On casting loose

 If I were to set out

What to take, to leave

Whence to drift, affected by season

How or even whether to keep the place alive

Take it down and let the land revive?

Could I drop the intent to return?

Evaporate on the road?

Visit whom?

Psuedocode

 if

anyURL

buyitall

repeat

if

syntacticSugar

delete

eatmore.possum

repeat

Hole to China

"Unfortunately, Enid is so smart, so advanced, and so ironically doubled back upon herself, that most of the people she meets don't get the message." From a review of "Ghost World". 

The hole in the back yard was directed to China. Towards escape. It did not arrive. The path to China was in a fenced enclave in the back left corner of the yard, northwest, a garden, perhaps, in intent at least. 

Was the unattractive boy unattractive by not being there, save in his own world? What, in fact, in that mysterious net qualified as attractive? Playing football? Having the trust to believe that someone faced would be there tomorrow? 

The boy would retreat, as later would the man, from the least hint of being unwanted. The phone in the hall, the age of endless conversations, a girl's voice on the other end, what would he think of one who pestered another with unwanted conversation? The last call, perhaps. 

A construction - a plywood box, filled with sand, the sand surrounding some heavy object, forgotten, nailed, hermetic, varnished, sealed, ambiguous, freighted with religious significance. 

The creation of freighted symbols without overtly express meaning, prototypical icons, continued. Two rocks piled, glazed stoneware pieces in a niche on a cliffside somewhere usually unwalked, that could listen for the wind unseen.

--------------------------------------------------------------64--------------80

8:07 PM 2/18/02

Empty halls

'S funny, one creates a repository like this, than manages to forget it for years.

Fall's setting in in the Champlain Valley, wet after a whole dry summer, stripping leaves about as soon as they turn. The result is a more subtle display of color, rich rather than dramatic. My favorite this year is soybean fields, swaths of pure yellow in late afternoon sun. The soil is starved enough for water that mud's not generally a problem, even with almost constant rain.

They're's always too much to do as the year wanes. There are certain things that can only be done before ice turns soil to rock and one learns not to neglect them. Pipes want draining, gardens want tending, and summer equipage wants stowing before one has to wade to do so.

I enjoy winter as well as other times, but its coming engenders sorrow and dread and in its heart it seems never to end. It will come and pass as the next year unfolds.

winter's trap jaws

procrastination done

lockdown

but

afternoon sun returns

Here to There - Two Wheels in Traffic

If you are bicycling from the University of Vermont to Watertower Hill in Colchester, Colchester Avenue drops steeply from the level of the school to the bridge across the Winooski River. If your timing is just right, you can get on the double yellow at about Chase Street, pass all the cars backed up at the Barrett street light and get to the intersection just as the light changes pulling about forty miles an hour. The gravity assist lets you slingshot across the bridge, getting into the traffic circle just about the time the motorized surge catches up with you. In the uphill slog up the east side of the circle, you have to position on the dotted white line to set up for the turn to continue up Route 2, and some car or truck driver in the right lane always has to honk as they overtake you. From that point it's a half mile climb before moving two lanes to the left, on the dotted line again, to position for a left turn after crossing under Interstate 89. You typically wind up waiting for a green light at the head of a cluster of vehicles, manage to out-accelerate them, and deal with the fact that they're uncomfortable when they catch up with you. Maintaining an absolutely unwavering course until the turn seems to make them a little more comfortable, but you still get the people who figure they have to use their horn, either because they think you don't know they're there or because they can't deal with a bike in traffic. There are, however a surprising number of people who will gracefully yield to you and there's often a chance to do likewise.

cluelessness

I read an article
about openID
which mentions change.gov
which uses openID
so I google openID
and go there
and it says that if I use blogspot
I already have an openID
so I go back to change.gov
and try to use addisonramblings.blogspot.com
and my password
to log on
which doesn't work
because presumably
I am missing some character
or perhaps a frame of mind
which might make it work
and more
I have forgotten
whatever it was that I was doing in the first place
which might have been nothing

Rain and Trailwork

Much of the art of building a trail that will still be a trail in a year or a decade is based on an understanding of water and how it moves.

In general, a trail wants to drain, but in such a way as not in the process to carry away material from its surface. It should flow off as sheet wash and at a low velocity. So, we avoid long uninterrupted downhill runs, and we slope the tread ten degrees or so to the side so the water leaves in a slow and orderly fashion. Nothing to see here, ma'am, just keep moving, please.

Most trail work is performed in halfway decent conditions, but it helps to get out on a day when the rain is slatting and you can actually see how the water is moving on the surface, where it wants to puddle and where it wants to channel and erode. A touch of the McLeod here and there makes an immediate and visible difference in what's going on and will stick with you the next time you're working in dry weather.