacing stuff. We had to measure and level and remeasure a lot more this weekend than in the last few weeks. We only had one tape measure so we had to keep throwing it back and forth to each other. I think by now he has a new one. Building with Mark is a lot of fun. We even got stressed out at one point but even that was amusing to me. Man my hand and elbow are really starting to ache. I'm sure there's more. I've been boarding a bunch since I bought my board a couple of weeks ago. I've not been paragliding much, but I'd really like to do more of it as it gets warmer and the sun stays up later. I did get invited to a BBQ for tomorrow night so I'm pretty happy about that, and I am learning how to play the proper drum set so I can be of more assistance when I help out with music at Brian's church. I've been going to church a lot lately which has been good. But I have not picked up on my journaling. I think being in a holding pattern has got me holding my breath in some ways and I'm not admitting to myself that this is a very real part of the process. I'm learning loads these days. Earlier this week I drove around to different city halls to talk to planners and see what the processes for permits and building are like in their towns. That stuff is fun and what I wanted to learn this year. I'll try to keep up the journaling and the blogging again. I guess if only for blabbing on like tonight. If you read it, I'll write it. So here Anett, this is what's been going on. Things are going well. Thanks for wondering about me. :) oh yeah, one more thing. Karaoke, rocked on Sunday night. It was Scott, Greg, and I and 10 girls who came to watch us and for two hours, we just took turns with barely any one else going. One girl, Analisa, kicked some major Karaoke butt, but other than that the three of us were up there over and over again. The highlight was when Greg and Scott did the Bangles "eternal flame" and then as it was ending Greg started beat-boxing and Scott freestyled over it for well over 2 minutes. Hilarious.

2004-04-02T00:04:00.000-08:00

Well, another week is almost over and I am not as far along as I thought I'd be by now. Back in February I thought I'd be breaking ground by early May on a construction project but I'm no closer than I was the day I returned from my trip. I have had a great time though. Today I ran into the second girl I ever kissed. Her name is Karen Bowen and we "went together" in the ninth grade. I remember making out with her at a Depech Mode laser show a few weeks before my first summer in Alaska. Oh, the memories. She knew all the people from my childhood so it's a trip to run into her. It's the second time I've run into her in the last few years, so we didn't have to catch up on ten years this time. The last time was about 2am at a dance club in Seattle. Today was at the volunteer orientation at Children's Hospital. Life is crazy. Some people are just meant to reappear over and over again. I spent some of this week up in Bellingham again working on Mark's backyard project. He's got a ton of work to do and it's fun working with him, but I heard that building permits take 12 weeks to pass through the city up there right now. So it's unlikely I'll wait 3 extra months just for a one piece of paperwork. And I know that if I build in Bellingham I'll have to live up there this summer. And I really want to be in Seattle. So there. Alright, that's it for now.

2004-03-27T21:04:00.000-08:00

After about 8 days of solid activity I spent all day today at home. I didn't really do anything. I just read, and watched TV and played piano, and read. I did open my guitar case for the first time since this fall and amused myself. You see, I play my guitar left handed but I have to play other people's guitars right handed. And I'm better at certain things each way. So I can play different songs better in each orientation. I had forgotten how much fun the left hand variety is. Where am I going with this? We got Mark's house waterproof again after three days and I of course returned from Bham. Mark and I came close to deciding that we could become full time construction buds. It's a good thing to have a friend who is supported by his talented wife and who has a passion for most the same things I do. I shouldn't tease him so much about everything, but I do, constantly. After all, what have I accomplished? Which brings me to my next point. The latter part of this day turned into a one-man strategic conference with no keynote speakers. But there were some good words thrown in from a guest who didn't know she made an appearance. It must have occurred because of conversations I had last night. I spent a chunk of last evening with my bud Hilary at Patty's house. Patty was once Time Magazine's 25 most influential people in America and is now in charge of the Gates Foundation. Hilary is her special assistant. (And I am Hilary's special assistant.) In speaking with Patty, one cannot help but marvel at the caliber of achievements that an effective lifestyle can accomplish. Even in a casual conversation she uses words that are powerful and action oriented. I like her. Today I spent over an hour looking up articles online about her and interviews with her. I liked the interviews because I can look at her word choices and pick out all the kick-ass phrases she uses. It's not that I'm star struck at all. In fact, until yesterday I tried to entertain a cynical notion that she was not that impressive. But that house of cards has fallen down. It could have fallen when she sang a stupid song at a Christmas party one year, but nevertheless, it's gone a-crumbling. Why do some people become great and so many settle for mediocrity? Being great is hard, but you have to be doing something all the time. And I know a lot of people who work really hard at being mediocre. I suppose networking, and a large dose of intelligence deserve some credit, but I'm still mystified at how big a gap there is in ambition levels of different people. I guess that's it. If you shoot for a nice home with a happy family and a new Chrysler Intrepid every 4 or 5 years then you can look around and be pretty satisfied that you're on the right track. And who's going to tell you different? But if, on the other hand, you choose to compare yourself to the movers and shakers in history, you're not going to be satisfied with that comfy scenario. Well, I've been on the computer too long today, and I'm out of gas. Maybe if my ambition was the best blog entry ever this would have been better, but I was just shooting for an update, so by those standards, I've accomplished my mission.

2004-03-23T23:43:00.000-08:00

To get ready for a major construction project I've been assisting others in smaller construction projects lately. And there have been a few injuries. A few weeks ago I helped wire an outdoor outlet at my friend Dusty's house. No injuries. But the following day I met my father and brothers to help daddyo lay a cement floor for his huge new garage. While Mr. Graham was smoothing the floor with an extra large trowel thing attached to an extra long pole, I made the mistake of standing right behind him. As he was passing the pole through his hands I failed to move and blamo! I took a square shot to the face. I was lucky it hit me in the cheekbone because the rest of my face is quite delicate. I didn't really get a bruise but I felt like I might need to get braces again. Feeling that I needed some more experience I found myself today tearing apart a roof at my buddy Mark's house. Neither Mark or I have any substantial experience with roofing, but as we tore parts of his old roof off we figured we'd learn as we went. Actually the job was supposed to be to tear up the deck but you know how things go. We started tearing and couldn't stop ourselves. Well, that was yesterday. Today we continued to tear and we eventually ended up with storm clouds looming and his livingroom without a roof. Brilliant work. And, I don't know if back pain counts as an injury but I know that every time I hit the shift key with my left pinky I am reminded that I need to improve my hammer accuracy. So I'm up in Bellingham for a few days while I wait for the inventory in Seattle to turn over a bit. It's somewhat tough to get a project started in a sweet spot in town when there are five other people who bid on every property. Both places that I've considered making an offer on so far have had at least 5 bidders and the price has spiraled up. So I guess that's the lay of the land in Seattle. Mark keeps trying to get me to buy in Bellingham and my friends in Portland are trying to tell me that building down there is the place to be. Hmmm, it may turn to that. Well that's all for now. I was delighted tonight to see that my aloof friend Luke has made a new entry into his blog. Unfortunately he didn't leak one iota of intel on his days in LA. He thought it would be cute to pretend to be in a fight with his blog. I think he pulled that gimmick already last year some time. I'm got going through the effort of looking it up though. Anyway, you can trust I'll never pull any BS like that here on Darryl's Amazing Blog of Life or DABOL as I have just realized works. Oh, and since I need practice inserting links on here; my friend Misha, Mark's wife, won 1st place for a category in a photography contest. It's the first one she's entered too. My friends are so talented.

2004-03-22T02:06:00.000-08:00

Well once a week is better than not at all. I just got back from the now traditional Sunday night Karaoke. It was a slow start but one guy did a gut wrenching rendition of Unchained Melody and it got the ball rolling. It's too bad that I wasted Cameo's Word-Up before the vibe was really there. But it was a good time. I did get everyone in the bar to do an Eve 6 toast, so that was pretty good. And we had three fans show up who didn't even want to sing, they just came to enjoy the spectacle. But one of them, Joe Elenbaas, couldn't help himself on "Pour Some Sugar on Me" to end the evening. Can you blame him? More interestingly, I just returned from a weekend in Portland. It was like a double header slumber party with fun friends from college. There were 11 of us sleeping in a two bedroom house, so we had to resort to the fort building skills we hadn't worked on in 20 years. It's a good thing that some skills come back when you need them. My plans are moving along somewhat. There were many developments in the last week. Some of the most intruiging are that I am probably going to build or remodel a house in the Seattle area this summer. I may (also maybe) go on another 3 cruises on my old Princess ship in Europe. That plan had been set aside but it may work with city building permit downtime in one of my possible scenarios. So who knows? These are options. But it's fun to write down some of the things that may or not happen. I've started the paragliding school at Tiger Mountain, even paid for it all up front. So that's cool. It's soo cool, if anyone wants to come along sometime just let me know. I'm going to apply to a couple of local grad schools' counseling psychology programs for this fall and that is quite exciting. When I say I want to do this program people always ask me why. I say that I get energized when I help people and I have compassion for those who have problems and the courage to change. I don't know if it's the best answer but it usually ends the questioning. To get a little experience I'm going to start volunteering at Children's Hospital weekly next month. That is, unless I go back on the Star Princess. Doing both could be difficult. So those are my forming plans. I'm pretty hesitent to write down my future plans because most the time, I don't know what I'm doing more than a few months out. But we'll see. By the way, in my own personal journal writing, the phrase, "we'll see" makes an appearance regularly. Okay, it's super late again. I need some sleepy.

2004-03-15T00:52:00.000-08:00

Re-blogging is what I needed this week. With my imaginary audience wagging a finger at me for my pile of junk on the floor, I have been inspired to clean up my living space. And it has helped me get back on track. How do I know? Well you wouldn't be able to tell from outside my epidermal perimeter, but my thoughts have become of a higher quality again. Thoughts which are capable of bearing fruit. Moreover, fruit that drips nails, paint, power tools, and cozy living spaces. I'm just about able to publish a 2.5 year plan. It's pretty exciting. It leaves enough elbow room for cruising every now and then while procuring enviable items such as a residence, some regular hobbies, and opportunities for cultural enrichment. Not to mention, social stability, and a means of learning with financial gain. Dare to dream. Perhaps in the days that follow, there will be glimpes of the ways that I arrive at a decision. Posterity should be so lucky. Tonight there was an establishment of what could become a tradition with some of my friends. Scott, Brian, Greg, and I met at a Karaoke bar on Aurora and slayed the place with 80s ballads, rap songs, and old standards. The momentum has been gaining for me personally as the frequency with which I've karaoked in the last year has augered upwards in a spiral-like form. I think Scott is in the same place, and tonight, Brian and Greg couldn't deny the pure joy that was shooting from their throats and into the eardrums of all the present nobility. It was great fun. So that is it for tonight. It's pretty late and I must get to bed now so as to have a productive monday.

2004-03-11T16:55:00.000-08:00

I've been back now for almost a month and I have finally downloaded my first song of 2004. It was a new song by Blink 182. It was quickly followed by some Coldplay songs from their first album. I also bought a Subaru. And I filed for unemployment. Since I have been seeing many of my friends and even most of my family more often than when I was south of the equator, I haven't been as prolific with my blog, but I think I'll put it back in the routine. Today I was reading some redecorating magazines in a bookstore when I came across a line aimed at culling bad behavior in subcontractors. It said, "a messy workspace encourages sloppiness," and I thought, wow, how true. I must confess, there is a pile of diskettes and wires on my floor which has been sitting there since I returned from my trip almost four weeks ago. And it has promoted sloppiness. Sure I can avoid eye contact with it, but its existence has some sort of metaphysical influence on my approach to my day. It's bad. The reason for the mess? I don't know what to do with it all. It might be garbage. But there might be some valuable data on one of those disks. Procrastination is a character flaw that doesn't surface much when you're traveling solo in foreign places. So is betrayal. Although I don't think I've been guilty of that lately. I did waste all over my buddy Brian three times in a row last night in Chess. While I was assassinating his pieces, I remembered my comments on how chess was like life a while back. And I thought that this blog is a good way to keep some things in perspective. I haven't picked up on my journaling since I've been back like I expected to. So for my biographers, this month will be the hardest to archive of my life since March of 1997. Let's just say it was a month of intense free diving training. Most of the time was spent filling my lungs with air and then desending to between 300 to 500 feet below the surface of the ocean. Yeah, that's cooler and more mysterious than repeatedly successfully circumnavigating a pile of crap on my floor.

2004-02-14T23:55:00.000-08:00

And with as much fanfare that launched the trip, it was over. I arrived in Seattle a whole two hours before I left Auckland, which was remarkable for the fact that I quite remember a long plane ride and I think I even spent three or four hours with one Luke Thayer in Los Angeles today. In any event, I'm now home and I am eager to get on with what Doc Holiday called life. In a memorable exchange from the movie Tombstone, he asked his friend: Doc Holliday: What do you want Wyatt? Wyatt Earp: Just to live a normal life. Doc: There is no normal life, there's just life, ya live it. I have to dress my life now with accoutrements like a car and a proper place of residence, since I'm leaning in the direction of not taking the next cruise contract. The way I look at it, it's time for a different kind of adventure. At the risk of sounding like I agree with Wyatt, I would like a more "normal" persuit for a while. And the first major steps will be solidified here in the next few days, as I go car shopping and pick out my first real car. Every car I've ever had has been a hand-me-down from some family member, (excepting that very first one that lasted 5 days, but that didn't turn out so well, so lets ignore that one.) So in anticipation of this week's upcoming car hunt, it's with pleasure that I present to you all, my car-ography: High School years: 1978 red Toyota Corolla; technically always Dad's car but I took it around quite freely as Sarah softened him up with her rebellions. Sophomore Uni: 1973 yellow Bug; I may have bought this from my brother Brian or sold it to him after, either way it started as Sarah's car. Sophomore Uni: 1985 black Chevy Blazer; Moms originally but it blew up and I had Brian fix it up for the cost of a new motor. Year after college: 1986 gold Honda Accord; This was also first Sarah's car but for some reason I bought it from her. After the Honda: 1991 blue Honda Civic; the newest member of the family, Victoria, my Step-Mom, sold it to me for super cheap and I drove it until I ended the job with the Gates Foundation. I took it out from under Brad's nose because he was thinking about buying it also-- but in the spirit of brotherly competition, or general jackassness, I showed up with the money first, and drove it home. He called me a thief for 2.5 years until I sold it to him for the same price about 10 months ago. So I'm a little freaked out at having to pick out a car. I'd want my future biographers to believe that my return home from a long journey was coifed with lofty ideals and ambitions for staking out my way in the world, but unfortunately, I feel like I have a great daunting task ahead of me, for which I have not the skills to handily accomplish. I see the future as blocked by a dense fog, which cannot be rent or penetrated without the service of a car. So, all my energy focuses on this solitary, monumentous, identity defining, decision. With the completion of this task, I will have basically committed myself to staying in the Seattle area for "a while." Perhaps, this is why I've waited so long to do this. So the huge question before me, with countless options is, what kind of car should I buy? I'd like to drive a refined and luxurious car, but I don't sit well with the idea of driving a piece of property that doubles as a display of wealth. I could also go the cheap and poor looking route, but I kind of fancy a stylin ride for once. Hmmm. Well enough of this dribble, what else can I think of to write on a day such as this? Oh yeah, the fog. I seriously cannot look forward beyond a few reunion hangouts until I am up and driving so let's look back. The trip ended quite well but with a petering off of activity, rather than with a bang. I did get to go to the beach and snorkel and soak up the sun for the last whole day. And that was great. I met one last German whom I shared my final meals with, who was delighted to speak to an American. She said she didn't like the kiwi or the UK accent so she wanted to listen to me talk. That was amusing I also started writing in my journal again, which I picked up with my stored luggage once back in Auckand. It was good to start writing to myself again. I've kept that journal faithfully since March of 1997. I think I've filled up 12-14 diaries in that time so being without it was somewhat odd. But being without American money, driving on the wrong side of the road, and having no familiar relations, lessened the impact of any single missing artifact of routine on my daily life. So it wasn't that big of a deal, and I wrote a lot online. Besides, I was packing light. Oh, by the way. I did a capital job of packing my bags and managed to get everything in just two checked bags and one monster carry-on. Sweet as!--er I mean, yeah! I was meeting backpacker folks and re-meeting old aquainances up to the very last moment. In the airport at Auckland, I met an older couple whom I had first seen on the Queen Charolette walk 10 days or so ago. On that walk, we met and for some reason learned that we were both flying out of Auckland on the 14th in the afternoon. They told me to look for them and I nodded and smiled, and thought "why". But then I practically ran into them in line to pay the departure tax. Then at the baggage claim in Seattle a girl asked me if I had been on flight 93 from LA. I said, "yes," and I patted my bag and said, "but this bad boy came from Auckland today." She said, "oh, so did I. But on a different flight to LA." So we chatted about our trips for a bit until Mom arrived in her Jeep and I literaly passed from backpacker to my old life in an instant. So the re-entry has been good so far. People all around me predicted it to be a bit rocky, but I've been here before. It's fun to have this forum to bring people up to speed with as it's happening. It ameliorates the chasm that is often created when I go on large adventures and whenceupon returning am met with questions like, "well, how was it?" I don't think I'll have any ill-effects of coming home this time, like I did after South America. (But that was in the days before blogging so you'll just have to break into my house and read my journals if you want those thoughts.) The only unexpected thing I've experienced so far is that I had to consciously think about staying in the right lane as I drove around (in Mom's car) tonight. All that time of biking on the left got it cemented into my head eventually. At one point, pulling onto Aurora, I got disoriented and had to stop in the middle of the intersection, just to gather my bearings, while making a left turn. But after that I was more careful, and I'm fine now. It's always the little things that pop up after you've gone home that tell you how you've changed in life. Seldom do we see how we're changing unless we go back and measure ourselves against our former yardsticks. Sometimes thats good and sometimes it's not so good. With driving, it seems moraly unaligned, but I'm interested to see what else pops up. I got a fantastic email from Josh Wilton today. He's the kind of friend who can always meet me right where I'm at and ask the probing questions after times apart. In this case, he just mentioned stuff about himself, but from the quality of his comments I know we'll have a doozy of an interview later this week when we connect. I sort of wish I could post his email here for posterity for it's general application to life, because of it's relevance. But it's got some personal parts in it, that render it not for general audiences. So herein ends the narrative of my transition from managing a tour outfit in Alaska, to the cruise ship gig, and naturally what followed directly afterwords. Perhaps, I'll write some more. But if I do, the posts will undoubtedly take on a different tone and flavor as my activities and ponderings will take on different flavours. To see where this node in my life began, just go back to my September 19th post. I'll keep the people I met, the Maori culture, hakas, Milford sound, rugby, cricket, teva tans, Manuka honey, Tim-Tams, the southern cross, middle earth, paragliding, ropeswinging, tramping, caving, canyoning, snorkling, surfing, biking, dijiridoos, kiwi slang, the international dateline, and all the sightseeing over the time and money I spent every time. I thank everyone who has read it and for the people who commented on various stuff, and emailed me, thank you twice. regards, Darryl

2004-02-11T20:13:00.000-08:00

Back in Auckland for the home stretch. More randomness. In the space of about 45 seconds just 10 minutes ago I was served with three renewed aquaintances. The first came when I sat down to the seat I'm now occupying and I was slapped on the arm by the guy next to me, who turned out to be Declan, the english bloke, whom was eventually amused to see that his picture was on the internet, posted by me. The next two were in the form of unsolicited emails from first, a guy I worked with in AK this summer and second, and ten times more random, a guy named Eko who was a Dutch exchange student back in my high school days. How impossibly weird is that? As I was sitting down I had planned to write about meeting back up with Sheena and Carol yesterday, but also finally hooking up with Kent and Kirsten from my old job. I had amusing experiences with each of Kent and Kirstin back in the Gates days. Kirstin and I had to drive across Connecticut once together because we had a flight cancelled. Kent used to bail me out of technical networking conundrums on the phone. We would always chit chat a bit and then I would email him the pictures of the things that I had told him about, whether it be going to an Air Supply concert in Missouri or riding around in a huge pickup truck with a rodeo queen in Kansas. He was the only person I went to the effort to email pictures too. Probably because he sounded like he was truly interested in them. And actually, if you have enjoyed looking at my pictures it was seeing their website www.kentkirstin.com that finally pushed me to post my own pictures. Well this is going to be a quick post because I'm going to get caught up with Declan. I'm getting ready to come home and starting to buy some souveniers and gifts for my peeps back home. If you have any requests for New Zealand stuff, let me know. It's freakin raining again and I can't really go to the beach in the rain. So that sucks, no surfing. But I've got one more day. Please oh please oh please If you would like to kill some time or don't feel like being productive just yet, let me point you to the funniest blog post I have ever seen. It's a post from one of Luke's great buds named Jeff. He a very prolific blogger so given enough opportunities he was bound to make me cry laughing. I finally pestered Brooke into reading it back in Wellington and she too, couldn't breath so well while reading it. It's funny. But, as for that, I just had Declan read it and he didn't utter a peep. So to find out for yourself how funny this guy is, look at the Feb 4th post titled "Metaspy on my mind." The address is www.jeffschell.com/blog Ok.

2004-02-08T18:47:00.000-08:00

I'm still in Wellington. Yesterday Brooke and I rented a car and drove around to see some sights that we couldn't simply walk to. Having a car is a real treat when you have been hitchhiking, biking and waiting for buses. trains, ferries, and taxis. It's hard to believe that in less than a week I'll be home and possibly buying a car of my own. But that depends on some decisions that I have to make this week. My life plan is revised usually every few months or at most every few years. It's quite different from most people's I think. The longest time I've done any one thing was with the Gates Foundation and that was only 27 months. Well, this little trip comes to a finish on Saturday and I come home to a uncertain place for an uncertain amount of time, with an uncertain short term plan. ah, to be me. But for just a few days more I'll try to live in the moment. I do have the computers at sea people offering me another contract on March 25th, so I do have to make a decision before I come home. Such timing is not agreeable, but that's too bad. Part of me wants to take it, but part of me wants to soak up Seattle/Bellingham for a few months before doing an Asia trip followed by grad school in the fall. Last night, as we were driving back into Wellington I was looking out the passenger window and I felt Brooke sqeeze my leg. I looked at her and she was misting up and she said, "I just love coming back to Wellington." I immediately thought of Bellingham. That's pretty much how I feel whenever I am driving the last 10 minutes north towards it. I was impressed she could feel that way after only being away five hours or so. So living in the moment can't really happen right now because I feel it's only fair that by tomorrow I can tell them if I'll take the next contract or skip it. This is a hard one. Well, ya wanna know what I've been doing all day? Well, I've been publishing my photogallery. Finally after all this time. So go have a look. I'm crap at computers so I didn't manage to merge my gallery with this blog address just yet. But if you want to, go check out yodarryl.com. I'm such an idiot, that if you put in the www it won't work. So just type yodarryl.com in your web browser and I'll see you in about 62 photos. Was that cool? Good because it took me about five hours. Okay, now I'm going to go eat something. nah, I'll put a few more pictures up. My legs are already stiff. How's about some oldies, that have nothing to do with this trip? yeah, look for the potpouri gallery. Weird. By the time you read this you may have already checked out my gallery. That's almost as cool as the international dateline, which by the way, I'm excited to cross back over in a few days. It's the coolest thing since shredded cheese.

2004-02-07T04:46:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. Okay, first things first. I have to admit, in my story about my crush a few days ago, I left out a small detail that many of you would consider significant. But I must preface this by saying that there is something in the air these days, and it's not just me. Maybe it's that recent hit song, "Stacy's Mom." Maybe it's that new movie where Keanu Reaves falls for Diane Keaton, or perhaps it's Ashton Kutcher at 25 acting like a dad with Demmi Moore's family. Younger men and older women is the new "in" thing. So I'll just come out with it. She was 81. But, she didn't look a day over 78. Okay, I feel better. So, I'm done with the tramping. It was a good hike with a nice ridgeline vantage point throughout. It was also a good character builder, because each morning I had the option of just calling it quits and taking a boat. I was a little tempted on the second day when I awoke and packed up in the rain. But there was an Aussie girl who offered me cous cous wraps for lunch if I kept her and another Aussie company. So it was a good experience. At one point we were exchanging camp songs. They taught me the classic Australian song, "Waltzing Matilda" Check out these lyrics: Once a jolly swagman sat beside the billabong, Under the shade of a coolibah tree, And he sang as he sat and waited till his billy boiled You'll come a waltzing matilda with me... And I tried to teach them some old camp songs but I couldn't remember any the whole way through. I bet if my sister was around, they'd have a whole truckload of childhood campsongs to pick from. So I completed the tramp about 2pm yesterday and I had 2 hours to wait for the ferry back to Picton so I thought I'd go for a swim. I walked along the beach and noticed two things. One, it was murky water, and two, there were some huge mussels all over. I decided to grab a couple and see if I could eat them. I brought them back to where I was sitting with some other folks and I proceeded to open and eat them. I was thinking that if my old Maori kayak guide did it, then why couldn't I. Some people around me were a little challenged by the notion but all were curious. Their curiosity deminished as soon as I started eating them but a couple of them tried a little of the gooey mess. Then a girl noticed a sign that read, "Scenic Reserve: All marine life is completely protected." What's worse, there was a picture of a hand reaching for a shell with a "no smoking" line through it. So I felt sort of dumb. No one arrested me though. By the way, have I mentioned yet, that the cops don't carry guns in this country? Oh, they have them in their police cars for when deadly force is necessary, but on their belts they carry holsters with small throw pillows inside. So after the ride back to Piction I took a shower and gathered all my gear for my departure from the south island. After almost 40 days I'd have to say that my experience down there was a success. The weather was mostly agreeable, and I did just about everything I wanted to. As I entered the ferry terminal, I saw a girl and had to do a double take. She did the same so there was enough to start out with "Where do I know you?" She turned out to be someone whom I had worked with up in Skagway this summer. I didn't interact with her much but I picked her up and drove her somewhere once. She said, "I'm Susan" and I said, "Whalen," remembering her name from an employee list more than from interacting with her. The world is officially, small. In a related story, I just found out that a couple of my friends from the Gates Foundation are down here on a trip and I may try to hook up with them here during my last week. The world is small indeed. I hopped on the ferry and rode back to Wellington where I was met by Brooke. It was a good thing to know her because I met two Germans on the ferry who couldn't get any accomodation in Wellington, at all. None. They hadn't planned ahead, which is normal, but they didn't know about the international Rugby 7s tournament--which brings me to my next story. For the uninitiated let me get you up to speed. Rugby is a confusing sport with 30 people on the field and enough differences from American football that one of us could be lost forever without a guide. Rugby Sevens is like a video game verson of Rugby where the games are short, there are only 7 to a side and the rules are set on "easy." It was a two day tournament with all the countries in one big stadium. I arrived in time for the second day. The vibe at the stadium was similar to a big exciting Mariners playoff game but imagine being at the stadium for up to 10 hours. The games were short, as in 15 minutes, but there were unavoidably some boring ones. So the crowd's attention is usually on the members of the crowd. Consequently, it's one large costume party. The typical thing is to go with your friends dressed up as a theme, whether it be nurses, lifeguards, the cops from Chips, whatever. Brooke and her friend Mary dressed up as cheerleaders, and they cheered for the USA. For our part, the USA, actually won the fourth bracket of the tournament. For the reward they played "Born in the USA" and people cheered U S A, U S A, U S A as the team walked off the field. It was pretty cool. But what was really cool is that New Zealand won the whole tournament, and at the end the men pulled off their jerseys and did the Haka that I learned back in December at the Maori cultural night. Again I was so moved by the event that I couldn't look anyone at all in the eyes. But it wasn't just the team doing the Haka, the entire stadium of around 40,000 people were yelling it too. And then they played local New Zealand music on the speakers, which everyone sang to, and the whole crowd looked proud of their country. It was wonderful. Completely wonderful. I like New Zealand very much.

2004-02-03T16:18:00.000-08:00

I'm in Picton now. Two days ago I traveled here with Sheena and Carol but now they've gone north. I'm presently 15km into a 71km nature walk but I'm taking a lunch break and there's an internet station. New Zealand leaves little to be discovered, but that's the biggest complaint you can have here. Other than that, it's a great big playground with tons of stuff to do. On the drive to Picton the road got very windy and then even more windy. Eventually we could only slowly roll around the curves at a snails pace--it was that windy. But the posted speed limit remained 100kph. Maybe in a ducati. Then we started seeing Rolls Royces and antique cars coming at us in our lane. There were probably 40 of these road hogs during the drive. It was a little disturbing. But if I had a Rolls on a windy road, I'd be a bit of a road hog too, I guess. I wonder what they were doing there. Anyway, I should get back to my walk. This location, The Marlborough Sound, was Captain Cook's favorite location in NZ so he spent a ton of time here. Peter Jackson ignored it though. There there are no Hobbit shops around for once. Later.

2004-01-31T21:08:00.000-08:00

hmmm, three days of crazy rain. This is rediculous. I really wanted to have an adventure to write about today. But alas, I've been hunkered down. Instead I have a love story. This one lasts the whole of three days. The girl with the siamese twin act was the one whom I met two days ago when I was dscribing the strange scene at the hostel. What I didn't mention at the time was that of the crowd she was of a singular character that movies often try to create, that being, in a crowd of misfits and mediocrity, one shining beacon of beauty and light. I first saw her sitting in a chair talking with her siamese twin partner. At first she was just a hottie, until I heard her laugh and talked to her, at which point I realized that this was a striking specimen of rare quality. Confident and funny, I think her first words to me were cloaked in levity because she had lost a business card and was looking for it under a table. She mock-sobbed that she had lost the card. I narrowed my eyes and thought, my, she's charming too. I must know more. I soon learned about the buskers, learnt that her name was Caroline, and it became clear that they would be there for a few days at the hostel as the festival proceeded. I told Sheena and Carol about it and we agreed that we should make a point to go see it. I, of course, had my favorite act already picked out. I didn't see her again until late that night as Carol and I were sitting alone in the lounge, being the last ones up when Caroline and Penny entered. We chatted a bit but it was brief. Our third interview was not until the next day when I was sitting in the lounge, grounded by the rain, reading. She gallantly entered the room and increased it's light levels with her bright visage. I caught her eye and fancied I was met with an eager smile that met the same level of anticipation as my own. We didn't talk long as her time was not her own and she had to prepare for the festival, but the duration of the absence had ripened the association to a hightened level and I was emboldened to think of her the whole day through. The definition of intimacy is close association through time. You can only have so much intimacy in one interview, but the grace of a relationship is sweetened through the ponderings and fermentation of the memories of such heavily weighted conversations. As the time drew near for the evening festival I hoped for a chance to speak to her again, but confidently assumed that the opportunity would be there at some point. The girls and I went to the evening performance of their act along with the other acts, which was intended to be outside, but had been moved into a large pub because of the unfortunate climate. The show was entertaining enough. Street performers, being not talented enough for the theater, by definition, were slightly more endowed with the help of lights and a stage. At the end I was making change at the bar so that I could contribute to the work of the participants. I only had $50s and didn't think the show merited all that much. Mid transaction I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see the face that had been in my mind the entire day. And it was a sight. She said thanks for coming, I assented my enjoyment of the show. I asked if she was going out afterwords and she said that she was, and that she was now staying with her twin's grandmother for the last two nights. I picked up on the introduction of a logistical obstacle and again narrowed my eyes in contemplation. After not being able to devour her face with my eyes to my satisfaction I confessed that I had a tremendous crush on her. Her face flushed and she was somehow made prettier for a moment or two. Then simultaneously, the bartender arrived with my change and someone across the room called Caroline's attention away. She held up one finger as she darted off to return to her post show wrap-up duty. At this point I felt it was time to go see how Carol and Sheena were getting on, so I sought them out and was introduced to David, whom Sheena had met in Sydney and had just run into. They asked me what I wanted to do, and I felt it rude to say that I wanted to chase another girl to the ends of the earth, so I said that I was flexible. We then decided to go back to the hostel and figure it out from there. The only thing I knew for sure was that we were going to meet Dave in an Irish pub later and that my sure chance of talking with Caroline had slipped away. Carol and Sheena are the most fit of travel partners, but I regret that I was a bit pre-occupied for the next couple of hours. We went to meet David and two other Germans and for the first while I forced myself to interact, all the while freaking out inside, because I had let it end so suddenly. The Germans proved to be good society and as the night went on, I ended up having a good time and tried to forget about the stupid crush, feeling resigned that it wasn't in the cards. We ended up dancing and as Carol was again quite good, I felt pretty alright when a guy remarked to me, "Where do you find girls like that?" Not regretting the fortune of my present company, and feeling delighted at the savings of drinking plain cranberry juice, I felt like the night turned out quite grand. As we were walking home I even taught Carol my chinese acrobat move on a traffic sign. She in turn taught me how to flip myself upside down and slide down a pole with my ankles. It was good fun. In the morning I awoke with returned feelings of regret. I entertained notions of trying to give some of the other buskers my email address, but dismissed it as too little too late. As I was drinking OJ and reading in the lounge, grounded by this third day of crap weather, Penny, the other twin walked into the room. My mood became alert, and I began staring at the door, trying to force the other half of the now separate twins to appear. I looked like one who was taking a break from reading but the ink on the page ceased to make sense to me and I all my thoughts dwelled on the hope that she was on the premises. I looked right at the door and eventually, the door lost the staring contest. It opened and I saw that same entrance of the woman as the day before but with a different outfit and wet hair. She came in with a smile and quite coolly asked if anyone knew if there was laundry detergent available. I offered that I thought it was automatically distributed when you used the laundry. A small debate ensued with all those in attendance on the liklihood of such a technological marvel occuring singularly in a small hostel in New Zealand. I offered to accompany Caroline to the laundry room to investigate, whereupon we found that indeed it was not mere imaginings of a gullable American. She started her laundry and we began to chat about, something, I can't recall. I was just staring into her eyes thinking, kiss me or kill me, because I'm done after this. Penny cruelly interrupted us yet again and I was left in the laundry room alone. I returned to the lounge and learned that Carol and Sheena had decided to go to the gym. They asked if I wanted to go. I declined but said that if they were going to a climbing gym later to come back to get me. I knew that this was my last opportunity and if I didn't break it down with Caroline at that moment, it meant she wasn't for it and it was a nothing but a bagatalle, no matter prominent in my mind. A minute more transpired then I went to her room and boldly entered. She was alone, had been packing but at that moment was looking through a folder. She looked up and again blessed me with the luminescene of her favorable glance. She pulled from the folder a promotional postcard and said, "I was going to bring this out to you so if you're ever in Melbourne..." Then she said, "and I really admire you." Zing! What is it about a comment like that from just the right person at just the right time that makes you feel like you've won the lottery. I said "why?" and she said with her beaming face that it impressed her that I told her I liked her. So we talked a little more and at length I asked if she was single and she frowned and shook her head. So I knew what was what, and that I would have to repress my urge to move any closer. But still, it was happening. She had affirmed me so I was on cloud nine. After talking for many minutes she suggested we go out and have tea. We did, and it was the best tea I've ever had. Penny came back from an errand and informed Caroline that they would have to be off soon and she agreed. So as we moved to the kitchen to wash our glasses like good little backpackers, we had to say our goodbyes. We each offered the standard oaths to get in touch if ever in each other's neigborhoods, and then at last I said, "I'm really glad we had a proper chat." Then she kissed me. It was such a suprise that I loudly smacked my teacup against the counter and almost broke it. Also it happened so fast and it was so short that it certainly goes down as one of the sweetest kisses in my entire life. And with that, she was gone. So, it's still raining like something out of Genesis, and I hope my tent is not submerged by now. I should go check on it. Because of my refusal to go see the movie "Honey" I get to make dinner for Sheena and Carol so they can eat when they return. How did that happen? Well they did cook the last two nights so it is my turn. Rain or shine, tomorrow I'm headed to Picton. I picked the wrong town to try to learn to Paraglide in. After that first day a month ago, I've been cancelled on at least five more days. And after tommorrow they're taking two days off. Arrggh. So forget it. One more chance and then I'll have to start at the beginning in Seattle. That's all for today.

2004-01-30T17:26:00.000-08:00

oh man, it's still raining in Nelson. There were a couple of street fairs today and the busker festival but the rain came and ruined it all. I saw my busker friends doing their best in their intentionally super ugly siames twin costume, in the rain. What's more, I talked up this town to Carol and Sheena for three days as the most beautific town in all creation. And not twenty minutes ago they were standing outside the theater trying to buy tickets to see Honey. I say 'they' because I wouldn't have seen it if you punched me in the throat and poured salt in my eyes. But here's the amazing part--it was sold out!!! for the second day in a row!!!!!!! It just proves that there are 6 girls for every guy in Nelson. I went to a bookstore and found "Crime and Punishment", which I've been looking for for some time. As I was buying it I commented that it's hard to find literature in New Zealand. The owner looked at me with a resigned shrug and nod that communicated the fact that he had long ago realized that he lived in a country of thick cromagnum people. He said that New Zealanders are often suprised when they go overseas and find bookstores that don't sell stationary and deodorant. I've had to slow my eating back now to the normal human amount of caloric intake. I found the other day when I bought two of those large chocolate muffins that I didn't want the second one. It's a sad thing. not buying so much food and zero alcohol should make the last few weeks of this trip the cheapest. All I've got left to pay for is surfboard rentals, a ferry ride, and normal expenses. There are a few things such as mountain biking that I've skipped because I've promised myself I'd do it when I get home with my lovely new mountain bike. I remember buying it and thinking if I just use it for crazy rides 20 times I'll pay for what it would cost to rent a similar bike at touristy places. So now I have to make good on it. I hope Mark or Brad are willing to go with :) Well enough of my onscreen internal monolouge. It's a slow day. I'll try to have some good adventure before I write next.

2004-01-29T18:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes in life I have to update my internal profile of default attributes. Yesterday was one of those days. We all have identity traits that we just take for granted and as we grow, those traits occasionally change. It is a good day when I can identify something about myself that has been out of date but I've been too distracted to notice. I'll give you an example. I don't like pancakes. For the majority of my life I've lived with the impression that I liked pancakes. And it wasn't until about two years ago when my good pal Luke was dreamily talking about how much he fancied a tall stack of pancakes, that I found myself scowling at the thought. I don't know if I had always scowled at the mention of pancakes or if Luke's childlike declaration of his intent to eat some, caused me to react with a spontaneous and involuntary counter-emotion. Well, ever since then, I have identified myself as one who doesn't usually eat pancakes. Moreover, I have eaten twice as many oranges and cut out most beverages aside from water and juice and the occasional milk, and more recently tea. So back to yesterday. I thought I liked trains. I know now that I like the idea of trains and the history of trains, but riding them is not for me. I took the Tranzalpine train trip from the east coast to the west coast. Aside from moving me closer to where I wanted to be, it did nothing for me. If I took my ques from the japanese tourists on the train, I should have been fighting for the chance to take pictures of every aspect of the trip. But I was realizing that for me, it wasn't a big deal. Since I was updating my identity I also returned to the issue of alcohol. And, yep, I still hate it. This one is like the pancakes except I didn't really drink alcohol until I was about 24ish. All growing up and throughout university I saw drinking alcohol as a sign of weakness and a lack of creativity. It wasn't until I realised I was acting judgemental that I thought I should at least give it a try. So I entered into a life of moderate drinking. Now while I have had some occasions where it could be argued that alcohol has augmented the silliness levels of some evenings and therefore the amount of fun, 94% of alcohol related activities are just expensive. For my own personal record keeping I'll list the few evenings which have been officially augmented by alcohol in my life. 1) The first margarita night in Bellingham at Dusty and Jenny's in 2002 2) The night in London in May 2001 with Ed and his flatmates at some girl's going away party. 3) Playing cribbage with Mark Dotson early 2003 drinking whisky at his dining room table, also in Bellingham. Most other times, I believe, would have been just as good if not better had alcohol been absent from my possesion. This issue was also brought about because of my hitchhiking adventures when I offered to buy my drivers and company a round of drinks. These solitary rounds of drinks become more rounds of drinks and afterwards I found I had spent much more than I would have spent on bus tickets. So last night I excersised the no thanks after about three drinks and I think I'll improve upon that trend for the remainder of this trip. I'm back in Nelson, and the town that was sunny for eight straight days is raining something fierce. I was met at the train station by Carol and Sheena with little cards bearing my name, and I have brought them back to my favorite hostel in the land. This is the home stretch of the trip where I begin to reclaim my luggage on my way back north eventually reaching Auckand and flying home. I want to do some more paragliding here and then I'll be on my way. When I got to the hostel, obviously the backpackers were all different. But I was struck by the singular difference in a great number of the guests. The first one I noticed had a bowler hat on and a dirty sportjacket with jeans on. Then I saw some older skinny women who looked like they had spent some time in the weather. As I looked about I thought there was something strange afoot at Tasman Bay. Eventually I began talking to a girl and she told me that there is a busker festival this week. A busker is a street performer. My informant turns out to have siamese twin act with another girl. I'll be checking it out tomorrow no doubt. Today I plan to get through a nice chunk of my Charles Dickens book as I look at the rain, and then Sheena, Carol, and I will go see "Cold Mountain," my second movie in a week. The other night when I was exhausted in Dunedin I just went to go see "The Last Samuri". I don't suppose it will go down as a great movie but there was a great theme. At one point the samuri guy says, "A man cannot change his destiny" and then Captain Algren says, "A man does what he can, until his destiny reveals itself." I thought that was worth remembering. Oh, I'd like to thank Karin, from New York who had the answer to my riddle. The answer was, you ask each of the people to point to their home towns. The liar will point to the good town, and so will the truthteller. Thanks Karin. Carol bought a riddle book in Wanaka and I feel I did much better as I could get most of them by the end. I fancy myself a much more logical thinker than an abstract or lateral thinker, but I did okay at the book. It took some stretching, but hey. Well that's the news.

2004-01-26T17:37:00.000-08:00

I'm in Dunedin now, sitting next to Glenn Quint, my successor to the throne of Star Princess computer instructor and I am feeling quite giddy. Seeing the crew members wander by is fun, and I almost feel like I have to be back on board at 5:30. But in reality, at 5:30 my thin veil of familiarity slips away and I return once again to square one of the social ladder. That being, a guy, in a foreign town, with a backpack and nothing else but his wits with which to get by. The last adventure didn't exactly go as planned, but it was pretty darn cool for all the randomness that coalesced into a delicious random pot pie. I got off the script of going to Milford sound with the girls actually as I was writing my last post, only I didn't know it at the time. I had agreed to leave with them at 10am but I was writing in my little kitchen after 11. They waited until 11:20 and figured I must have gone to do a bungy jump or something, since I was considering it the night before. So I wandered over to the lounge where I was going to meet them and the guys said "What are you doing here? They left 5 minutes ago." I was bummed. But by that time I was looking forward to doing Milford Sound so I decided to go anyway and try my first big hitchhike. I walked to the road that leads out of town and stuck out my thumb. I was excited because I figured it would be a fun opportunity to collect stats on cars per hour on that road if nothing else. After a few minutes a guy picked me up and drove me out of town to where the highway breaks off towards Te Anau. The trip to Milford Sound was to be about four hours or so including three highway turns so I was pushing it to get there by the evening. It was almost 2pm by the time I got positioned outside of Queenstown. After a few minutes a car pulled over 20 yards beyond me and I thought, hey that was quick. I grabbed my bag to run up to the car, only to realize that the buttfaces had just pulled over to look at a map. In disgust I rapped on the window, which got their attention. The lady quickly sized up what they had done from the indignant look on my face. I said, "Thanks, pull over 20 yards beyond a hitchhiker, and make him run, real nice." She was shocked to be assaulted so suddenly but uttered a feeble "oh, sorry" as I stormed off back to my spot. I made a mental note that hitchhiking can make one moody. I was actually just mad at myself for missing the ride with the girls. Self loathing makes one irritable sometimes. After another few minutes another car pulled over and a guy asked "where ya headed?" I said, "Milford Sound" "Me too" "No Way!" "Sweet as!" "I'll split the gas" It was cool. His name was James and he was an American working as a chef at the luge place. So my ride was all sorted out. We went directly to Milford Sound and quickly bonded through common experiences and so on. We both agreed that this was the most beautiful highway in New Zealand, and hence much of the world. We stopped off for a killer little hike called "the Chasm" about 20 minutes from the end of the drive. It was really just a picture stop but James found a small trail that broke off and led down to the bottom of the Chasm. It was the kind of deal where you go to check out a viewpoint, and then incrementally you find yourself getting further and further into a wilderness state and then half and hour later you're trying to cross a raging river with slippery rocks praying that you don't slip and die. Well we got to the only lodge at Milford sound at about 7pm and as I opened the door I almost bumped into Carol the Canadian. She clapped her hands and after a quick review of how we got off the page we were restored to travel buddies. Independent travel is strange. There are varying degrees of togetherness and it's a very nunaced process that travelers go through to proceed from one stage to the next. They are as follows: Stage one: you meet as passing ships in the night. You may experience a brief conversation together or an evening/activity together but never is there any discussion on other towns or future experiences. Stage two: You compare itineraries and desires and speak into existance the notion of seeing the other person in a different setting at a future date. And the thought of doing something together on purpose comes up. Stage three: After deciding that you could venture together you sort out the details and get going. Now you are a social unit. You are traveling "at will" but together. Stage four: You and the other person influence one another's plans and compromise in order to stay together for mutual benefit, whether that be vehicular, social, romantic or whatever in nature. To be continued... ...okay back Or there's the more normal way to travel, or stage six which is: You have planned and are executing and entire trip as co-travelers and do most/all things together. You pray that things go well because come hell or high water, you're with that person. The girls and I got mussed up halfway through stage 3. Consequently we had lost a step and had to re-evaluate but that took no time in this instance as we both knew that we were feelin' "the love" so to speak. James and I set up our tents because there were no more beds (and I prefer my tent to stinky snory dorm beds). The girls had already gone on a cruise so James and I went on a cruise the next morning through the crazily stunning Milford Sound. When we got on the cruise I headed for the little food counter as I was ready for breakfast and I asked the girl how she was doing. She said great, because 1) it was her birthday, and 2) they had just tendered up to a huge cruise ship and taken 73 people off for a transfer to a tour. Guess which cruise ship that was? By the way, Milford Sound, like most geographical locations, was named long ago. And as we all know, in yesteryear people were not always accurate with their naming of locations. Milford Sound is technically a fiord, not a sound. Interestingly, Captain Cook missed it altogether whilst he was checking out the coast in the 1770s. The guy who discovered it in the 1820s must have had kittens when he realized that he had stumbled upon such a beautiful hidden fiord. They tell me that the entrance to the fiord is hard to spot from just a ways out, but it looked pretty wide to me. Captain Cook is amazing though, his record stands for itself. After the cruise the girls and I took off back towards Queenstown and I suggested we stop and look at the Chasm. We did and half an hour later, I had the proper dainty English girl barefoot and fording the river saying "bloody 'ell" much to the amusement of Carol and I. Carol for her part, is not your average exotic dancer. She is also a social worker who has done wilderness survival trips with messed up abused teenage girls. And she also frustrated Sheena and I with riddles as we were driving. The first one I knew. It's a bit of a classic and always good to have in your back pocket whenever you want to appear smarter than you are. It goes, What's greater than God, more evil than the devil, rich people need it, poor people have it, and if you eat it, you'll die? So we were going along and I realized that I needed to get out at a desolate highway crossing in order to get to Dunedin today. It was somewhat sudden and Carol had just done another riddle that I was milling over in my head. We made tentative plans to meet up once again after I do the tranzalpine train ride in a couple of days. And to be cruel she wouldn't give me the answer to the riddle. Perhaps someone could help me out with it. You're walking down a road and you come to a fork. There is a good town down one road and a bad town down the other. At the fork are standing two individuals, each representing their towns. The good town person can only tell the truth while the bad town person can only lie. What single question can you ask them both which will reveal the way to the proper town? After a while she stipulated that I couldn't ask a general knowledge question such as which way is up? I'm soliciting for comments here again, but this time the reward is raised status in the eyes of all my readers. They let me out and drove away, leaving me under a gray sky near a gas station and a farm. This was a similar situation where I was looking for a four hour ride with mulitple highway changes involved. In 23 minutes 14 cars passed me, causing a small amount of concern. Then a lone girl in a car passed with a queer smile on her face and the car directly behind her with a couple pulled over to pick me up. We were introduced and the set up was comical. In the car that picked me up were two travelers who had just hit it off and were having a little romance. In the front car was the girlfriend of the girl in the back car. The girls had a rented car but the twitterpated one was ditching her friend for her new boy. It seemed that they picked me up to even the odds a bit and the front girl had smiled because she had called it as soon as she saw me. Luck would have it, that they too were headed for Dunedin. After a while the front car pulled over and the girls teamed up, leaving Bob and me to follow. I didn't care as long as I had a ride. Then things started to get a little strange. The girls started writing silly notes in the window, like "Beer Oclock!"and "Dance off at 11:00!" It took Bob and I a while to warm to this game playing. But when they hung their bras out the window we decided we'd have to do something. So we passed them and while we did so we pulled up our shirts. Then they passed us doing the same. Then they made a suggestive movement so as to intimate that things were not all hetero in the first car, if you catch my drift. Bob and I weren't going to touch that but figured that we had to do something. So we drove in silence for a bit, then he said, how bout we switch places and then pass them. I said okay. He hit the cruise control and I reclined my seat and climbed back out of the way. While still holding the wheel he moved his body into my seat and I slipped over into the drivers seat. It was all so quick that I was driving before I realized that he didn't even ask if I'd driven on the left before or anything. So that was nuts. We passed them and waved and they waved back but then suddenly their jaws dropped. It was pretty good. After that they tried to top it but they couldn't. At length Bob said, "I'm 31 years old and I'm acting like a juvenile" I said, "yeah, If there were traffic cones around, they'd be on our heads for sure." They ended getting me into the cool sold out hostel which they were staying at somehow, and we had dinner at a chinese restauruant. Vicki went to the bathroom and came back with a guitar, and Bob, myself, and eventually, the Chinese restaurant owner took turns playing songs. The owner was the best because not only was he a complete lush, with a slurring chinese accent, but he had the classical guitar posture with a hunched over head and guitar up at an angle and he played like a pro. We later saw him at a bar and I couldn't understand a single word he said. So that was the last two days. Now, the ship has left and I have just had a very comforting day of sitting in coffeeshops and talking with my "old friends" from the crew of the ship. It was unbelievably nice to relax with familiar people after a few days of crazy instant high jinks. I took pictures of some of them and it's amazing that every picture I get of Clare and I looks like an engagement photo. But we're not quite engaged. So now, I'm going to try to catch a bus to Christchurch. I do not feel like meeting anyone new and hitchhiking takes too much out of me. At least those last two times did. I imagine if I get a bigger sample set, the average would be less crazy. But I must go.

2004-01-24T13:52:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days have flown by. I'm in Queenstown, the most hyped up little adventure town in this hyped up little adventure country. It seems to live up to the hype too. There are more ways here to get an adrenaline rush than can be counted in a day of research. And they all seem to really cool in their own little ways. For me, someone who researches the fun out of everything at the last moment possible, this has led to 2 days of man on the street interviews followed by consumate brochure studying. I have managed to have some good fun, via a ski gondola ride and a little gravity powered luge ride which I raced Ninca and some others on a few times. It wasn't a true adrenaline rush but there was a guy getting bandaged up with no skin on his right palm or his left elbow directly in front of where we boarded our little luges. It added a sense of real danger. I did get sunburnt again. Partially because we're in the mountains, and partially because there's no freakin Ozone layer here, NZ is where the hole is. Other than that, I've been sitting in a hostel (the hippo) with the best view in all of New Zealand, replanning the last chunk of my trip. I turned in my bike at about 7:10 this morning. I was suprised at that hour to realize that as I was lifting it onto the bus rack to send it away like a red headed stepchild, that I was going to miss it. It took me through some good times. I'm very glad I did it. But as I want to do some things at very different parts of the island and time is getting short, its slow gait just wasn't going to work anymore. I'm heading off today on a little road trip with an English girl, a new Dutch girl (not nearly as funny as Ninca, for she called shrimp, 'pink animals') and a Canadian stripper. We are going back to Milford sound for a little cruise and some good time road tripping fun. I have to say back to Milford sound because back in November I was physically in Milford sound. Only I slept through it. It's one of my two regrets from the whole cruise ship experience. I forget at present what the other one was. But as I have told my Milford sound story repeatedly, there used to be another regret too. The story goes like this; we were sailing from Hobart, Tazmania and everyone was excited for our day of fiordland cruising. I was excited for a rare chance of sleeping in as it wasn't an exploration day nor a full work day. (I experiemented with giving myself a half day of work in the afternoon on the computer class schedule. ) So I thought I'd just casually get up at about 9 that day. When I finally showed my deadbeat face above deck people were saying where 'were you at 7:30'. I said I was sleeping. The rest of the day was lived in shame. We had two more fiords to cruise through and ohh and ahh at. We went through one called Doutbful Sound, named by Captain Cook because he was doubtful that there was a 7-11 there with any newspapers. I spent the time looking peacefully up at the mountains and the glassy water enjoying the beauty. But whenever I remarked how pretty it was to anyone I was rebutted with a "well it's nothing compared to this morning, wasn't that just gorgeous?" So to me, this is a chance at redeeming one of my failures. But the expense is that I might not have time to do any of the bungy-esque activities here in Queenstown. But we'll see. And just to so there's no speculation, I decided to team up with a stripper on this next little adventure before I knew she was a stripper, ok. But a bunch of us went dancing last night and it wasn't long before we noticed that she was a really "good" dancer, in a professional sort of way. She said she did it in Australia, to pay off her student loans and make some money for traveling, and that she never would have done it at home. I'm telling you, you meet the darndest people out here. Last night I almost got my big American mouth in trouble in a political debate with an Israeli, a Swiss guy, and another Canadian. It was good and as the Israeli perspective is always an extra curious one, I learned a lot. I'm told that whether there's an American present or not, the focus of such discussions usually centers on the stupidity of a certain dubya. I'm going to try to meet up with the Princess folks here in a couple of days and I'm pretty excited. I've got a logistical hurdle, but those have a way of working out most of the time. As I turned in my bike bags with my bike I had to buy yet another backpack last night. I found the cheapest one of decent quality in town and then the guy gave me 30% more off. So it wasn't that much of a sacrifice, (about $80usd). I figured my chances of hitchiking with a garbage bag were not as good as with a proper backpack. But when I come home I'll look like a small boy scout troop. I have now three backpacks, one army bag and a large pullman piece of luggage, with my flippers and tux etc. Oh, there's a correction I have to make concerning the last post. I didn't summit the highest road in NZ, it was just the highest highway, which was a modest 1056meters or so, but I can say I crossed the Southern Alps on bicycle now. And about the Shania Twain thing, she got a hair cut right after me in Wanaka. But I didn't see her. I guess she was buying a ranch or something down here. I had a funny episode last night with an Australian guy named Jonathon after we got back from being out and about. We got back quite late, and had snacks and I shared Manuka honey with everyone, (Manuka honey is special magic honey that makes you strong and healthy). The others had gone to bed but Jon and I stayed up for a little while longer to finish our tea. We had gotten all the basics from everyone earlier that night or days before in some cases, pertaining to everyone's age, nationality, name and so on. Jon and I were breaking it down, pretty serious-like and I said as to confirm, 'you're 22 right?' and he said "yeah, well, actually 20, but backpacking I'm 22." We busted up laughing because it was just so simple. It was a perfect instance of the remaking of identity that I am amazed could go on here. I still haven't had the guts to change any part of my identity yet. Although, we agreed, age is a minor white lie. I think the coolest thing would be to meet some people and hang out with them for a few days or so and have my name be Hank, or Gerome, or Omar. I just don't have the guts. I think about it but I'm not cool enough to lie, that boldfacedly. Well, there's still time. I'll take name suggestions for my next section with no human overlapping. So if any of you suckas leave a good name in my comments section, I'll pick the best one to be my fake name. I did get a nickname in Wanaka, but that was because one girl mentioned the old thing about if you were a porn star, you could get your pornstar name by combining your first pet with your mother's maiden name. We went around and I said my name would be Spanky Tait. So it stuck and I was Spanky while kayaking and hanging out in Wanaka. But that's not really what we're going for here, is it? No, I don't think so. Okay, I'm heading off. It's time to pack up my fresh clean laundry in my brand new backpack. I feel like a new man. But I miss the bike. I may do that again somewhere on this little blue/green planet.

2004-01-21T16:32:00.000-08:00

After a few days of relaxing, and kayaking and narrowly missing a haircut next to Shania Twain, I'm heading out of Wanaka. I've just put together lunch and I must be getting cocky because it's after 1 and I've got the highest road in New Zealand to summit today and I'm sitting here. I've got 110 minutes that I already paid for so I've got to say something before I leave. So, hi there. It's really hot outside. I tried to reply to Joia but there seems to be something wrong with my comment software today. But if you read Joia's last comment then here's my reply; I never said being an eternal cheerleader was a bad thing. But for the record everyone, Joia has a masters degree and is married and has moved on from high school in every way. Moreover, her loyalty and connection to her old friends is stronger than most of ours. And for that she should receive a muffin and a handclap. :) Last night I made fajitas with a dutch girl, a scot, and and english girl. None of them could fold a tortilla without breaking it or dripping sauce everywhere. Somethings are better about America afterall. Our proximity to Mexico affords us much more experience with flour tortillas and therefore increasing our overall fajita prowess. Not to mention, quesedillas and burritos. I almost got a biking partner for the first time today. Ninca, one of the fajita amigas, brought her biking shorts to NZ on the off chance that she would meet someone to bike with. But I showed up a dollar short and a day late so to speak. But it's too bad because everything she says is with that unique dutch accent that doesn't even sound real. I wish I knew how dutch people sounded to each other when they talked, because to me, it's more than an accent. When they talk it sounds like they're over dramatizing everything. I can't tell if Ninca is super funny or I just think she is because of her accent. But she said that all the Americans she's met are very weird. I wish I could have recorded her saying it. I laugh just thinking about it. Okay. I'm going to go ride my bike now.

2004-01-20T14:30:00.000-08:00

Here's a story of how I lost my bike helmet, willed the rain to stop, and was offered $100 for my campsite. After the legendary rainstorm I decided to take a bus to the next town which gave me a 120km headstart for the day. I was officially tired of the coast which offered too many headwinds and not enough variety. I got off the bus at the pivotal town of Haast, named for a french explorer who had the luck of naming it after himself. This town marked highway 6's departure from the coast and as I was so excited to be heading into some mountains, I didn't notice the bus driving away with my helmet in the trailer. I went into a store and for the first time ever, bought some tea and a glass coffee mug. When I returned to my bike and got everything set, I noticed the missing helmet and smacked my forehead. I thought, now this is a showstopper. Fortunately I was near a backpacker's hostel and a lady there offered me a crappy extra large rainbow helmet for free, citing it's ugliness as reason for her faith in my likelihood of sending it back to her. For about two hours I rode, with a glorious tailwind. It is remarkable how much more enjoyable it is, riding with the wind at your back rather than in your face. The tall grass along the road, which had before only aided the wind's cruelty in showing me the strength of my opposition, now leaned in the direction of my forward motion, and even had the appearance of cheering me on, like throngs of supporters along a racecourse. I covered 49kms in no time and pulled into a campsite dancing on the pedals as if I had only recently started out. I was met by six or seven other cyclists who were setting up camp for the evening. It was about 4pm and a respectable time to call it quits for most. I began chatting with some of them and filled up my water bottles when I realized that this campsite was ruled by the minions of the dark plague. Sandflies were everywhere. I looked at my legs in horror knowing that every black creature I saw represented itchy consequences for the next couple of days. I swept my hands down from my thighs to my ankles, only to have more land on my thighs again that very moment. I looked at the other campers and only then noticed that on this hot sunny day they were all covered in clothing from head to toe. I bid them farewell and said I was going to take on the pass. I had four kms to go before a 20km ride up over the pass to the next campsite. It seemed easy enough. I sped to the beginning of the pass and as I came to within 40 yards of the start of the climb I was assaulted by a crushing wind that opposed me and forced me to a halt. I turned my bike around as I had just passed a short waterfall hike pullout. And as I was turning, my side caught the full force of this sudden wind and almost pushed me down into the lane of traffic. Incredulously I pedalled to the pullout and looked up the pass where all was dark, and menacing. The rain began slowly but in five minutes was causing streams down the gutters of the highway. For a short while I considered going back to sandfly land but something said to me, no, this is too sudden. It will pass. Wait. For about an hour I sat, on a railing, legs crossed, hood covering my head, arms folded and resting on my knees. My bike was partially hidden under the canopy of a tree and people in cars all took note that there was a solitary person sitting in the new rainstorm. None stopped to help as I wore my resolve on my face and almost smiled in confidence that it would pass. Then it did. A car passed me on an approach to the pass and I saw steam rising off the road in lazy swirls that followed the car. So the wind had died, and then the rain let up. Thank you, I said, and mounted my bike. The pass was very nice. As usual it took longer than I had figured but I was rewarded by beautiful sights that rivaled that of the Haines highway in Alaska. I took the first campground offered and as it was 7:30 at this time I was ready to take anything. There were only two other cars at the campsite and I took what seemed to me to be the best spot. As I parked my bike and looked out over a 20 mile view of alpine magnificence, a rainbow appeared and seemed to touchdown right in front of the ridge where my tent was to be perched. Over the next 10 minutes about seven or eight cars showed up and selected in turn the best remaining campsites. It was strange to see a campsite fill so late in the evening with sunset only an hour or so away. But that's how it happened. And what a sunset it was. Coloring the sky brilliant orange and pink. I made a huge meal with servings for 5 and brewed my first solitary cup of tea in my life. It was green tea, and it was nice. And there were few sandflies. As I was sitting at my bench admiring my view, a group of 5 Americans taking a stroll walked over to me. One of them said, I'll give you $100 if you move. I shrugged and said, ok, but she snickered and said she was kidding. That's where the blissful part ends. As I got up in the morning I noticed my tent being pressed down by a strong wind from the wrong direction. I tried the willpower trick again but to no avail. I had to ride 70kms in a strong headwind and it took 7 hours. It was a gorgeous ride, but it sucked. I may end the biking part soon, for various reasons. It's been good but there's much to see and biking does take over the entire trip. My quads aren't huge, but they're firm. One muscle that is impressively larger is that one that goes down the outside of my shin. When I flex it goes out an inch or so. It's pretty cool. So now I'm in Wanaka, a cool mountainous town on a lake of the same name. This was a good morning. I usually get out of my tent at about 9:30 but last night I stayed in a hostel and I woke up this morning at 6:40. I sat in the lounge and finished Les Miserables, and had a huge breakfast, and tea. I met a girl this morning who asked me if I'm "the one" biking. I said yes, and she said she's passed me on her bus many times down the coast. She said she has the same panniers as I and she bikes a lot in Switzerland. But here she was told it would be too dangerous. Strange. Today I'm going to get a haircut, a massage, go to a warplane museum and I need to find a new book. Also my email life is alive and well. I have exchanged emails with people on this trip and they're sending me notes from where they are and usually they're quite funny. That's the best part of travelling alone, you meet many interesting people from all over the world. And you learn. And sometimes you are suprised. There's an irresistible force, which can be met with no unmoveable object save maybe death, and that force is the secondhand of a clock. Time marches on, quite stoically. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on your station, but occasionally there are times when milestones jump up and say, Hello! This time I beleive I was pondering rooftops when my thoughts wandered to the instances when I've climbed on the tops of different buildings. First, I remembered looking at the northern lights from my rooftop in Alaska. Then I thought of the time of bunch of my classmates and I repelled down from the large vent above the gymnasium to paint a '94 on our highschool. It was the middle of the night and we were performing a tradition a few weeks prior to the start of our senior year. I remembered how we signed our code initials so as to not be caught. Then I was starting to think of a prank that same bunch played after our senior year when I was arrested with a stark fact. 2004 is the year of my ten year reunion! I love it when things like that sneak up on me. Sometimes I feel to cynical or too short-sighted to let things like that come out of left field, so I'm always reassured when they do. As for that, I don't know if we're going to have a ten year reunion. Somebody told me that the people in charge are in jail or are deadbeats or don't care to plan it. It must have been Joia as she is the only one who connects me to my old Inglemoor class of 94 days anymore. And since she was a cheerleader and always will be, she'd know best. I'd really like to have a reunion. It would be fun. Well, there's a mouthful. That should make up for my lack of writing for the last while. I don't know what the next few days will bring but I'm starting to feel in a hurry. I haven't got all that much time left.

2004-01-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

3 Germans 3 Brits 3 Americans 1 Irish 1 Australian 4 separate instances where my lacking a proper teacup has been a problem 1 Wind/rain storm that almost tore my tent apart, (presently underway) 400km 7 campsites 1 Mother of all Views >50 sandfly bites (mostly on feet and calves) 2 Glaciers 5 hot days countless overpriced internet cafes So that's about what I've been up to, who I've been hanging out with, and some of the struggles I've encountered. Right now I'm pinned to a small pueblo because of horrible sideways rain. I've not seen it like this since Wellington. More specifically I'm stuck in a kitchen/lounge with cartoons on the TV and lots of soggy foreigners looking crestfallenly out the windows. Well my times up. More later maybe. It'll be a long day.

2004-01-11T23:39:00.000-08:00

I'm in Graymouth now. Working my way down the west coast of the South Island. I've gotten past the pain now and I can bike like nobody's business. It's much more enjoyable now. I'm in a very cool hostel that has a ton of african art all on the walls. I wish I had something interesting to say. The coast is really great. Today it poured buckets and I almost got run off the road by one car. There were also 13 hills of varying hight that I had to negotiate to get through it. But at least I wasn't hungry. Just for fun, I've been eating rediculous amounts of food all day long. I've met a few other bikers because we all seem to stop at the same places for breaks. But I don't have a lot in common with any of them, accept for the first british guy. One thing that he and I talked about is that bikers seem to be a weird lot. Well, they all seem to be german. (sorry Anett) I would be very suprized to find another American biking down here. But as for that, last night I was making dinner and talking to other backpackers when someone asked me where I was from. I said Seattle and two other people when "no way!" It seemed that last night saw 3 Seattlites in Punakaiki, NZ. I doubt that will happen again. Tonight as I was walking to the grocery store a guy from the hostel whom I hadn't met yet but recognized drove by and offered me a ride. We ended up making a big steak, potatoes, corn on the cob dinner. While still at the store he looked curiously as I bought an additional pizza and other snaking devices. I assured him they wouldn't see dawn. In fact right now I'm eating an entire strawberry cheesecake. Being constantly hungry is sort of cool if you let it be. Tomorrow I'm going to hit a $3 all you can eat BBQ. bring it. I can't believe I have over a month left here. I've been doing this for a while now. I suppose I would feel rushed to cut it short though. We'll see. You can only go so fast on a bike. I have meditated on suffering a lot while going up hills. It's strange how pain, if pushed through, yeilds triumph. It's not a new lesson but it is so true. okay I'm out of time again. late

2004-01-08T16:11:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a day of rest in Murchison. Yesterday was supposed to be a day of rest. But I met some Kiwi Kayakers at the campground and they took me whitewater kayaking since they had an extra kayak. I didn't realize this when I got here, but Murchison is a kayakers destination spot. At the campground there are about 15-20 cars and vans with loads of kayaks stacked all on top. I didn't really know what I was doing so I fell in the drink 3 times but by the third I managed to rescue myself. It was good fun, but it was exhasting. So I have been in a state of exhaustion for a few days now. Today it's rainy and windy so I'm just reading. I just bought an ancient copy of Les Miserables at a used book store so that should help the depressing effect of rain out. I think my tend and consequently my body got infested with little tiny bugs last night. It's not so fun. But I guess it's all part of the adeventure. I met a british guy who is also biking around and he gave me some tips on routes and also told me to expect to eat like an army. I understood that quite readily. Last night after kayaking I ate three deli sandwiches and a slice of chocolate mouse and I still scarfed down copious cookies (here they call them buscuits) later at the kayaker camp. Well this is the most expensive internet ever so that's all folks.

2004-01-06T23:23:00.000-08:00

Man, my ass feels like I just spent a week in prison. I've been biking for two days now and I've come to realize that carrying a lot of gear makes for an entirely different experience going up hills. Yes, in two days I've crossed two mountain passes at the breakneck speed of six kph. But the book assures me that it's smooth sailing for at least the next couple of days. Last night I couldn't get as far as I had hoped because by afternoon my legs wouldn't put any umph into the rotations. For the last two hours I moved along in disbelief that I was that pooped out. As I was contemplating if I should continue to the second pass I saw a sign that said "water supply." I think there were angels singing too but I can't prove that. I went down to get water and did something akin to passing out or falling asleep from exhaustion. After about ten minutes I woke up and decided that that water supply was a fine looking camp site. This morning I packed up and as I was picking up my bike I watched as the wheel bent and the spokes sent the wheel reflector flying. It took about four seconds to realize that as I was lifting my bike off the ground, the wheel buckled under the weight of my two loaded panniers, tent, and sleeping roll. Well I took off my wheel, and banged it on the ground until it was round enough so as to not rub along the rear fork. Then I rode up the next pass. It was called hope saddle, and not knowing much about wheels and weight tolerance I hoped with all my might that the wheel wouldn't break. At about noon I reached a place called Hu-Ha Bikepackers. The owner had a spoke tool that he let me borrow. Since I knew nothing about trueing up a bent wheel I took about three hours to get it fixed. But by the end it not only fit, but I was amazed that I could even use the rear breaks again. Now as I ride, I look down and see the beauty of my first repair job spinning in near centrifugal perfection. So after two days I've made a few adjustments to my initial plan. I'll be going slower through middle earth than I had planned. And I'll not ride to exhaustion again. By the way, the mountains are beautiful. I'm in the town of Murchison tonight, in case anyone cares.

2004-01-04T21:26:00.000-08:00

Nothing very interesting happened today. I did find a sweedish girl who likes Dave Matthews. If this doesn't suprise you then you haven't known that the icon of American college dorms has not made it big in Europe. Europeans a few years ago didn't even know who he was. I've introduced his music to a bunch myself. It looks like my work has paid off as he seems to have caught on a little bit now. Let's hope Robbie Williams, who is the biggest star in the UK, doesn't make it over here. He's like a one man boy band. Actually, New Zealand music is pretty cool. I'll be bringing back a great mix cd of all NZ musicians. It's finally time for me to leave Nelson. the owners of the Tasman Bay backpacker hostel have started to tell people that they are limiting their stays to two weeks. That must have brought frowns to some of the people who had been staying on their fifth week. Tomorrow I was planning on heading out anyway. I'm now ready to take on the colder weather of the south. I had a chance to buy a van today for $50 but I didn't because my destiny rests elsewhere. There is one caveat; I didn't account for the added weight of my gear causing more wear on my knee. There is a dutch dude who I've met who did the north island on his bike but his knee is failing on him. I've never had knee problems with biking before but we'll see. I went to a museum today that had two galleries. One was wearable art consisting of strange bras and rediculous costumes. The other was classic cars. I've never seen a museum designed with heterosexual couples in mind but it was pretty cool. grils to the left, guys to the right. See ya in an hour or so. I think I'm beginning to become very impressionable or openminded or posessing the intelligence of a puppy dog. As I was looking at a black 1967 Mustang I thought to myself that I should really get me one of those when I get home. After all I need a car, and it won't depreciate like a late model car would... Ok, I'm outa here.

2004-01-03T23:43:00.000-08:00

Three days into the new year. So far it's been pretty good. But what does pretty good mean? Let's get some grading criteria, shall we? Weather: Certainly much much better than average Stress Level: low Adventure factor: somewhat high Ambition/motivation level: low to moderate level of missing home: holding steady at somewhat outgoing mood: adequate financial outlay in 2004: too much (paragliding and Kayaking) overall satisfaction: pretty good Let's take a look more closely at ambition/motivation level. I was watching two guys play chess yesterday and I was thinking about all the ways that chess is like life. In chess, in order to be successful you have to be able to plan many moves in advance. You have to strategise. You have to sacrifice. You also have to accept the rule that horsies can only go in an L shape. In life, horsies can go whereever they want to until they hit a fence or a cowboy whips them. -wait, that wasn't my point. In life you can get away with much less strategising. Many of the people whom I am meeting daily are surviving on a day to day subsistance plan. They work a few days in an orchard or a few weeks in a restaraunt and then move on. This way of traveling is a great way to get in close to a foreign place if you have the time and lack deep pockets. But it's sort of a spontaneous life that according to the standards of chess, is pretty weak. If chess were life they'd get traunced by someone with a plan in no time. Other people I have met are taking a well deserved holiday after persuing a profession or goal of some sort for a long while. They get a waiver on the chess grading scale. Or actually, they have sacrificed much, heretofore, and this holiday is a bishop/rook worth protecting in their game. (Skip this paragraph if you want a concise argument) I went to a workshop for teachers once and the creator of the workshop said that you need to have your proverbial cup running over in four areas in order to be able to teach well at all times. He said you need to have 1)some sort of outside achievement, 2)a sense of respect from others, 3)freedom to make choices, and 4)an outlet for fun. Lacking any of those things, you will be a needy teacher, rather than an effective teacher. It was a revolutionary thought for some of the teachers in the workshop. Many of them had been trying to squeeze games into their classes so that they could have fun. Others had been trying to make a difference in "just one person" to realize their sense of achievment. Dennis (the workshop leader) was challenging the teachers to think on a bigger level. He said you will fail/burn out if you try to feed yourself when your job is to feed others. Of course teaching is a great way to learn but that cannot be your prime motive. Some of the teachers got it. But some weren't ready for something so compelling. They held fast to their belief that a horrible year would all be made "worth it" if they could reach that one trouble student. They were sincere but they didn't understand there was a strategy available to raise the bar on their concept of sucess. He was inviting them all to turn themselves into unflappable teaching machines by adding hobbies and dicipline to their lives. He was inviting them all to play chess and recognize more pieces and rules and realities of the game than they realized were there. We are all playing this game, although not all of us notice the pieces on the board that we can use. Or we discount the horsy becuase it seems bound by a weird rule. I was obviously in the sun all day long. I went kayaking today and swam and ate raw sea urchins and muscles. I purchased a guided kayak tour yesterday and was regretting it as we started out this morning because Harold (the guide) was giving instruction on paddling. I thought, 'I know how to freaking kayak.' Harold turned out to be the only Maori guide out of like 50 guides in Abel Tasman National Park. He taught us all day long about different birds, wood types, Maori ways and so on. It only took about half an hour of this for me to come to grips with the fact that Harold was the coolest possible guide you could ever have on a nature tour. He was giving facts all day but imbedded in stories of Maori culture. He made us sing Maori songs while paddling because paddling gets boring when you're exploring the ocean (as the Maori did along with the Vikings 1000 years ago.) He made the culture come alive as much as the Haka evening a few weeks ago. And he talked like a street punk. That is, when he wasn't chanting blessings to the water or telling us we are all bound to the same destiny. By the end he was explaining why some of the Maori are getting called eco-terrorists, and his perspective was completely logical considering his world outlook. It was a gift, and all 6 of us on the tour knew it. So if you go touring in Abel Tasman, ask for Harold. Wow, they're closing the internet cafe. I guess so. It's 8:30 on a Sunday. I need to eat dinner anyway. Given more time I could have edited this entry a bit. I know the teacher/chess thing got away from me a little. Dang, and I had a good point. Well, here it is anyways...

2004-01-01T22:42:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year my people. On New Year's Day about about noon I realized yet another cool result of the international dateline, which was that while I was hanging out in 2004, all my friends back home were still lingering in 2003. So I got this great idea to call people from "the future." But after about five answering machines I got self conscious about saying the same joke over again. So sorry if you were waiting by the phone at about 3pm on Dec 31st (pacific standard time). I had a decent New Years Eve, not the best but not the worst. I really enjoyed last NYE, in Seattle when I realized that karaokeing Neil Diamond is one of the greatest experiences humans can have, offering more proof that we are the highest form of life on planet earth. This year started out fine with a BBQ at the hostel with all my current comrades-in-backpackerdom. Then we got bogged down with all the grandiose ideas about how to ring in the New Year. I ended up at midnight in a crowded pub that was playing eminem and techno. Sometimes failing to plan is planning to fail. But it wasn't that bad. I got some good pictures of people I probably won't stay in contact with. I'm glad I brought my camera though. The same English bloke, Declan, talked me into bringing it along saying that I might get some good photos if I brought it and I was garanteed zero great photos if I didn't. His powers of persuasion are almost scary. Today was one of those days where I tried a new sport/hobby and I'm convinced it's going to become a part of my life. But in all honesty, I've thought this about mountain biking, rock climbing, snow boarding, motorcycling and flying airplanes. This belief usually lasts until I spend a lot of money on stuff, and then my interest tapers off till I can hardly say the sport/hobby in question is a part of my lifestyle. This flavor of the month; paragliding. It was incredible, and I picked it up like a snap. It must have been my experience skydiving because it felt really natural. I'm doing it again tomorrow. By the way, I didn't have these delusions of a new love about surfing, caving, canyoning, or anything else I've done on this trip. So I'm not completely out of my gord. The coolest thing about paragliding is that you can climb a mountain with your glider in your daypack and then take off and glide back down. What a fantasy? Why didn't I embrace this sooner is my only thought. So this means I'm still in Nelson. I've been to a total of three different towns since December 17th if anyone is keeping track. I'm definately hitting the highway in a couple of days. Nelson can't help it if it has perfect weather, tons to do and a very comfortable environment with fun people. Um, I thought about New Years Resolutions but I've never had much dicipline with them. Maybe I'll resolve to not read another Tom Clancy book. I bought "Executive Orders" and it was so fat I had to tear it in half just to carry it around. Maybe I'll resolve to eat more. I forget to eat sometimes and I start to feel woozy and don't know why. Maybe I'll resolve to start having a point when I start a paragraph. Ok, that's about it from Mr. Darryl "finally gots a good tan after about 40 months of being whity mcwhiterton" Graham. Oh yeah, and Dad, I really do have a mohawk. It's not like the Glenn Plake mohawk of the '80s. It's more a kiwi-do. Short and spiky up the middle. I don't think I'll be able to have funky hairstyles much longer so I'm having a little mid-life crisis of sorts while I can still pull off some silliness.

2003-12-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

Sunny Nelson is a good place for lounging. I'm staying at a place that has a reputation for stopping backpackers dead in their tracks for weeks and weeks. I'll spend New Years Eve here because I've run into some folks from earlier in my trip and some new ones as well. I've rented a bike but I'm a little afraid of the prospect of traveling by bike. An English bloke named Declan said that if I was afraid I should do it because it means that it's a big challenge and I'd be pushing myself. So that pushed me over the edge. Happy new year folks. Don't have much time for this post. So I'll keep it short. I have amazing Teva tan lines on my feet. That's all for now.

2003-12-28T02:42:00.000-08:00

Christmas in Wellington was a great break. It was effortless to hang out with Brooke and her friends. We did a variety of kiwi activities, such as playing pool, eating out, walking around (only here they call it tramping), making meals, checking email, doing laundry, and so on. Man, I never would have tried those things in the ole USA. Two observations; 1) If you call a cell phone in NZ the callee doesn't get charged. And toll free calls from cell phones are really free. But normal cell phone rates are pretty high. Consequently people write text messages a bunch, and texting and driving is a bigger scourge here than talking while driving is in the States. 2) There are some kiwi surfer slang terms that are quite infectious and I cannot resist them much longer. One is "sweet as...!" It's like saying "cool" or "alright" but you don't finish the phrase, it's just "sweet as!" One guy told me it's an evolution of an english phrase which is "sweet as a nut" But here it just sounds stupid. That is until you've heard it 500 times and you start saying it just to hear yourself sound stupid. Then accidentally, you'll say it as a sincere affirmation of something that you find pleasant. Then it's over. I'll try not to bring it back home but I can't promise anything. Another slang term is "choice, bro" but that just sounds like an '80s term that just turned up here. Also they have kept alive, "wicked" and a few other classics. I haven't yet heard gnarley or totally tubular. Which is a good thing. Christmas dinner was strange. There were five of us shopping a day early to prepare for Christmas dinner and I was assigned with dessert. I wanted the most efficient but also the most yummy dessert I could think of so I came up with Strawberry Shortcake. I asked Alice, the girl who was hosting us for dinner, if she had a beater for the whip cream. She said "no, I have nothing" (imagine a thick italian accent) So we all shrugged and I grabbed some spray whip cream. Fast forward to the next day. Christmas was a busy day full of presents and lots of visiting. (note for posterity: if you think you can run off to the southern hemisphere to avoid holiday fomalities and traditions, you're wrong.) We arrived at Alice's house late and she had Soundgarden playing to get in the festive spirit. We got out the groceries and asked her where the pots were to start cooking. She said, "didn't I tell you? I don't have anything." Apparently, she never cooks because she works in three restaurants. We looked at her with befuddlement because she knew we had much potato chopping and carrot slicing to do. Luckily she was wrong. We found pots and lots of utensils much to her suprise. Then I started cleaning the dishes which were all dirty to make some space on the tiny countertop. She said, "no no don't clean those. Those are my flatmate's" I looked around at the kitchen which was about 10ft by 10ft and then at everyone else. It was somewhat comic. The meal was eventually great and we had a good time, even the space cadet host. Yesterday we went to a Cricket match and a girl named Rachel helped me learn the rules. It's a funny sport because, it has many rules similar to baseball but there is one important difference. It's a gentleman's sport. What this means is that if a batter hits the ball well, he jogs to get a run. He doesn't run his guts out trying to eke out extra runs. It's gentlemanly because if he has hit it well enough it will cross the boundary (thereby getting 4 or even 6 runs automatically) and if he hasnt', it won't. It's ungentlemanly to try to sprint for extra runs. Occasionally they will run with a little hustle but usually not. Also they break for tea. And games last for five days. All day, for five days. Last night we were at dinner with six kiwis and one guy said at some point, "Here, the chort, have a trophy!" I don't remember what context brought it up, it was rather casually thrown out there. But I caught it and we became best mates in the next few minutes comparing favorite quotes and so on. Lovers of homesterrunner.com will note that the strongbad emails have reached world fame levels. Today I flew to Nelson (on the south Island) and I'm staying in a hostel again. I met Julie from the earlier bus tour right when I got here. She is doing the south island with the bus company and isn't very excited. She said after she got separated from the group that was so fun, she hasn't really jelled with any other people. And the bus ride today was silent as couples mumbled to each other and solo travelers were isolated in their own worlds. Good times are kind of hit or miss on the bus circuit I guess. I haven't even considered signing back up as I've been contemplating my options. Actually I'm no longer planning on buying a car. I figure with all the time I've got I may as well make a go at a significant adventure. So tomorrow I'm going to see about renting a bike and downsizing my gear once again to tour the south island by bike. I thought I may as well get some big quadraceps out of all this money spending and slang poisoning my brain. I have no set plans for New Year's Eve. I may be kayaking or camping by myself or a in a small group somewhere along the coast of Abel Tasman National Park. If I get super-ambitious Brooke is about 400kms away at a three day summer New Years concert festival. Don't those options sound more like July 4th options? Or I may end up in a motel somewhere by myself with a flat tire and white bread & honey sandwiches. Ahh wouldn't that be something?

2003-12-23T14:53:00.000-08:00

So this week I'm not a backpacker at all. I am out of the hostels and crashing with Brooke. I didn't realize how nice it was until I played some CDs on the stereo and vegged yesterday morning in the living room all alone. I hadn't been in a cozy domestic setting since October. It's really nice. It's cool to get away from the center of a city and walk up into the neighborhood section with a destination. It's like I belong in Wellington. It's especially nice because Brooke's flat is beautiful with hardwood floors and a great view and high ceilings. I did buy some Christmas decorations yesterday to make it a little more seasonal. She was lamenting that it didn't look like Christmas. And since there's going to be a slumber party here on Christmas eve that had to be improved. Hey Christmas eve is tonight. I must go buy some more presents so I don't become the guy who didn't have gifts. After Christmas I'm going to take the ferry to the south Island and buy a car. I've been hesitant to do it but after the bus tour on the north island I'm convinced it's the way to go. What's the worse that could happen? Well, I could end up stranded someplace with a broken down pile of crap that I paid $1000 for. But as long as it doesn't stink that would be fine. I met a girl last night from a small town in Kansas and I was bummed to realize that my photographic memory of the midwest down to the smallest detail is fading. She was from Ulysses Kansas and although I stayed near there for a couple of days in summer 2002 I couldn't remember the details. She had to remind me of the names of the surrounding towns. What this means is that in about 10 years I won't even remember having been to Kansas. And if so what was the point of going to all those little towns? I mean if I can't amaze some country bumpkin with astounding knowledge of their tiny American town, when I meet them in places like New Zealand, then was it really worth it? So here's my confession; all that driving around when I could have been watching TV in my hotel rooms was directly supposed to make me mysteriously knowledgable in future conversations with strangers. My fragile world is falling apart. That other Darryl, who has a blog, well I found him. I tried to punch him in the forehead but he's pretty quick and he dodged it. But he got the point that he needed to improve his blog so he's updated it. It's blank now but he's updated it. Mission accomplished. So Merry Christmas everyone. I'll let you all know how Santa dresses down under when he's distributing presents in teh summertime. I plan to set up my camera with a motion detector to photograph him when he comes down the chimney.

2003-12-20T23:53:00.000-08:00

I'm in a weird spot. I'm hanging out in a random city with 3 days to go before Christmas. I'm at the bottom of the North Island and I've explored the North as much as I need to. I've been invited to Christmas here in Wellington but I've got to kill three days. This part I didn't plan so well because the bus tour was fun and I didn't want to get off at any point. In retrospect I should have stayed and surfed in Raglan for a few days. Yes, that would have been nice. The bad thing is that I've sort of had the wind nocked out of my sails from mr. credit card. I checked to see what my balance was yesterday and I was shocked to see that it was about twice what I earned on the little cruise job that took me over here. I called and asked fearing that there was some fraud or hoping for a mistaken charge. So the lady was rattling off all the charges and I was like oh, yeah, uh uh, yep, eeww, forgot about that one, oh, that one too. Oh yeah, that was a good time, yeah, yeah, that would be the jacket, ouch, yep, ahh there it is, okay, okay that's enough. The short of it was that I've blown through money like a Hilton heiress after a breakup. And I didn't even budget for this trip. Add to that the fact that suddenly I don't have a job and I'm thinking about coming home soon. I may even cut short the South Island and save some key adventures for another time. The rub is that before reality struck, I had the company arrange my flight home for Feb 14th. I just took Lonely Planet's advice to give myself 2 months to properly explore New Zealand. Now they cannot change my flight and if I want to come home early I've got pay for it myself. Soo, today is one of those days of travel where one sits in an internet cafe and thinks this isn't very fun. It's these days that lacking the comfort of home kind of sucks. I'm not in an outgoing mood and all I hear around me is Christmas music. Unlike some people, I don't dislike Christmas music. In fact I love it. But I'm suprised to find that it's lame to have it be so warm outside. I was talking to a Kiwi woman today and she said that she feels like it's wrong to have Christmas in the summer too. She said that Christmas cards all have snow in them and it looks right. She said she's been to the beach most Christmases but it has always been somehow wrong. And she's always lived down here! I did see Lord of the Rings today. That was cool. And I didn't even have to get up to go to the bathroom once. I remember last year my bladder was having fun with me and I had to get up twice during The Two Towers. My long lost friend Joia emailed me today. She's been a bit out of touch for the last few months so she didn't even know about the cruise job or my new cell phone number. She called my Mom to track me down and Mom gave her this blog address. Well, Joia is not my smartest friend and she forgot the yo part of the address. Guess what we learn from all this. A guy named Darryl Ward has a blog and he lives in New Zealand and his blog address is darryl.blogspot.com. Isn't that crazy?! Thanks for not being smart Joia! By the way, in high school, Joia used to have all the same classes as me, we studied together almost every night for about three years, I got higher grades than her on everything. But she had the higher GPA. I'm still bitter. Oh well, she has to drive across 520 twice a day. ha ha. So maybe tomorrow I'm going to go punch Darryl Ward in the forehead just so he'll write something in his blog. It needs a little sprucing up.

2003-12-19T22:51:00.000-08:00

So I was writing the other day when my time ran out. That's what you get for writing at an internet station that only accepts $1 kiwi coins. I ran low on coins and it wouldn't accept my last one. I was going on about how cool the Maori culture is. To sum up, the presentation was impressive to the point of speechlessness on the part of many of us silly backpackers. It is not hard to imagine now, how the English colonialists were forced into a treaty with the Maoris, after failing to win a decisive battle against a poorly armed but otherwise skilled and fierce enemy. They actually stick their tongues out so as to say I'm going to eat your brain after I kill you. Seriously. (Cannibalism wasn't ended down here until the 1920s.) I've reached the bottom of the North Island now, in the capital city of Wellington. It's just as windy as it was the first time I visited on the cruise ship. The town's all abuzz with movie madness right now. The final installment of the Lord of the Rings trillogy opened this weekend and since this is the epicenter of the film and the director's hometown, the city is smothered with promotional hype. Moreover, it's hard to go anywhere around people and not overhear conversations between those who have already seen it. Tickets are costing $30 until Monday so I'll catch it then probably. I hope the end isn't ruined by loud chatters before then. I bet the good guys win though. I like Wellington, It's not so city-like as Auckland. I could relax here even.

2003-12-18T01:55:00.000-08:00

Camping at the Base of Mt. Doom. This last week was spent traveling by bus to some nice locations. I finally understand the mechanics of surfing. I caught 4 waves in a row after I took a proper lesson, I went caving and burnt my neck on a 10 mile hike. Today I've left the folks on the jump-on jump-off bus tour as I was compelled by my burnt neck and the beauty of this park to stay and hang out a while. I was officially bogged down in Auckland trying to figure out the best way to travel through this country. So after amost buying first a junky car, then a nicer car, then almost renting a car for 2 months I bought a travel network ticket. It's been great fun. I'm learning new things about myself as I continually get to recreate my identity on this little adventure. On the ship there was one big intro that lasted six weeks and was morphed into real friendships by the end. Here I can tell people anything and the next day I can create myself as someone new. I think tomorrow I'll be a race car driver. Now on the bus there were basically that same people for about four days and I got to know some like minded mates well enough to share photos and want to keep in email contact for future travel house-crashings. But here I sit, presently, in the Tongoriro National Park, starting again from scratch, with nothing but an invitation to Christmas dinner with Brooke in Wellington. Everyone I talk to is either an employee of this hotel or a fellow traveler and a potential travel mate for the next day or month. Last time I met someone like this, it was Anett in Ireland, and we are still in close contact. And I cannot forget Rob, and Ed from the winter of 2000 in Ecuador. The thought of those guys makes me smile every time I think of that trip or of the combined 5 times I've met up with them since. My favorite so far on this trip is a Scot named Matt who was in constant competition with me for unoficial title of biggest clown on the bus. Everytime I did something showoffy, he would show his approval or not, and I would do likewise. This type of adventure brings out the funny in people much more than managing 50 or so people in Skagway. I like being funny. I have neglected much of what makes a person well rounded and interesting lately, so today I spent most my recuperating time reflecting on what's next for me and reading a lot. I think this is a good place to ponder whats the proper and sensible next step because lacking a defined plan for the future would make home a land of anxiety. Here I can escape from thoughts of personal professional development for days at a time. When silence and repose comes, it is a welcome break from action and it seems more pure than when I'm at home in Washington. In the comfort of home I am always speaking to people whom I feel (real or imagined) are waiting for me to pick a permanent vocation and residence. One of the most powerful experiences I've ever had occured a few nights ago at a Maori (native NZers) family's house where the bus stops for a night. It is not a tourist operation found in the lonely planet but it is a cultural stop on the Stray travel itinerary (which is found in the lonely planet). We were shown a Maori intimidation dance done by warriors and then we (men only) were taught the dance. Then they sang a beautiful song called "to death, to death" which is about being in the field of battle or anywhere scary and foreign and not yeilding either flesh or belief and values. I find the Maori culture to be powerful and beautiful. I had never heard of them before reading "Germs Guns and Steel" and even in that book they were an obscure reference to a minor culture as it seemed to me. After seeing the faces of a people who are taught from childhood to be able to look fierce at a moment's notice I love them. The chief of the village prepared us for the Haka (the name of the dance) by telling us not to break eye contact with the first one who came out for a solo. When he came out with a wooden weapon and face paint I was almost emmediately overwhelmed with an inexplicable rush of emotion. I couldn't keep eye contact for I was

2003-12-11T02:35:00.000-08:00

The adventure type silliness has commenced in New Zealand for Mr. Darryl Graham. Today I went canyoning with Mandy and a random guy from San Diego and a Frenchman named Julien. Canyoning is swimming, sliding, rappelling, and jumping down the length of a long cascading waterfall in this case for about three hours. It may not sound like a tour, but we had helmets, harnesses, and wetsuits on. And our guide knew crazy ways to take some big jumps. Oh yes, and there was another rope swing. That's the third rope swing so far since I left Seattle on Oct 25th. I'll bring a boomerang home for the first person who can name where the first two were. Then we went to a stunning beach where "the Piano" was filmed and I ran and played with the waves like a golden retriever. It was the kind of beach where the waves come in for hundreds of yards and you can run on two inches of water till you're out of breath. My favorite. I regret that that cannot be done properly back home. Yesterday was a hike to the top of a mountain island that the earth's liquid hot magma burped up no more than 600 years ago. I told Mandy that I want to separate tomorrow. I haven't been alone at all and I need some time. Also, she's got some great qualities but it took patience to hang with her on the outdoorsy front. She was afraid too much of slipping on rocks. Today with her reminded me of little old ladies who didn't get how a mouse works. At the end she was joking how I wouldn't want to do anything outdoorsy with her again. Only she was right. Tomorrow I'll change locations, I've been in Auckland all this time. It's nuts how much stuff there is to do here. I still haven't decided how to tackle the transportation issue. It's the most expensive country to travel through that I've visited. I don't know exactly where I'll go but it will be cool. I've got my phone working now with a New Zealand SIM card. my number is 0211394692. Now I can hold a lonely planet in one hand and look for hostels in the other while moving. Ahh, a backpacker's dream. Now that I'm getting all set to spend some time here I must confront the length of stay issue. There is a slim chance that I will bag everything and come home on the 14th. There are some complications with changing my airline ticket and they are as of yet unresolved. Need more time to know.

2003-12-09T02:53:00.000-08:00

Rocky start to the backpacking part of the trip. It rained all day. I left my rain coat on a chair in a public area, and when I realized it, it was gone. It was new, and a perfect technical lightweight type. Replacing it here will cost $500. I asked a guy where I could find a goretex raincoat. He said that this is New Zealand and people don't wear reaincoats. Instead they use umbrellas. That's exactly what I say about Seattle, only the opposite. He was an idiot though. They do sell Goretex here. It's just cripplingly expensive and not as lightweight. So that was the first annoying part of the day. Next I called to have my SIM card in my phone unlocked and was told it couldn't be. I bought my phone with this in mind and I asked all the right questions. Except for the one that goes, "Do you have a 90 day minimum contract life before allowing the unlocking of sim cards?" So I was a bit nonplussed. The lady apologized for all the misinformation that led me to having a useless phone in a faraway land. I found a shop where they'd unlock it for $50. So today was spent on frustrations. And frustrations I'd thought I prepared for beforehand. One of my biggest pet peeves is completing a task and feeling good about it only to find it undone somehow. I need to get away from the city. When I think of New Zealand I think of the scenery from Lord of the Rings. If I'm to see this place I need to move on. I also researched volunteer ops down here tonight. Seeing the meat-market mentality in this urban backpacker hostel has got me thirsting for something substantive. Well, tomorrow is going to be a legit scenic delight I hope. But I'll have to spend at least one more night in Auckland to recover my liberated cell phone. Hopefully I can get this trip off the ground. I did sleep a nice 12 hours last night. But I still have a runny nose. I realized why all the guys look so dodgy too. Mandy said she felt like a dirty backpacker and I realized I've gotten so used to the clean shaven and pressed shirt look that travelers look like drug dealers. A few days will straighten me out.

2003-12-07T23:50:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in Auckland now after watching the ship sail away and having a nice sit-down dinner. Mandy from the cruise staff is with me and we're going to hang together for a couple of days. Brooke went back to Wellington, but having her on the ship made for some good fun. It is a rainy day and about noon today I started to get a runny nose. I think I'm catching a cold. I still haven't looked at what I'm going to do down here. I haven't had much time to plan in the last few days. Transitioning out of the job was almost as busy as starting it out, with the added time-suck of all the closing pow wows with my shipmates. Glenn, my replacement, couldn't get on the ship this morning as smoothly as planned so I had about an hour to teach him the entire job. He'll have a good time I think, but these first few days are going to be a time of much guessing and asking questions. I look forward to hearing how it goes; both from him and from others. The last few days were really cool. I took many pictures of people mugging for posterity. My birthday was the 5th as anyone reading this page should know and yes it was nice. Clare took me out to dinner at the restaurant on the ship that costs extra to eat at. It's the best food on the ship and the most; 17 courses in all. I didn't belive it until I lived it. Also present were two of the musicians who play the chamber music in the atrium when the ship is trying to be all artsy and sophisticated. During dinner we got this idea that when I brought Brooke on, in the afternoon, the following day, they would do something special to impress her. I was to walk over to them and when they noticed me I would snap my fingers and they would stop whatever they were doing and the cello player would play the really famous Bach cello solo. I think it's called the sixth something or other. Well, the next day after checking out Wellington, Brooke and I were walking up the gangway and I heard them warming up in the atrium. I remembered the joke so I asked Brooke if she liked Bach. I don't even remember her answer because when we came into view the musicians saw us and without even snapping the cello player started playing it. She screwed up in the middle and started laughing but it was a cool way to start the cruise for Brooke. If I do this again I'll have to rig other more well planned gimmicks to make myself out to look cool in front of guests. Last night, I didn't get much sleep as I kept on remembering just one more thing that wasn't ready for Glenn, or someone I had to settle up with or suddenly that I had almost a gigabyte of photos on my computer that I needed to copy somehow. Maybe that's why I'm getting sick, it was frantic. I'm sitting here now in a hostel internet room and the people around me look like children. The guys especially all look pretty dodgy. By the way, dodgy is my new favorite word. I use it often. It was taught to me by Christa, the girl I mentioned in an earlier post concerning my other friend Jamie's fancy. Christa told me that another ship, while looking dodgy, is a great place to work. I've claimed it ever since. Christa, presently is flying home to Toronto, much to my chagrin. She was supposed to travel for a bit with Mandy and I, but when she disembarked and tried to change her flight, the ticket agent held firm to the policy that she would have to pay $1500 to change the flight. That sucks. I guess at Princess, you have to put in a few years of work before they let you hang out in a port after your contract ends. Talk about dodgy. That is a crappy fake incentive to keep people on with the company. I've got many stories that are getting too old to post here, I'm going to have to add a links page called "...And lived to talk about it" Some stories I'm thinking about including are, "I once got bit by a Wombat..." and "The time I wore shorts to the dining room..." If you'd be interested in reading these stories, insert a comment and let me know. Well here goes my final post from the cruise job. I'm looking forward most to eating in unique envrironments, spending evenings in cool towns, and wearing jeans. I'm not looking forward to paying for food, or this runny nose running it's course. I get the feeling that I won't stay too long out here, but like I said, I haven't even begun planning an itinerary. I'm sick and exhausted and I need to recharge my batteries. If it's raining tomorrow I'm going to see just how colossally bad the third Matrix movie could have been.

2003-12-03T15:49:00.000-08:00

Whoa time is running out, I'm in Dunedin today; a scottish town in New Zealand. Dunedin is the gaelic word for Edinburgh and it was settled by scots. It's noon already and I haven't really checked it out because I'm sort of taking a half day. I'm meeting some folks in a few minutes in the town square. I can't believe how quickly this last trip is going. It feels like every talk I have now starts out with, "are you actually leaving in 6, 5, 4, ... days. That's lame!" And yes, it sort of is. I can't believe how quickly I've gotten to know and grow fond of so many people. They told me that one week on a ship is like a month or more in real life and now I get it. I actually miss them already and it's not even over yet. What's cool however is that there are four more days and I've only got to work for one of them. It just worked out that way. And on the last two days, my friend Brooke, whose staying in Wellington is coming on and finishing up the trip with me. I think I'll be doing this again as the entire princess fleet has at least one or two killer itineraries available this next year. And bringing a friend would be cool next time too. So I'll be taking applications for friend status soon. This time Brooke was the only one who could make it. So we'll have fun. Okay, I'm going to explore.

2003-11-30T02:58:00.000-08:00

Tasmania rules! I spent the morning with kangaroos, wombats, tasmanian devils, emus, and other little critters endemic to this area, lunchtime was spent in a little storybook town with the oldest bridge in Australia, and the afternoon was a windy mountain climb to one of the most beautiful mountain views imaginable, on top of Mt. Wellington. I must say, as we raced back to the ship so Mandy could get to her cyber-golf hosting duties, I got really mad. I'm so freakin sick of leaving ports at 6:00pm. It's a crock of koala bear feces (which baby koalas need to eat by the way in order to get the micro-organisms in their tummies for digesting eukalyptis leaves) that we have to have fun days cut short just so passengers will spend their evening drinking money on the ship. This day could have kept going because we didn't even get to explore Hobart, the city where we were parked. A car was rented by myself and three others and just as we thought we were getting the hang of the driving on the left, my pal, Josh, almost killed us. We were driving along after pulling a u-turn on a country road when all of a sudden we saw a car in our lane cresting a very close hill. Josh swerved into the proper lane and we all almost died laughing because no one could blame him. We were going along for 10 seconds or so before we saw the car and anyone of us could have realized the error before that. Tasmania sits at about 45 degrees south which is just about as far below the equator as oregon is above it. Suprizing to me when I saw that on a little globe in a gift shop. I encourage anyone curious to check my info as the globe I was using was a little souvenier globe with jems and glittery stuff for the continents and countries. Okay, I have to post this because I'm running out of time on my little card. I got an email back from Lynda tonight. She gave a good reason for her recent silence and told me that I beat the revenue record "BY FAR" with my little 26 day cruise to Sydney. That was cool. I hope she's ready for a much less awesome result on this cruise. Got's to go. 25 cents left.

2003-11-28T01:50:00.000-08:00

Melbourne today. I've realized that if I put my present time and date then the blog won't post until about a day after I write it. So you'll have to understand that it's evening in Australia now for me, the day after Thanksgiving. Too bad I can't time this the way I want to. It was a good day. I got up and met Dave and Peter, aka, tall guy and skinny Pete. We planned on renting a car and getting away from the ship. We lucked out with the car because when we went to rent one there was only one car left and it happed to be a new mini cooper. So we were pimpin in a red mini with a white top all day long. It got really hot and we all got unequal tans on our arms that hung out of the car windows. The highlight was swimming at Bells beach, where the last scene of "Point Break" was filmed. There were about 12 surfers there floating around doing their thing. The waves seemed to be perfect because I've never enjoyed watching surfing as much as today. Usually it's like watching paint dry with the rare thrill of a bug getting caught in the sticky mess--and the bugs would be the surfers catching waves. Anyway, there were many good sets and loads of surfing. But we didn't stay long because we were on a mission to find some wild bipedal marsupials with a known proclivity towards fist fighting. Yes, that's right. We went kangaroo hunting. At first we couldn't find any. So to make ourselves feel better we renamed the magpies that were flying all over the place Woomaloomaloos; a much better Aussie name. Eventually at a golf course in Angelsea we found some kangaroos on the greens. It was a good mission. We shot them and now I have their spirits in my Canon powershot s400 elph. Presently we're motering off towards Tasmania. There was quite a send off at the pier again and we were escorted by about a 100 boats and jetskis for at least ten minutes as we sailed away from the shore. When the towns make a big deal that we're here it makes it all the more fun. Back in Skagway when the ships left, they were lucky if we mooned them or flipped them off. Usually we were back home cooking dinner as soon as our duties were over. The Aussies are much less jaded then Skagway people. We have two days of work before hitting that island and people in the know say that the Tasman sea will be really rough. I say bring it! I've been waiting for some rough seas and so far, nothing.

2003-11-27T19:43:00.000-08:00

I forgot it was Thanksgiving today until after I chose to have a quick dinner on the Lido deck. I'm not seeming very patriotic, since I'm one of the few American crew members on board. The other day I asked a fellow American why there weren't very many of us on cruise ships. He said that it might be because the money they pay doesn't go as far and probably even more importantly, they just don't recruit in the states. Well it doesn't stop them from making a lot of Thanksgiving displays all around the atium. My British friend, Clare, and I were looking over the railing down at all the dressed up turkeys and she asked what Thanksgiving was all about. I said it was from a story with pilgrims and indians and how they got along great harvesting all their corn, cranberry and turkey plants. Then as she was considering that I added that that must have been a few weeks before the pilgrims gave the indians blankets with small pox to wipe them out. It's a pretty weird story we have to go with the holiday. I think this is going to be a slow trip for computer classes on the Star Princess. I had my first day and half my classes were free and barely anyone showed up. I only had 5 students all day. The last cruise almost overwhelmed me with 20-30 people in each free class the first day. It's like these people didn't know it was going on. But the promotion was basically the same. That kind of stinks. Tomorrow is Melbourne. Again, I've done little to no preparation to make the most of it. I'll just talk tonight with people about what's ideas are swimming around and meet the early birds shoreside first thing in the morning. We can see land off to our left and although it's 8pm it's still sunny and warm out now. Quite calm too. I was up on deck and I didn't even feel any wind blowing. We must have a tail wind that matches our speed. It was the most peaceful I've felt on deck. Also there was the added fact that there were no passengers up there limping around. Since it's technically nighttime and formal night, they're all gussied up and having fancy night out. It was nice. It will be a good night to look at the southern sky. I had to change rooms yesterday. Some observations; passenger rooms have more mirrors but less drawers, bigger TVs but less channels, chocolate on the pillows, but no fruit bowls. I think the officer cabin wins. (Unless you like to watch yourself eat chocolate)

2003-11-26T22:08:00.000-08:00

This is Darryl's buddy Luke, letting the world know that you now have the abliity to comment on Darryl's pontifications. Just click on the link that says "comment" at the bottom of every post! Thanks to KB.

2003-11-25T23:15:00.000-08:00

Australia, Sydney to be precise. This city is awesome. And we got a great parking spot right next to the world famous opera house. I can't believe I'm here. This town needs to be explored more than just one day though. Traveling by cruise ship is a cruel tease sometimes. I don't regret one day in Fiji but c'mon, Sydney has got to be one of the most interesting towns in the entire world. Everyone knows it had it's western civilization roots as a penal colony, but walking around the city, there are pictures and blurbs about millions of historical tidbits. It's a huge museum. I like it. I had to deal with a large dose of BS today. I had to get off as a passenger and get back on as a passenger for some reason I still don't understand. But I think I got lost in the shuffle because I didn't get the message that after I got off I'd have to wait a couple of hours to get back on. So I was frustrated. I needed to get some stuff done before I was ready to explore Sydney. But the episode illuminated to me that it's been a whole month now and that was the first bad experience I've really had. I thought for sure at the beginning that with the size of the company and the pretentiousness and all that there'd be stupid stuff I'd have to put up with day and night. There is definately a strong little cruising culture, one that I am an outsider to, but it's not as crappy as I thought it was as a whole. That's what I learned this morning after I was done being annoyed. Usually everyone does try hard to make sure everyone is looked after and that includes the crew and folks like me. Also today I manned a little table in the atrium from 2-4 and I was amazed how much more I knew than the last time I did that. The last time I met new passengers was Nov 1 and when they asked me anything at all about where a bathroom was or which direction the front was, I was hopeless. But this time I was Mr. Knowitall. It was a nice contrast to feel established and useful for more than just peddling computer programs. But I was also glad that I only had to do this twice. Once as a novice and once as a veteran. Quick and dirty life as a cruise ship member. From here on out it's the last time I do everything. Last champaign waterfall, last open house, and so on. It's fun but in 12 more day's I'll be ready for some hosteling. Okay, I'm still in Sydney and it pains be to be sitting in an internet room when there's a cool place to explore outside. Also for once we get to stay late here. And after we leave we're getting sent off with fireworks. They're stoked we're here, because we're the biggest and baddest ship that's ever been here.

2003-11-24T16:30:00.000-08:00

Another day at sea. I haven't received word from the people who placed me here for a while, I suppose that's more good than bad. Everything seems to have fallen into routine quite nicely. I'll be able to hand this job to Glenn in two weeks without a hitch. Building business is interesting. I'm just an employee working for someone else's vision, but to perform a service where previously no service was provided and to have people pay for it is cool. There are chances taken all the time, all around us; people trying to make a vision fly or trying to sell their vision. I have had three different passengers offer me jobs on this cruise. One of them was showing off but the other two were genuine entrepreneurs who had roles in their little empires for a young whippersnapper. Right now these business ideas glance off of me because it's time to cultivate my own vision for life, but for some reason I have become a person for these older successful, types to want to talk shop with. I've also had the same conversation about four times this month. A passenger asks me if he can use excel to track his investments. I start to answer him but he interrupts because he needs to tell me how rich he is. I try to back away sensing that he's about to waste my time, he goes into more detail about how great the stock market has been for him. I seek an exit. I think these cruise ships are a depository for rich people who are still searching for validation. I had one passenger tell me he wants a divorce because his wife has grown more and more negative as she's grown old. He then started to tell me about being rich, and how after you've driven nice cars you cannot go back. I just press my lips together and nod. I need two kinds of patience for this job. One for the computer novices, and another for the guys who think they're teaching me something, or doing me a favor by telling me their philosophies and opinions on life. They're not opening up a dialogue or throwing questions out there. Questioners are not annoying. Know-it-alls are. So Kris, if you're taking this job be prepared for that. Oh. look up: http://www.princess.com/onboard/fleet/ and then click on "live bridge cams" You'll see a window open up with a drop down menu full of live web-cams all over the princess fleet. And if you click on the Star Princess Wedding Cam you'll get a snap shot of where I teach my classes. Usually it's just a screen, but during the at sea days from 9-4 I'm standing right in front of the camera teaching a little class. It refreshes every 60 seconds, so you can watch me teach all day long. It's the coolest thing ever.

2003-11-22T23:56:00.000-08:00

I forgot to write about last night. It was the world cup finals in rugby and England narrowly beat Australia at the last second. I was watching the game with 30 to 40 spirited fans on both sides. It was hilarious. The craziest part is that one of my friends, Clare bet 1000 pounds on England to win. She was freaking out when they pulled it off, running around with England's flag around her shoulders. My other friend Graham was sitting quietly with a self satisfied grin. He had bet about 4 weeks ago 1000 pounds that England would beat South Africa (his own country) and he won 11000 pounds. He put 1000 of that on England taking it all so he was sitting there last night about $53000 USD richer. There were some other people who bet but more along the lines of 20-100 bucks. Anyway, it was a cool experience. And the game went on at about midnight, so we were all watching it during the fun hours anyway. So we're done with New Zealand for now and are looking at two more days at sea before I check out the Sydney Opera House. A couple of nights ago was Hollywood theme night. Tonight is Rave night. It's to bad I don't have any glow sticks. Naa, I have a full day tomorrow at sea so I can't really stay up late, but, we do get an extra hour again tonight... Hmm, why do they have to be so fun so late. Well for once, I'm writing with my petty crew internet allowance so I must go before I time out. This is no way to live.

2003-11-22T17:57:00.000-08:00

Auckland today. I'm here with my friend Jamie. Jamie is Filipino, and he works in the production department. He's mad today because he keeps getting passed up for promotions because he's not white. What's worse he recently got passed up by a white Canadian with less experience, less education and less skills, for a managment position. So I'm buying Jamie some rice, (because Asians need their rice). But to make matters worse, Jamie has a crush on a girl and the other day I invited her to come out and join some of us on an outing. We she came and my plan was to build up Jamie as the coolest guy ever. But during the day she was flirting with my friend Jorge (this canadian who just got promoted) and they've been together ever since. Jamie is crying as I write this. Okay so he's not but he is not amused by the irony either. Well it's raining in Auckland so there's not a lot of exploring going on. But that's okay because we're all in need of a break. Yesterday was Tauranga and I went on a jetboat ride down some river with really steep banks and fern trees all around. It was a good first experience in New Zealand. This little country should be a good place to explore. At the first step off the gangway, little kiwi boys and girls in rollerblades were handing out free kiwis with special kiwi-spoons to everyone. They were almost pushy, forcing us to take two or three each. But it was cool, and I must admit it was good PR. I regret throwing away my spoon because Jamie is putting his in his scrapbook. It's a good idea; the spoon that was given to us as we touched down in kiwiland. He's putting it on the page with his strategies for how to tell a girl he likes her. He's determined to get her yet. Stay tuned, he's got two and a half weeks, because she gets off the ship the same day I do. Okay time to go. The rain is letting up and we need some rice.

2003-11-20T01:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Fiji and it may be my favorite port yet. I met up with the bunch of staff folks who get up first chance at around 8:00 and we rented a couple of cars to go exploring with. Yes, more cars. But this time we were driving on the left side of the road so there was much hilarity right off the bat. We first left the capital of Fiji because it was a big dirty city. Then we stopped at a cool hostel where we fed some fish and rode around in some guy's homemade canoe. The coolest part that kept us grinning all day long was at a beatiful park where there was a jungly trail that followed a cascading waterfall down a hillside. We parked at the top of it and started swimming at the upper pool but then a groundskeeper told us about a ropeswing at a lower pool. Well we marched and sang and whistled like idiots down to the lower pool and some local fiji boys were wowing some tourists with their antics on the swing. But they were excited to have us try it out. There were probably 12 crew members there and I don't know how long we goofed off, but it was a good time. Today I'm incredibly sore in my gut, biceps and shoulders. I think I'll have to install a ropeswing in my lake when I get home and buy a lake. I got hustled in Suva, the capital city. At least that's what everyone told me. A guy stopped me, and pulled out some cool carved pieces of wood. I said that was cool and he asked me my name and I said Darryl and before I knew it he was carving my name in the wood. I was shocked but impressed with his speed and talent. He asked me my last name and started carving that into the other piece. After that he said I should pay him 15 bucks. I gave him ten and when I caught up with the gang, they all said I fell for the old "carve your name in the trinket" trick. But I don't care, I lost ten bucks but I got a cool thing with my name on it. I just think he was a good salesman. But, I did notice that in Fiji there was a sense of hustle not found in the other South Pacific ports. In Bora Bora I went to a fruit stand to buy some fruit and the lady just gave me a banana for free. She wouldn't accept any money. After that, I was kind of suprised to see the cab drivers in Suva lined up and shouting at us when we got to Suva. It reminded me of the transition from Ecuador to Peru, whereupon entering Peru a bunch of us had to bribe a customs agent just to get back on the bus. But I liked Fiji anyway. It was very pretty and had cool flora. The coolest thing about all these islands is that all their foliage is so unique. I read that 75% of the flowering plants in New Zealand only are found in New Zealand. I bet that rate is higher for these tropical islands. The jungle was nice. When I woke up today I didn't want to teach at all. I think with all the activity at the ports, I am not recharging my batteries. And last night I got to sleep at 11:30. It's been nice heading west the whole time. We've had many 25 hour days. But still, the thought of teaching computer classes made me want to stay in bed. I was delighted to have only one person show up for the morning class. I shoed him away telling him I had a two student minumum. That's not really true but it was today. By the afternoon I felt better, and was in good spirits for my 5 students who showed up for three Excel classes. All in all, this is a great adventure but I don't think I'd want to do it for more than six weeks at a time in the future. Hard work plus having to dress up for dinner is wearing. If I'm whining write me a comment and tell me to shut up. I can't wait to get to New Zealand and get to the backpacking.

2003-11-18T00:10:00.000-08:00

Time has really flown-- Wait a minute. How can it be the 18th already? The 17th never happened. We crossed the dateline last night (the 16th) so today it's the 18th. How weird. This job is awesome, let me recount the recent events. Bora Bora was rainy and not so fun, which was funny after the build up. At Tahiti and American Samoa I got smart and at both ports rented cars with groups of fun people. Both days incorporated similar events; driving around, eating, taking pictures, singing along to the music, and so forth. But in Tahiti, I was with a bunch of girls and the only music we had were Top 40 CDs such as Nickelback, Matchbox 20, and Avril Levigne. I was impressed with their ability to only purchase music that was targeted at their age group by marketing companies. In American Samoa the crowd was a little more diverse but the music was oldies. Not by choice mind you. We were on American soil so we listened to the oldies countdown on "American Gold." It was weird to be so far away from the USA and be where the infrastructure was unmistakably American. The cars, traffic signs, and other culural paraphanalia were all direct from the mainland. And this is south of the equator. Tomorrow we arrive in Fiji. Today is about my halfway point. I can't belive I've only been at this three weeks. This job is one of those strange experiences that seem to be so life encompassing that when you're in it, it's hard to imagine not being in it, and when you're away, it seems like it was a dream and couldn't have been real. For only having been three weeks so far, this experience has had a big impact on me. I'll have to get away before I can sort out how the choices I've been making can be assimilated with all the other opinions, values, and habits that normally furnish my life. Earlier tonight I was talking with a friend named Luisa. She said something about one of her family members who is an ascetic. He is distrustful of pleasure. She thinks everyone should smoke pot. Luisa is one of my favorite people on the ship. She's sarcastic and opinionated and posesses a style I've never encountered before. She's also quite silly and flips me off for no reason just as often as she smiles at me. I wouldn't have had the chance to know people like her unless I signed up for this duty. There are so many people whom I would like to write a little bio about right now but it would lead to much speculation on the part of the reading audience. And it would be more fun for me to write than for ya'll to read I'm sure. For an overage of speculation, I hope to publish some disco pictures before too long. I've been on the same cruise with the same passengers for over two weeks now. For a tour guide who used to spend 7 hours tops or 2 days in the Library program with the same people, this is just rediculous. I want a new batch. I haven't bought any souveniers yet except for a snorkel and a hawaiian shirt. Surely the kinds of things that won't get much use back in Seattle. As I was writing this, the sun was setting to my right over the ocean. This whole enterprise still baffles me.

2003-11-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

On November 14th I remembered my best friend JP and his Mom who were killed on that day in 1995 in the most tragic of car crashes. It crushes me every year. It's like my own personal 9/11 that I celebrate with just a few other precious people. Darci emailed me which I just received before writing this. Memories so rich and yet so in the past leave me wiped out everytime I let them come to the front of my mind. It feels good, actually. I'm over the grieving. These days I just get a rush of powerful emotion that all at once causes me to ache for the ones who are gone, grin at the thought of the ones who are in my life, and after that, I posess a sense of clarity that lasts at least an hour or so.

2003-11-11T18:26:00.000-08:00

So I lost my patience today with a passenger. It's strange, when I lose my patience it doesn't look that different from when I'm attempting to be charming. I'm both cases I apply some smart alec remark but when I'm out of patience I neglect to include a smile. The other day, for example, I was walking around on the sun deck and a lady grabbed my arm and ordered me to move a deck chair for her. I smiled and said, "this one here with your junk on it?" Most of the time I get away with that kind of stuff, but today was not one of those days. I won't try to explain what happened because my side is biased but it ended with the lady getting up and walking out of class. The four other students said that they would back me up if something came of it, so that was nice. It raises an interesting issue though. We were working on the third hour of Adobe Photoshop Elements, which included some complicated concepts. Being time management conscious and keeping to task doesn't really complement wiping people's butts and stroking egos. Teaching computer classes on a leisure cruise slams those two priorities into each other to make one multi-nuanced rainbow priority. Well, she'll get over it. And next time I'll do better, because honestly, figuring out how to please everyone is the only challenge on this ship. Food, shelter, toiletries, and all the other needs required to sustain life are supplied in ample doses. The human contact need is overly supplied. At the risk of sounding like I'm falling off the deep end of social decorum, let me relay what went on at midnight last night at a staff party. The theme was playboy so people dressed up like they were going to the playboy mansion. Lot's of glitter, many bathrobes with construction paper bunnies and the like. There was a slave auction where people paid up to $140 for a person. (I'm still not sure what the purpose was but I'm beginning to think the worst) There was dancing until 4am but for the record, it was the first time I was out late on a night before I worked. (I wonder if it had something to do with my lost patience.) Well, I won't do that again, no matter how much fun it is. It seems most people get to sleep in or they have split shifts. So if they have to work in the AM it's only for an hour or two. I am a strange duck with my 9-5 job here. Today was actually pretty good, I am suprized I didn't feel tired or gross when I woke up or anything. I guess there's another theme thing tonight in the crew bar but tomorrow is Bora Bora. Even in the toured out mind of the cruise ship passenger/crew member Bora Bora is special. It is for me, probably a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit it. So tonight I'll be in bed at about 10 and I shouldn't have any trouble sleeping at all. Tonight is also laundry night. Oh, I finally ate a salad, worked out and read some liturature. Not all in the same day though. And I had my first deep conversation with someone last night. That was welcome.

2003-11-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

I'm Somewhere between Hawaii and Bora Bora right now. It's muggy out, but it's dark. This is our second day at sea and we've still got two more before we reach Bora Bora. I thought I might get bored at this part but I'm so busy with work all day that just relaxing after work is pleasant. This ship is gigantic. Sometimes I look out over the waves and watch the rollers come crashing into the hull of the ship. It reminds me of Alaska. No, I mean the word Alaska. It means "where the ocean breaks its back on the shore." I see the sea rolling into the ship and just after it passes below my eyes a huge spray shoots out where the wave is demolished. We hardly feel a thing. I thought by now we'd encounter some big waves. But if I look at the waves we do encounter, they don't seem especially tiny. This ship is 47 feet too wide to go through the Panama Canal, so I guess that accounts for a good measure of stability. The real kicker is the fact that there is a gift shop chocked full of little crystal figurines right in the middle of the ship. Sure it's in the most stable part of the ship, but it's full of freaking fragile little figurines. How can you showcase glass trinkets in glass cases on a cruise ship? I asked a shoppie if they ever break and she said no. Shoppies are what the people who work in the gift shops are called. The photographers are called photags and the pursers are called japs. (junior assistant pursers) The people who work in the spa are called Steiners, after the name of the spa brand. Everyone's department has a name. I don't have a department so I'm just me. I have to go put on a tux just so I can eat dinner and not feel like I'm punking all the passengers. It's formal night, not my favorite.

2003-11-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

I'm in Maui today. Briefly, here's what's been going on. On Nov 2nd my job started and for four days straight I had to deliver 7 hours of classes to people who were paying for each class so they all had to be good. My cush situation turned into frantic work from waking till sleeping. There are challenges but it's not bad. I can't believe the lives these people live. Every crew member I talk to seems to be on their fourth or fifth year at this job and they all love it. I see the apeal. It's super fun to live on the ship. Lot's of costume parties, a great group of international independent people and the ports where you get to go on adventures. That pretty much sums it up. The lack of intellectual challenge and a crazy social hierarchy will prevent me from falling in love altother though, so I'm not in danger of donning the white pants and shoes on a lengthy basis. Today I bought a snorkle with flippers and realized only later that I was going backpacking after this trip for at least a little while. Oh well, I'll have to get some good use out of them. I'm not thinking very clearly now, because I was up until 3:30 and got up at 6:30 to get to shoreside. They have excellent dance parties in the crew bar area but they don't get going until about midnight. That is unfortunate. I do love the dance, but I am a fan of the sleep too. I figure my late nights won't last, I'm just getting used to it all. Theres something exotic about dancing until you're all sweaty and then going outside and cooling off in the sea air. I ran into a girl named Nicki who I recognized from Skagway today, and she told me about another girl she just saw from Skagway a day ago. This planet is tiny. I met her while I was trying to track down my long lost cousin Kane. A guy named Kane works at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co and also Paradise Burger, but no one could tell me if he was the Kane who had a brother named Kip. But I never saw him. How many Kanes could there be in Maui? That's my life so far. Oh, I was planning on reading, and working out tons and eating salads and other healthy fare on the ship. So far, zero of the above has happened. But I have a no elevator policy and I flex for the old ladies a lot. Oh, shoot I might miss the ship if I don't get out of here... Well thats okay, I'd just catch up with it in Honolulu tomorrow. But I'd better go get it.

2003-10-31T17:49:00.000-08:00

After one week at sea, I finally have some time to write some of this stuff down. My “boss,” Lynda, was here for the first four days of the trip and we worked all day but then I drug her out after dinner to see what the entertainment staff was doing each night. The cruise staff is six people whose job is to act like cheer leaders and game show hosts. They all seem to feel quite comfortable working until midnight then dancing until 3 or 4am then doing it again tomorrow. My dining experience has been as uber-fancy. I happen to be at a table for formal dining with a woman named Kathryn who is old friends with the restaurant staff. So every night my table has been getting a special extra dish. And each night the special dish has been shockingly impressive, both in presentation and in flavor. The regular menu has been more impressive than I had expected as well, leading to many a six course meal. But I’m glad this first week is over, I could not eat like that daily. It takes too much time and for me, it’s decadent. Now that my corporate office hosts are gone, I’m to fend for myself, which means a lot more time and hopefully healthier eating. So far the adventure has been kept to a minimum. Lynda and I did rent, in Puerto Vallarta, a crappy Volkswagen beetle convertible, which died on us many times. It had so much personality we named it Herberto and once I finally learned how to drive it, it took us around just fine. Herberto took us to the set of Predator where we met up with some of the ship staff and went swimming down a natural rock waterslide and flying off a rope swi Get this; I’m here inaugurating the computer program on this ship and the cruise director, while supportive, wasn’t ready for it to go in this cruise, so after Lynda and I got all the logistical stuff out of the way, I’ve just had to stuff my face and go dancing each night. I don’t start teaching until day 2 of my second cruise. I’m still pretty disoriented on the ship and I get turned around a lot but finally today I was able to pause, gather my wits and guess correctly which direction I wanted to head. I thought I would be grossed out at the massiveness of this ship but I’m just flat out impressed. It’s a marvel of organization. And the crew seems to be a great bunch, all willing to make friends and invite me along.

2003-10-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

My borrowed car broke down today near the top of a steep narrow gravel road on Chuckanut mountain. I was looking for real estate upon which to build a house. I really like the view from up there. There are worse places to have your car break down. So a nice traveling salesman picked me up and drove me into Bellingham, where my friends Mark and Misha are taking me in. They often take me in even when my car works so this won't be that unusual. I just hope I can get it fixed by tomorrow so I can get out of town. I spoke with Lynda from 6th Star today. She was getting things ready for the ship. Apparently she will be with me for the first four or five days and I won't be required to be "on" for the first couple of days. So that will be a nice time of immersion. In an email I had asked her if it was okay for me to have a Mohawk. She was going to broach the topic diplomatically but I let her of the hook. So then she was like, ok har har... So what do you look like, really? I have to go pay the tow truck people now.

2003-10-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't kept up on my blogging because my journaling always takes a hit during the in-between times. I've kept a journal pretty regularly since March of 1997. (Unfortunatly for all the future Darryl Graham archivists, most of the major drama in my life heretofore occured prior to that month) At transitional times I often neglect the journal because I often neglect any sort of routine. This month has been a pretty typical transitional time. I've had no schedule, and I've had to balance social activities with preparations for the next adventure. At times I have a day or so where I have nothing planned with friends or I forget to do the one thing I had planned for the whole day. It's a very dormant time. I feel like Jack Black at the beginning of "School of Rock" with the added disgrace of living with my mother; a detail that Darcy Brewer, one of the cutest girls I know, never fails to point out, just before she bursts into laughter. But I'm starting to ramp up the activity level as I realise my days in Bothell are once again numbered. Yesterday was an interesting one. I heard about a book called "Mountains Beyond Mountains" on NPR that documents the quest of a doctor who wants to heal the entire world starting with the most screwed up countries first. I checked it out and was enjoying it when the doctor was called a saint by someone he had helped and this is the passage that followed. "But then he told me, 'People call me a saint and I think, I have to work harder. Because a saint would be a great thing to be.' I felt a small inner disturbance. It wasn't that the words seemed immodest. I felt I was in the presence of a different person from the one I'd been chatting with a moment ago, someone whose ambitions I hadn't yet begun to fathom." At that point I was struck with a barrage of emotions, memories, shame and hope. I was eager to read on, to be inspired by someone who marches to his own drum. I was also remembering the times long ago when people used to say I inspired them. (Well, someone did say that to me recently, but she was drunk) I was suddenly ashamed, of all the times I've seen what needs to be done in a situation and failed to do it, because so often it has involved making someone feel special. For some reason I've grown thrifty as of late with my praise and encouragment. What's up with that? But I was hopeful too, because I can get back to the good stuff. And next week is a good starting place, with new peeps all around. I was reading the book at a bookstore. I was there primarily for a book signing featuring Noah Adams, one of the subdued journalists of NPR, and I thought I'd get a kick out of his presentation. Unfortunately his presentation of his new book was lost on me. Perhaps it was because I am over my fascination with the Wright Bros. or perhaps it was because I didn't like looking at the face of the guy from the radio. But mostly I was just preoccupied with my epiphany and wanted to read the other book. At the end I felt obligated to buy a book even though I didn't plan on reading it. I had him sign it to my brother Brad, I figured he'd like it. I didn't plan on talking to him at all when I was in line to have him sign it. I was sort of anxious and just wanted to get out of there since my heart was already in the parking lot. But here's a funny observation; when I approached him, he greeted me warmly and we started chatting away about stuff, I don't recall what. As I was leaving I marvelled at how at ease he put me, and I realized that that must be a trait of a master interviewer. I didn't want to be there anymore but he just got me talking. And not babbling, but I believe for a second, he made me smarter and more eloquent. So that's why everybody on NPR sounds so laid back and chilled out. Later I joined my buddy Scott for a movie, and what was supposed to be a scintillating post-movie debriefing session. However, by 2am I was singing a Lita Ford and Ozzie Osborn ballad with some girl named Tammy at a Karaoke bar on Aurora. But lets back up to the movie. We chose to see "Lost in Translation." If you aren't familiar, let me just say, it was a powerful number two punch to a knock-out combo that started with the book about the doctor. It is a movie about people lost, and wondering who they're supposed to be with and what they're supposed to be doing. I've been thinking about it all day. Some of my reflections center on the main theme of the movie but there was another part of the plot that had me reeling. It was about vocation. I used to have so much ambition without vision. I've always just assumed that charm would get me through the first few years after college until the vision kicked in. But what's actually happened, I fear, is that my ambition has decayed. The female in the film, Scarlett Johanssen, was struggling to find out what her vision was. I could directly relate but in a "I remember that" sort of way. I related with the man, Bill Murray, too, in that he had to pass her up because she was an unsuitable partner for him. They were both married but that is beside the point. He had to pass up someone because she didn't have herself figured out yet. They had great chemistry and they were both smart but because of the imbalance of life experience and accomplishment, there was just too far a gap. Amazing that I feel like him often since I don't have many accomplishments. I don't know what camp I'm really in. I felt like the Bill Murray camp. But last week I went to my friend Dusty's medical school classes and looked around the classroom at 104 people who were basically like me with the added twist that in four years they were going to be in arguably the most prestigious profession in our society. So am I Bill Murray or Scarlett Johansson. Well I don't know exactly, but that's the plane of cogitation that book and that movie got me on last night. And then somehow I was pretending to be Green Day in front of strangers. Oh, I also ran around greenlake during the rainiest downpour of the year. It was warm and everybody there felt like we were in a little "running in the rain club". Next time, I'll probably be on a ship in Mexico. Won't that afford different thoughts? Or will it? My friend Hilary thinks this whole cruising gig is delaying the true career yet another calendrical unit. I think it's not that bad, but we'll see won't we.

2003-10-02T20:14:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Washington. In fact, I've been home for about a week. Let's see what I've accomplished... hmm, oh, I did buy a cell phone, I've hung out with Luke a lot. I've fallen prey to Luke's Xbox for a total of 8 hours. (Thank goodness there's a loser-o-meter on the screen that tells you how much of your real life you've squandered while nurturing your little fake life in the game.) I've also Wandered around Seattle a bit, bug-eyed at all the "new faces." "New faces" is a term that my friend Kevin and I made up one summer when we were stuck in Skagway. I think it was summer of 99. The date isn't that important but I remember things by the date, much like most senior citizens. More specifically, it was June 21st. Every year up in Alaska there is a great bike race that occurs on the Solstice weekend. This bike race brings people from all over the Yukon and Alaska to a little town called Haines Junction. So after almost two months in a small town of 1000, we see over 1200 strangers in spandex. On the summer in question my friend Kevin and I were marvelling at all the different faces that we hadn't seen before. It was not unlike the Incas must have felt upon first seeing Pizzaro and his men in Peru on their horses. We were eager to appraise the ladies' visual value like guys often do, but we couldn't get past the newness of it all. We had succumbed to "babe relativity" back in Skagway. "Babe relativity" is a phenomonon that happens when, at first glance, you don't see any potential dating prospects in a new environment, but after a while you start to decide that some of the non-prospects are somewhat prospectalicious after all. (When left unchecked, babe relativity can cause ugly people in American small towns to mate with each other.) So back to this week; after enduring six months of babe relativity, I found myself compelled by new faces whilst traversing the avenues of pike and pine. Everyone just looked so new and fresh. I've also been planning for the future a bit. By the way, I seem to have a few persistent goals in life. I want to become fluent in spanish, I want to finish my pilot's license, I want to study for three months in a kung fu school in China, I want to build a house, and finally I want to get a masters degree in something. I only seem to have two ungoals. I want not to wear ties, and, I want not to stop learning. So you see, with this kind of flexibility planning for the future can be a daunting task. It's a good thing I got that cell phone. I chose t-mobile because it was the cheapest. But I don't have a signal within 20 feet of my house. My short term plan is to keep on not accomplishing much for the next three weeks. I went to Lee Hecht Harrison, the career guidance juggernaut that Gates handed me along with my hat, and I had a lovely time talking about myself with Mary, the nice lady there. But when she invited me to a two day workshop on defining my career goals I felt cornered. That reaction to a self-absorbed workshop may seem incongruous with the general narcissism that I am shelacking on this e-canvas, but if you know me, you know that I tend to shy from making any choices that limit my options. Okay this is starting to sound like malarky. But people were telling me that I should try to be a little more consistent with this blog. They didn't say I had to be good. I should add that I also want not to get brain cancer. Ever since I talked to Chris Peters at the Roanoke the other night, I've been imagining my brain cooking whenever I'm talking on my phone. I think I can feel the mutation already.

2003-09-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

I can feel the transition back to computer-geekdom happening to me, as I replace bits of Robert Service poetry with html tags in my head. The re-entery is a bit rocky. I have a general reluctance when it comes to inputing things of instrumental value and displacing things of intrinsic value. Computer languages are not their own reward. Computers aren't their own reward either. They're only good if they can do something for you. Kind of like five dollar bills. But I got my first comment today, from a Mr, John Garrett. I'll have a pumbkin cookie in your honor sir, especialy since I have a gift cert to Mabel G's sitting on my desk right now. I drove a bus for a few minutes today. Picture this: A huge bus driving through a crowded dock lumbering at 5 miles per hour blasting "Nine Inch Nails" through it's massive subwoofer. Why? Not because I love Nine Inch Nails, but rather, because I know the passengers don't. The first day of fall on a summer campaign calls for doing some things for yourself. I saw my co-workers smile and shake their heads as I passed them by. I was doing it for them too. A little fun with three days left. I'm probably going to get a cell phone when I get back to Washington, so if anyone has any words of wisdom concerning cell plans I'm all ears.

2003-09-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hey. It's raining in Skagway, which is a pity because the clouds are low and they're blocking all the snow that is covering the peaks. Things are sooo done here. Last night my roomie, Ryan, and his girlfriend were watching "Wyatt Earp." I came in from reading at the Haven, a favorite coffee shop around here, and started watching. I made some comments about how it's the same story as "Tombstone" and they decided they should go rent that one too. So they put Wyatt on pause, rented the other and watched them both. It reminded me of the days of the summer after high school when we would watch Tommy Boy back to back to back. Simple times call for simple measures. So move along folks, nothing to see here.

2003-09-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Hi, my name is Darryl. This should be a record of my transition from having way too much time on my hands (managing a tourist season that is waning fast), to whatever's next. I'm dangerously close to accepting yet another job that I didn't raise one finger to find. So I thought I'd get on the bandwagon and start distributing my thoughts for posterity's sake before they float away. For a while I've wondered what the value such a thing as this could add to my life. I mean besides keeing in touch. After spending an hour last night bouncing around to some other peeps blogs who actually mentioned me from time to time I think I'll just go for it and see if it takes purchase in my routine. hmm, spelling vulnerabilites could surface. Anyway, today I find myself reclining in my office in Skagway, Alaska. My tasks for today include, taking some personal effects to the shippers, make an appointment to get that 1.5 hour massage I won at the charity auction, and go make breakfast. But first, a phone call that will seal the deal on the next three months of my life. I seldom go into these things without trepidation, and this one is not without it's warnings. But the deep down warnings are absent, the ones that seem spiritual and important. I just don't know if I want to live on the world's biggest mall for two months. My face curdles at the thought. But all in all, the pros outweigh the cons. So here I go.

2003-09-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

Testing, testing,... chirp chirp chirp. hmm. some hardwood floors and a persian rug would make this place a bit homier.