Rent

This place has me spoiled. If/when I go back to renting somewhere, everything will be measured against my stay here in Austin. It's an awfully big act to follow. Everything is just so...perfect. I love how big this house is, with room to roam inside, and out in the huge, ivy covered back yard. The kitchen, with the adorable double ovens and the industrial stainless steel island. The living room, with the big comfy couch and the amazing stereo and vinyl collection.



My roomie Fred and I are like ships passing in the night...we hardly ever run into each other in the house, but when we do, he's the best roomie ever! I know Fred has been home when I come back to the house to find the chocolate chip cookie supply down and the toilet seat up.

Yesterday I made a big batch of cookies. A couple of Fred's buddies came over just as the cookies came out of the oven. They gladly inhaled a dozen or so, pronounced themselves stuffed, then took off with Fred to go on their annual fishing trip. Half an hour later, Fred suddenly appears in the living room. They had to come back to get some things...after they left, I noticed the cookie pile in the kitchen was down. Hmmm, I thought they were stuffed... :-)

I brought the remaining cookies to Whole Earth that evening, when I met up with the sales guys. We ended up going to Barton Springs for the free swim after 9pm. I love that place! It was extra cool last night, with the full moon glistening across the water.

The point of this post? Ummmm.....Austin Rocks! I'll miss it when I leave. Oh, and I just made a couple of loaves of bread, completely by hand. Fun!

I had never done yeast bread without a bread machine before. I'm getting in as much cooking as possible before hitting the trail. Tomorrow - baked french toast, with the bread I just made.

My new pack

Summer

Yup...it's getting hotter by the day here in Austin, Texas. :- )

Pictures of the day

And now, the story behind the pictures...

I finally made it to Barton Springs Pool today. What an amazing place! I am now kicking myself for not having gone sooner. I went with Jeff, one of the sales guys from Whole Earth. Before the springs, we hiked along the Zilker Park Greenbelt. (That's where the pic was taken of him walking along a cliff). The Green belt was wicked cool, too. It's amazing how much green space Austin has set aside! Everywhere you look, there's a park.

The other pictures are of the neighbor kitty. Jeff lives in a really cool and wacky RV park. One of his neighbors has a light-up hula girl in his yard, next to the mermaid and the spinning bunny rabbits. The same neighbor has a ladder to the roof of his RV, where he's created a patio area.

It suddenly occured to me why I had trouble leaving Austin before....this town has a bumper sticker that says "Keep Austin Weird". The vortex here is simply trying to keep me. It recognizes me as one of its own.

Randomness

So much stuff happens in my life that never gets written down here. A shame, considering I like to go back into the archives every once in a while and relive my past. Playing catchup....:

The other night I took the buses to town and back rather than bicycle, because the blisters on my feet were killing me. I got off of one bus around midnight and sat there waiting for the next. A car pulled up and the lady inside asked, "You know the buses don't run this late, right?" She gave me a ride right to my door. It reminded me of all the nice people I met while biking cross country. Awwww...

I've sat down at BookPeople and read so many books cover to cover, that I'm quickly running out of interesting new material. The latest book was Freakanomics. And a book on QuirkyAlone.

Another time at BookPeople, I ran into a guy I had first met at the hostel here in Austin my first time through. He filled me in on the juicy gossip concerning the other hostelers. About half of the fellow travellers had stayed on in Austin and found a place to live/a job. This city has a way of sucking people in...

For the past couple of suppers, I've gone to Whole Foods. I pick out a loaf of bread, then go to the cheese guy and have him choose a selection of cheeses that go with it. What a cool way to be introduced to new and yummy cheese! (When I checked out, the cashier loved my selections and recomended a type of bread she thought I'd like, based on what I was buying.) I'll be trying it out next time I go...and visiting the cheese guy to see what he recomends I pair it with. I also have to go back because last time, he gave me a tub filled with a very yummy (and expensive) type of cheese as a sample, providing I come back and tell him how I liked it. Gladly!

I'm such a dairy fiend. For being lactose intolerant, I sure eat a lot of it. Right now there's 1/4 of a 3 pound block of Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar sitting in the fridge. I've gone through about 6 pounds of butter since I've been here...most of it in making chocolate chip cookies. (1/2 pound of butter per batch.)

I bicycle 14-17 miles a day. The most I've done around here in Austin is about 60. I've grown to love bicycling home at night! It's usually 72 degrees with a light breeze. Perfect! Except for last night on the Congress street bridge, when I looked up to see if the helicopter overhead was news or hospital, and crashed into the curb. Oops! I'm scraped up a little bit.

There hasn't been any work scheduled for the past 8 days. I'm going crazy! I need something to occupy my time. And money. I need some of that... Perhaps I'll get a 2 week job at Taco Bell. :-)

Fun and blisters

The Austin skyline

A sign I'm having too much fun: On Friday night I danced so much and so hard, I got blisters on the soles of my feet. Owie! But oh so worth it. :-) I started off the evening with some Zydeco dance lessons, and kept going till 11ish with Contra. The Contra band was phenomenal!
The Zydeco lessons were pretty cool, too. I've always been extremely self conscious about trying something new in public, and the Zydeco was no exception...But hopefully I'm making progress, and can stop being so tense about making mistakes. It wouldn't be the end of the world, sheesh...

It's like when I first started backpacking by myself. I was petrified of the dark. What if some wacko with an axe was lurking outside my tent, just waiting to pounce? Eventually I relaxed and realized that in all likelihood, I was not going to be hacked into little pieces at night and if anything, being alone in the woods was way safer then being in the middle of town. (Think about it - speeding cars, lots of people, hazmat, etc). I now love the feeling of being alone in the inky darkness, just me and my sleeping bag. Eventually I'll also learn to relax and enjoy learning new things in front of other people, mistakes and all. We're all human...

Austin at night

The Frost Building at night

A day in the life of...

Oh man, I didn't even make it home last night until 3:30am. There are just so many cool things to do in Austin!
I started out the day at the Green Muse Cafe. It's the place I wrote about yesterday. (They have really good chocolate chip cookies!) I did a bunch of PCT research there via their wifi for a couple of hours, then left to explore the downtown parks. (There are a couple pictures of that two posts below).

I went to the usual Wednesday Contra dance and had a whale of a time! Best contra, ever! The band was exceptional (with the exception of two too slow songs), and the dance partners were really cool. I like the fact that all of the guys there are older (30's+), so they're married or have steady girlfriends. That way I can relax and have fun without getting hit on. (It's flattering to have so much attention, but sometimes a girl just wants to enjoy herself without having to tactfully shoot someone down every 5.2 seconds).



The contra ended at 10, so I cycled back downtown to amuse myself for two hours before the free Weird Wednesday movie started at the Alamo Drafthouse. I found what I was looking for... Over in the 6th/5th street area was one of the guys who works at Whole Earth. He was there doing his second job, driving all of the tourists around in his pedicab. It was a slow night, so I rode my bike up and down the streets with him while he trawled for customers.

After bidding him adieu, I went to the Alamo. The movie theatre is upstairs...and on the stairs is a guy wielding a black magic marker. Everybody in front of me held their hands out for him to draw two big black x's on them, so I did too. I figured it was some sort of free admission thingy. I asked him what it was, he said it was to show the wait staff that I was under 21. Whoops! I showed him my ID, and he said to go into the bathroom real quick and wash it off while it was still wet. Whadda ya know, the soap in their bathrooms works really well for that. The whole black X thing doesn't seem to be very foolproof...Not that I had any alcoholic beverages there, but still! :-)

Upon sitting down in the theatre, I discovered I was only a couple of seats away from a guy I work with. I love this guy! He's always in awe of things I've done. I made sure to show him the black tire marks all over my left leg (From me being a klutz and managing to run myself over with my bike just a few minutes earlier).

The movie was called Candy Snatchers. From the description on the Alamo website:

This is an incredible, mean-spirited black comedy that neatly encapsulates everything that was great and scary and wrong and right about the 70’s. A trio of kidnappers; gross fat slob, hot chick and psychotic con man; kidnap a teenage girl named Candy. But when they present their ransom demands to the girl’s father he’s perfectly happy to abscond with the ransom money and be free of the burden of parenthood. Meanwhile an autistic child has discovered Candy’s underground hiding place but his horrible parents don’t believe him. Sounds like a grim, dark, depressing movie huh? For regular squares maybe. But for those of us with a refined taste for the absurd and amoral it’s like an iced magnum of Dom Perignon. Don’t miss this one or you’ll be one sorry bastard. (Lars)

I have to say, it was a really good movie! I'm not usually a fan of dark movies, but this one was brilliantly twisted.

After the movie, I did some people watching and rode around the block with pedicab/Whole Earth guy, then hit the road for home. I went down Congress for a change...partly because he recomended it as a safer route, and partly because the 24 hour bakery wasn't on it. I could see the bakery becoming a bad habit! Mmmmmmm, so many yummy Mexican pastries...flan...coconut juice...mmmmmmmmm.

What I did to my hair

I dyed my hair for the first time ever in Hunt, Texas, on my way across the country. It didn't show up well in pictures, but in real life, I was a redhead. Well, being a redhead was fun and all, but I wanted to go back to my old self. Yesterday I tried to go back to medium brown hair. I must have left the hair dye on too long, because now I'm quite the brunette! Heck, I always wanted to see what that was like too. I feel so incognito...
Last night when I went to the dance, everybody there said I looked familiar, and where had they seen me before? Perhaps they thought I was the redheaded Heather's evil twin. Muhahahahaaaaaa!

More Austin Pics

Austin has so many inviting parks...


A nifty gazebo at one of the parks

Outdoor Rec

Yesterday I had a grin on my lips that wouldn't quit. Austin rocks! Austin seems to like me, too. My ego got a lot of stroking yesterday...all sorts of really cute guys started coming out of the woodwork to hit on me. The only weird one was an (old! ...like in his 50's) married guy who gave me the line of his wife not understanding him, not enjoying the outdoors, etc. etc., and did I want to go out in the backcountry with him sometime? Ick, gross, yucky!

The reason the backcountry came up in conversation? I was in Whole Earth Provisions, checking out all of the cool outdoor gear. (And the sales guys...) I ended up buying an Osprey Ariel 55 pack. My old pack was too small for taking on the PCT...even though I don't have much gear, I need lots of room for obscene amounts of water in the desert sections, and prodigious amounts of food in the high Sierras. (Old pack being 35 cubic liters, vs 55cl for new)

Osprey has three different styles of hip belts to choose from. Once I picked mine out, the belt was put in the special Osprey oven and baked for 10 minutes. After baking, I strapped it on and wore it around the store another 10 minutes to let the belt cool into shape, conforming to my unique hip anatomy.

After pack shopping, I tripped on over to Whole Foods for some supper. I was originally planning on going to Barton Springs at 9pm (They stop charging after 9), but I had so much fun talking to the cheese guy, I ended up saying to heck with biking over to the springs, and had a leisurely supper out on the patio.

Book People was on the menu next, and I stayed there until they closed at 11. Still not sleepy, I took the long way home...I bicycled to a bus stop, then sat there journaling for an hour. After letting all the buses that had my usual route go by, I got on a bus route that I hadn't been on before, for fun and excitement. I had a great time talking to the driver! Very cool guy, into bicycling and road tripping via car across the US. The bus went out of service at the end of the line (West Gate) but he had to loop back up past my road to get to the bus garage, so I kept riding, and was able to get dropped off just feet from my doorstep. Coolness :-)

Other nifty stuff that happened yesterday: I found a new cafe with oodles of ambiance, free wifi, and wicked good food. There, I had a turkey panini with southwestern sauce to die for, then followed it up by biking to the 24 hour mexican bakery and having a decadent slice of rich chocolate cake with a coconut/condensed milk frosting, ooey gooey cherry filling, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and a cherry. Yummy!

Austin Rocks!

Fun times

I just spent an outrageous amount of money on a pair of sandals. I feel so frivolous! And fabulous! And oh so fine...

The new sandals are a pair of Chacos, something I have been lusting after for years and years and years. I could never justify the cost. I finally reached the point where I just didn't care anymore. Viva la payday!



Part of the decision to buy them came because I liked the sales clerks down at Whole Earth Provisions. I spent a loooooong time trying on sneakers and sandals, then went to go fiddle around with the packs. I ended up going across the street to a tavern for lunch with two of the sales guys. They had real food, I had a chocolate volcano. Mmmmmm. :-)

I am here

One of my favorite spots downtown ... the Halcyon Cafe. They have comfy couches and chairs, great music, and yummy food/drinks.

This was the first place I ran into when I came to Austin the first time around (on my bike trip). When I came back the second time (to live here) and booted up my laptop out on the patio, I was tickled pink to see my wifi setting remembered the place and automatically signed me on. Little things in life are cool. The more you celebrate the little things, the more the big things fall into place. Life is good. :-)

( From a PCT list I'm on )

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be:

01:02:03 04/05/06.

Snuggle Buddy

Well heck, my post about wanting somebody to snuggle up with late at night generated a pretty big response! I guess a lot of people out there have the same thought. What can I say - great minds think alike.

It's almost 1am and I'm still wide awake, bright eyed and bushy-tailed. Since nobody is waiting for me in bed, I've been online reading various PCT hiker journals. Talk about me being antsy! I'm really chomping at the bit to go take a hike. 3 weeks to go, and counting...

Now, how to amuse myself in the meantime? Any local Austinites care to write and tell me all about the cool things I can do in this town? Royalepain@aol.com

To Do?

I do food service for special events. My work schedule is very erratic! I just worked Fri-Sat, and won't have any work for who knows how long... perhaps this weekend, perhaps sooner, or even later.

This leaves me with a lot of free time. The clock is slowly ticking down towards my PCT start date. Why can't it get here sooner? I'm twiddling my thumbs here!

When I get money, I'm immediately running online to buy the PCT guidebooks. I have so much planning to do! And then the really fun part...buying stuff! New gear, 4-5 days of food to start off with, sneakers, etc. It's a good thing I have my very erratic job...it'll supply me with a little extra money, and give me time to explore my newly adopted home city.

More pics of where I live

The dining room and glorious kitchen


Tree outside....it's spring!

The events of the 30th

Yesterday I decided to pack up my things and go on an overnight bicycle trip. I only made it 20 miles out of town before I stopped at a gas station for a snack, and picked up a copy of the paper. There, in the events section, were a couple of cool movies showing in Austin that night. I hemmed and hawed, then decided to head back to town to catch the events. Almost as soon as I pointed my bike back towards home, my boss called and asked if I could come to work the next day. I guess it was inevitable :-)

So, fast forward. I went to the movies. They were free, courtesy of Monkey Wrench Books. One was a documentary on 2 Brits who got sued by McDonalds over publishing a leaflet about McD's business practises, and the other was a short film by a lady who had bicycled over the highest paved road in South America. It included a piece on self sustainability in Hawaii.

After the movies, I got back on the road around 11:30pm-ish. I was cruising along, enjoying the 72 degree temps and smell of wildflowers in the air. I noticed a car speeding towards me along an intersecting road and immediately hit my brakes, missing the side of the car by inches. The man inside slammed on his brakes and hopped out, really worried and asking repeatedly if I was ok. We both stood there for a long time, profusely apologizing to one another. Oops!

I took South 1st street home, and stopped by the 24 hour Mexican bakery for a flan. Mmmmmmm that was good! As I was biking home, I approached a traffic light controlled intersection. I had green. The lady on the side street didn't seem to notice, as she pulled out in front of me. I yelled at her. "Hey! Hey Lady! I have the right of way!" and just barely missed getting run over.

Ooooh, and the day before, I almost got clobbered by some beer kegs! A beer truck sped up to cross the intersection in front of me (I had right-of-way), and as he turned, half a dozen metal kegs of beer rolled out of his truck and into the intersection, barely missing me and my bike.

(Mom, forget everything I've just written. Austin is really cool! And safe!)

Favorite Sign

This sign is on one of the roads I take to get to town. It always makes me smile. :-)

Contra Dancing

Yesterday was a very momentous day. I got my first paycheck, bought a digital camera to replace the one I had stolen, I managed to ride 40 miles just around town, and to top it off, last night I went contra dancing. Weeeeeee!!

The kitchen

The backyard

Human Touch

I don't want a romantic relationship. I want touch. I want to fall asleep curled up against someone, wrapped in their arms. To run my fingertips over their smooth skin. To lay there late at night with my body snuggled against their warm chest and thighs, the cool evening air caressing and enveloping everything else.

I think most people really just crave a kind, gentle human touch in their lives...and use romantic relationships/sex as a path to get it. The ironic thing is once you start a relationship, the pure and simple holding each other goes out the window. Instead of reveling in the closeness, waking up in the middle of the night and realizing your breathing has synchronized with theirs as you watch them sleep....that sweetness slips through your grasp. The focus shifts to sex and how to get it. Which shifts the focus away from simple enjoyment of one another, and towards creating and maintaining a relationship. Wonderful as sex and relationships are, right now I just want gentle, kind, loving touch. Simple and innocent. No sex involved. No romantic entanglements. No thinking about the future. No wondering what to cook for them on weekend mornings, or if they find me funny, or what to do together as a couple. Just someone to have and to hold at night, to fall asleep with and wake up in the morning next to.

My pillows just aren't cutting it anymore.

Food

Moon ranch in New Mexico, pic taken on bike trip

I woke up this morning to pounding rain and dull grey skies outside. I lounged around in my bed, listening to the rain beat down on the oak leaves and ivy carpeting the yard. Thunder rolled in the distance, lazily announcing its plans to hang around for awhile.

I find thunder very sexy. There's just something about rain and thunder that makes me feel alive, both at peace and energized at the same time. When thunder is outside, I feel like hunkering down inside and cooking up a storm. Today was no exception.

I sliced up a whole head of cabbage and sauteed it in oil with tarragon, crazy salt and pepper, along with 3 onions, what was left in a bag of carrots (about 6), half a head of garlic, and some ginger. I mixed it with 3 kinds of cheese (cheddar, swiss and montery jack), and stuck it in the fridge while I made some dough by hand. Once the dough was finished rising, I rolled it out into circles, filled it with the sauteed veggie mix, and folded the dough over, crimping the edges with a fork. I brushed the dough with an egg glaze and popped the calzones in the oven for half an hour. Fred and I ate the calzones with warm pizza dipping sauce for lunch. Mmmmmmmm.

Fred went to work, and I spent the rest of the day over at Danielle's house (the other girl I went to Fort Worth with), talking and hanging out. We had a devine supper of salmon and potatoes on the grill and a mixed leaf/veggie/crab salad.

When I got back to my house, the only sign that Fred had been back was the platter of chocolate chip cookies that I had made before leaving were demolished. And the extra calzone I had made for him to take to Kate was mysteriously absent from the fridge.

Travel

Me poolside in Phoenix, AZ


Today a copy of Yogi's PCT Handbook came in the mail, courtesy of a fan. YESSSSS!!! I immediately sat down on the couch for some serious reading. It's made me so restless! Now I'm positively bursting at the seams, ready to get out there and start hiking.

This whole planning something out before I do it is really wierd. I mean, with the PCT, I actually need some semblence of an idea of when I start, where I'll be camping each night, etc, so I can figure out food and water and whatnot. Because the PCT is out in the middle of nowhere in a lot of places, I can't just wing it, like I just did on the bike trip. If I did, I could find myself in the middle of a 30 mile waterless stretch with nothing but saltines and a couple of sips of water in the bottom of my bottles.

Brilliant!

Sleep Deprivation

My workplace shipped 4 of us up to the Fort Worth convention center to serve at a huge event. We crammed almost 40 hours of work into 3 days! They put us up in a motel, took us out to dinner every night, and drove us to work in the morning. It was a fun little road trip. I had an absolute blast hanging out after hours with the people I work with.

Now, for bed.

Adventure

I've received quite a bit of feedback about my AT or PCT question. The consensus is about evenly split as to which trail.

One person suggests I flip a coin (It came out 4 out of 5 for doing the PCT), and another suggests I do not just the AT or the PCT, but the whole triple crown - AT, PCT, and CDT! And yet another person thinks I should shelve my wandering ways and crack the books down at college instead.

Just now, I got the best fan letter ever. Here's a snippet:

Just as the lady in the library, I have followed your exploits for over a year
now. I have come to deeply respect you as a force of nature capable of
overcoming just about any obstacle with a deep compassion, intellect, and
outgoing personality that is rare among people in these times. You can
do the PCT! Think of the adventures waiting!

Ok, just for that brilliant compliment, I'll do the PCT. :-) That, and the coin toss. As Sugarbush found out, you just can't argue with a coin toss....

Coolness, PCT it is! Now to just tell Fred. And get my gear together. And figure out where to store my stuff. And how to get there. And I suppose I should buy the PCT data book et. al, so I know where to send food and get water.

I've now gotten over my guilt of using this time in my life to galavant around the country instead of being responsible and holding down a 'real' job and life. I could get run over by a truck tomorrow. Once I woke up in a hospital bed and found out I would never be able to walk again, would I really wish I had put a damper on my travelling and worked 50 weeks a year instead?

This is summed up much more eloquently by another letter I received recently:

Thanks for the entertaining journals. Though I don't know you I do enjoy
living vicariously through some of your adventures. I'm a little older
than you & got stuck in the life that society expects. What I now
realize it that once you go to that place it's hard to break away and get back a
real life of adventure & wonder! Whatever you choose, have a great time.

Thanks! Will do.

AT or PCT?

Both are such good trails, how do I decide?

From here in Austin, it's 1,252 miles to Campo, CA and the PCT. From here to Dahlonega, GA, and the start of the AT, it's 1,028 miles.

The weather patterns this year will be a neutral to mild La Nina, meaning it'll pretty much stay like it is, or be slightly drier than normal. Lack of water is a big concern for PCT hikers, AT hikers really only need to worry about how many hurricane remnants will dump on them this year. Evidently last year was a doozy...Wicked wet for all those poor, soggy ATers, and the PCTers found streams that normally are dry as a bone running full with luscious water.

Which one do you think I should hike this year, and why? Drop me a line at Royalepain@aol.com and let me know. :-)

Craig's List

Craig's List is so cool! Positively addicting, as well....Last night I spent more than an hour reading posts on the "Best Of Craig's List" board.

This morning I found there was a CL for Burlington, back in my home state of VT. I impulsively clicked on it and found a posting from Calais, my old home town. When I read it, I realized just how different my life is at the moment..the poster had mentioned sitting in a pew at the town meeting hall. No town halls, or pews, or Town Meeting Days here. It was a great way to grow up, and I really appreciate it, but I'm also glad I'm out of the small town atmosphere. It could be suffocating at times.

http://burlington.craigslist.org/mis/139886393.html


And a classic Vermont missed connection:

http://burlington.craigslist.org/mis/137941072.html

Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life span.

------Originally posted on Craig's List.

4 day weekend

This forced inactivity is driving me up a wall. It would be sooooooo much better if I had my bike. I'd go to town, or a camping trip, or race up and down the streets of Austin. I didn't realize how attached I had gotten to my bike until suddenly it wasn't there. I'm starting to understand all of those funny bike people I see along the side of the road, decked out in spandex, not touring, just going for a ride. I have to confess, I always thought road bike nuts were a few bricks short of a load before I bought my bike back in October and tried it out myself.

Today it finally sunk in that I need to get out of my shyness and go out there in Austin and mingle. My goal for living here in the city is to go see live music (something I've only done a handful of times), meet and befriend new people, and generally soak up the culture. This will all be much easier when I get paid in a week and can use money to buy amusement. Ooooh, imagine - buying flan at the 24 hour mexican bakery, coughing up a couple of bucks to visit the nifty museums around here, going to the Alamo Drafthouse for dinner and a movie, so on and so forth.

Part of the reason I'm getting antsy tonight is I have no definate goal of where I want my life to go next. I like to always be working towards something conrete and tangible. Goofing off is fun, but not without an ulterior motive. Therefore, I will now goof off with wild abandon, as long as it involves new music, new people, new learning experiences. The old try at least one new thing every day bit.

Another reason for unease? There's a bunch of really juicy stuff happening in the life of me and the ones close to me that I'm not allowed to talk about - yet. I hate holding back! It'll all come out in the wash, but not soon enough for me. I really like writing about my life events to get a clearer understanding of what's going on.

I was just reading my blog archives today and was really struck by how the decisions I'm wrestling with right now, I had already written about and found a partial solution to, months or years ago. This whole blog thingie is really convenient for me - especially considering I have a bad habit of burning my old diaries. I would get all embarassed about what I had written and burn them, so nobody would accidentally read them and suddenly know waaaaay too much about me. With this blog, thousands of people have already read what I've written, so erasing it wouldn't accomplish anything. It's pretty liberating, actually.

Listening to: Patti Smith ~ Horses
Latest Desires: A warm chocolate chip cookie
Latest Thought: Hike the AT or PCT?
Last Book Read: Unzipped
Last CD listened to: Gang Starr ~ Daily Operation
Wearing: Green cordoroy pants and a white long sleeve button down shirt

Library

I forgot to add a really cool thing that happened two days ago!

I walked in the local library and dropped off some CDs, then walked right back out to get on my bike. A lady ran out of the library and said "Heather! Wait, I know you!" Since I've only lived here in Austin a little over a week, it felt very surreal. It turns out that this lady has followed my life on the web for years, and recognized what I looked like from my pictures. Freaky! I don't think I could put 2 and 2 together like that. She (Carie) was really nice. We stood around talking for quite some time, before I headed off to ride to work. After that is when I pretzeled my bicycle.

Soooo, yesterday I went to pick up my bike from the shop. The mechanic said that what happened was a freak occurance, and my bike was so badly mangled that they couldn't fix the wheel - I needed to buy a new one. All in all, I need to come up with $170 to get my bike back to new. $40 or so for the wheel, $60 or so for a new cog set, and $30 for a new chain. It turns out that the chain the bike shop sold me in Arizona was an 8 speed instead of 9 speed chain, and it's been grinding away the metal on my cogs. It led to the chain trying to shift on its own, which led to me having the accident in the intersection. On Monday I'm going to buy a bus pass. It'll get me to work and back until I get paid in a week, and can (hopefully) afford to get my bike fixed.

Sunday

I stretched, opened my eyes, and looked out the window at the head of my bed. It was raining outside, misty and grey, quiet. The ivy was glistening and green, wrapped around the rough, grey trunks of the oak trees in the yard. I turned over and looked at my watch. It was 10am. Wow, how'd that happen? I haven't slept in that late in months!

I guess it was inevitable...I went into yesterday on 3 hours of sleep, and then stayed up late for Kate's birthday party here at the house last night. We had so many people over, it was crazy! Fred had been up since 6am that morning, getting the brisket perfectly barbequed. Our kitchen positively overflowed with food. Fred's sister and her partner are both really big into cooking, so they brought over a devine roast vegetable and asparagus platter. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Today is a perfectly lazy Sunday afternoon. I'm sitting on the couch with my feet up on the coffee table, just enjoying the lackadaisicalness of it all. Maybe I'll get around to answering all of those emails I've saved in a folder, for writing back when I can put forth the proper effort...

Pictionary!

Austin wants me to stay. Again...

I was stopped at a red light along Stassney yesterday, thinking about leaving Austin to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. When the light turned, I leaned into the pedals and started across the intersection. SNAP! WHAM! One of my spokes broke and my chain derailed at the same instant, causing me to lurch forward and fall, rather ungracefully, splat onto the pavement. I got back up and limped across traffic to a nearby bus stop. Everybody staaaaaared. How embarrassing! My front wheel was totally whacked out of shape, so I rode the bus to Bicycle Sport Shop and dropped it off for them to fix, then walked to work.

Work was good. When I told my boss about the bicycle incident, she suggested I get a ride home from Chris, another employee. He's given a bunch of other people rides in the past, including our boss. After work, Chris, his sister and I went back to his house. We ended up talking and playing Pictionary, Uno, and Phase Ten with both his sisters and his dad until 3am. (My team won, woohoooooooo!) I ended up spending the night, then getting a ride back to my house in the morning.

I realize this isn't the most coherent entry, but you try composing something intelligent after 3 hours of sleep! Mmmm, sleep...

My New Job

After church on Sunday, I cruised downtown to check out the sites and sounds. I went to an impromptou interview at around 2pm and spent the rest of the day enjoying the beautifully sunny day. That night at 8pm, the place I had interviewed at called back and asked if I could start work the next morning at 7:30. Uhhh....sure!

I worked my first day wearing my cycling sandals and a pair of black fleecy pajama pants I had borrowed from Stacy in San Diego. My new workplace has a dress code, but the manager didn't have a cow over my unconventional attire - he knew it was tough to buy cheap black pants and close-toed shoes after 8pm on a Sunday. After work on Monday, I bought some at Thrift World for $6.43. I'm now down to $1.45 in my bank account and about $2 in loose change to my name.

I haven't decided how much info about my job I'm going to tell you guys yet. Let's just say for now, that I'm in food service.

Today was spent learning the ropes about the specialized food products we do. Apparently I'm doing a good job - Gary (manager guy), came over and asked how I felt about Dallas .... there's an event coming up, and they want to bring some experienced people over to work the event, put them up in a hotel, feed 'em, etc. They consider me experienced now. Cool! I like going for rides, I'll go. :-)

I have a job. Job is good. Write more later, sleep now. 5 hours sleep last night, 9 hours work on my feet all day today. Mmmm, work.

What's this?

Last night I got to meet the girlfriend. Wow, she was really nice! We both seemed to relax upon meeting the other. Kudos Fred, you did good. I like her. :-) (Now don't let her get away...)

They're off on a fishing trip this weekend, leaving me with the house to myself. I promised to have the keg party cleaned up and the cops out of here by the time they get back.

I took stock of my money/food situation today and came up quite pleased. I have $13.32 left in my bank account and a handful of rice and noodles in the cupboard. Technically I'm not broke yet, and when I do run out of food, I calculate I have 105,000 extra calories stored up on my body. They didn't go away on the bike trip, so they must have stuck around for a good reason - this!

There's just something about Austin that makes me feel good and without worry. Normally I'd be a little freaked out about the whole money/food thing, but not here. I trust everything will work out a-ok, and that elusive perfect job will come down the pike soon.

There really is something going on with my psyche though...I feel like I've been in a cocoon for ages, that I'm just now stepping out of here in Austin. I'm discovering who I really am, becoming the person that I was meant to be. They must drug the water supply. (sluuuuurp) I've been drinking peppermint iced tea by the gallon today. And the brownies...well, the brownies met an untimely end. Sugar makes me happy!

Seriously though, I'm becoming ever more comfortable in my own skin. I feel like I'm waking up to the possibilities. Before I was just faking the positive attitude and running on faith that all would come to fruition, and now it really is. I'm half expecting to look over my shoulder and see a tall, handsome man in carhartts and a nice chest, carrying the ever-asked for million dollars, wanting to know if he can take me on a tour of the local bookstores/camping spots/yummy food places.

Heather's Brownie recipe

It's not my original creation, but I did use it to make some utterly delicious brownies tonight. I modified the recipe by using 1/2 a cup of brown sugar instead of all white, ony 3 eggs because that's all there was in the fridge, more chocolate, and a boatload more vanilla.


SUPERFUDGE BROWNIES
a little different than Moosewood’s. As good out of the ice cream as in.

4 oz unsweetened chocolate (i usually use 5+, and either Valhrona, Callebaut, or Scharffenberger chocolate.)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour

*Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and lightly flour a 13x9-inch baking pan.*

Melt the chocolate and butter in the top of a double boiler over simmering water. Let cool in the pan to room temperature. If you’re in a hurry, you can quickly cool it in the refrigerator, but be sure it doesn’t get solid again.

*Beat the eggs and salt in a mixing bowl until very fluffy. Gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Fold in the cooled chocolate mixture. Add the flour and fold just until blended. (It is important to fold in the chocolate and flour gently to keep the batter as fluffy as possible.)

*Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool in the pan completely before cutting. Makes 9 brownies, 4x3 inches each.

Recipe from Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and Dessert Book, 1987.

Music for a relaxing evening

Tonight I'm going to bake brownies and have something relaxing and jazzy playing in the background when the girlfriend comes over. I figure chocolate and good music make any situation a good one.

Well, I was in the library earlier, hunting for just such a cd to fit the musical bill....when I spied the movie soundtrack to Lolita. Perhaps some cds are best left unplayed and not laying around. :-)

Fun and games with people

Trouble ahoy, matey! Sound the alarm and start the preventative measures now before it's too late! The sticky situation in this case is me. I'm young and female and living with Fred, and that spells t-r-o-u-b-l-e to Fred's girlfriend.

Fred is 52, his girlfriend a couple of years younger. Tomorrow she's coming over to meet me. This is my chance to be as mousily unobtrusive as possible. Apparently she was the one who supported Fred getting a roomie, but now she's having second thoughts. I guess she feels slightly threatened that Fred is now living with a female, and it's not her.

I suppose if I had a boyfriend who suddenly aquired a female roomate, I'd feel threated too. The *bad* part of this is, Fred and I are getting along famously. He's wonderful! He's like the happy, enthusiastic dad I never had. He proof reads my job applications and gives advice, chides me to be careful about bike riding and locking the doors, we talk about politics and the sorry state of Bush, and he happily eats the cookies I've been baking. Fred is like the perfect roommate/landlord, and this is the perfect house.

I suppose it's good for Fred and his girlfriend, because I'm the first thing they've really argued about. It will help them discover if they work out issues well together. But why do *I* have to be in the middle? Hmmph. Where's my stunt double when I need one?

Sleep

It figures. As soon as I wrote how energetic I've been lately, I crashed. I passed out on top of my bed at 9pm last night and didn't come to until midnight, when I finally got under the covers and went to sleep for real. Needless to say, I didn't do any of the really cool stuff that was happening downtown last night. But who cares? This is Austin! There's always so much going on, one never has a lack of things to do.

I talked to mom last night about my lack of a job and quickly diminishing supply of money. She told me to hang tight and not sell out for a temp job at McDonalds or what have you, to just be calm and wait for my "real" job to come down the pike. Better to be cleaning the house, exploring Austin, and reading lots of books in the meantime, instead of immediately locking myself into a dead end job. Nice in theory, but can I make it?

Holy application, Batman!

Last night I filled out an application online for a grocery store job. It was 70 pages long. Wow! And I thought the one I had filled out yesterday for a sports store was longish, at 4 pages. Now I cross my fingers and hope I get one of those two jobs - they're my top contenders. I'm also putting in applications at various other places around town in case those don't pan out. I need the money! I'm down to $30 in my bank account for the month. Amazing how rent and getting here to Austin vaporized my assets. I'm so happy to be here though. Austin Rocks! Tonight there's a dance, a free movie at the theatre, events at BookPeople, etc. etc., not to mention all of the free music going on every night downtown.

I'm going crazy without something contructive to do with my hands. For lack of a job, I've actually been cleaning around the house. ( Gasp! ) For some reason I'm a ball of energy lately, but I've only been averaging 4 hours of sleep a night for the past month. I think it's because I recently took myself off of anti-depressents. I seem to go in cycles...sometimes I really need them, and other times they just put me to sleep.

Last night Fred and I ended up lounging on the couch, talking till 2am while I hunted for jobs on the computer. Even though it was in the 50''s-60's outside, we had a fire going in the massive fireplace. Fred has gone through 1 1/2 cords of firewood this season already, and it's only gotten to freezing here in Austin once this winter. Do I detect a pyromaniac?

Insomnia

It's not insomnia if you want to be up, right?

I'm parked on the big leather couch again, listening to The The. Fred cranked it up really loud! Now I don't feel so bad about the volume I had it at earlier. :-) I must say, the man has excellent taste in music. Yesterday I had the house to myself for the night while he was away at his girlfriend's, so I tried out a boatload of his CDs and old LPs. I love being able to feel the music surround me, feel every cell in my body reverberate to the beat. The $5 walmart special radio I had on my bike trip certainly couldn't pump out this volume!

ITunes Shuffle

I was just reading a blog of someone who lives here in Austin. They had listed the first 20 songs that came up when they put their ITunes program to random shuffle mode, and why they liked them/had them. I wondered what would come up if I put mine on shuffle. Here it is:

1) Ani Difranco - Amazing Grace
I'm going through a big Ani phase at the moment. She's good angst producing/reducing music.

2) Susan Tedeschi - Unnamed Track
I'm not sure what this one is...I uploaded this CD to my computer when it wasn't connected to the internet, so it didn't automatically get the song info, and I was too lazy to type it in. I love her voice...it would be awesome to have that vocal power!

3) Allison Krauss & Union Station - The Road Is A Lover
Always a perenial favorite, you just can't go wrong with folk/bluegrass.

4) Dar Williams - The Christians And The Pagans
A tongue in cheek song that so reminds me of my old days in Vermont.

5) Billie Holiday - Love For Sale
Such a smooth, velvety voice...the kind of music you turn on to eat dinner with.

6) Glen Tilbrook - Black Coffee In Bed
Formally of the band Squeeze. Hmmm, I just realized that most of these songs are about longing.

7) Primus - Too Many Puppies
Now how did that get in there? It must have been my alter ego who bought that CD. I do need a steady, diverse diet of hardcore music mixed in with the softer stuff. Variety is the spice of life! (Now where did I put my White Stripes...?)

8) Diana Krall - Stop This World
Originally introduced to her by Jesse, she's been popping up in the CD collections of everyone I've met lately. Great minds think alike!

9) Shelby Lynne - I Walk The Line
I discovered her on my bicycle trip. I love her voice!

10) Spoon - Lines In The Suit
An Austin Band, I ran across them via a compilation CD I bought that was put out by my favorite local radio station, KGSR.

11) Ani Difranco - Gravel
For a while on the bike trip, this was the song I would always click on first to write my journal by. It gets me all pumped up and ready to go.

12) Iris Dement - Our Town
You'll either love or hate her voice ... kind of like Kasey Chambers, another favorite of mine.

13) Ozomatli - Believe
I've heard them described as a combo of ska, funk, hip-hop and salsa. This particular tune is very catchy - it was stuck in my head through most of Florida.

14) Les Negresses Vertes - Face A La Mer
A form of electronica with a world beat flair.

15) The Blind Bloys Of Alabama - Wade In The Water
You can't help but feel good when listening to this...and have an urge to go to gospel services.

16) Jack Johnson - Good People
Ok, so I have a thing for him...talented and cute to boot!

17) Hooverphonic - Pink Fluffy Dinosaurs
I honestly don't know how they got onto my computer. I like them nonetheless. :-)

18) Bare Bones Blues Band - Party All Night
Just listen ... you'll understand.

19) Eleftheria Arvanitaki - The Bodies And The Knives
I discovered her through a compilation CD called Gifted: Women Of The World. I love compilation CDs!

20) Carl Orff - Carmina Burana
My favorite classical piece, ever! I'm going to burn it to a CD, so I can pop it into the awesome stereo system here and play it loud enough to rattle the neighbor's dishes. Ok, maybe not...but still, I want to at least feel me reverberate with the music.

I'm baaaaaack!

Here comes Heather!

I'm starting up this blog again. I've missed it! Writing is so therapeutic, not to mention I like the fact that thousands of people hang on my every word. It makes me feel special. :-)

Austin is Heavenly! It's spring here in Texas, and the greenery is coming out in full force. The trees are all waking up from slumber and bursting with fresh new leaves. The wisteria is blanketing everything with its luscious purple blooms, frangrance hanging heavy in the moist air. Yeah spring!

My new house is amazing! I wired Fred (my new roomie/landlord), the rent money, site unseen from San Diego. Luckily we both liked each other when I got here, and I fell in love with the house. I'm out in the 'burbs of Austin, far enough away to be quiet, but close enough that it only takes 10 minutes or so by bicycle to get right to the heart of downtown.

The house is a ranch style, built in 1944. Our lot is covered in towering live oak trees. There's a brick patio area nestled between the trunks, with multi colored lightbulbs strung above through the branches. Fred has had parties out in the yard and managed to fit more than a hundred people out there.

Inside the house, my favorite part is the kitchen. It's floor to ceiling to cabinets to trim, knotty pine woodwork with black wraught iron hardware. There's a double decker built in oven, original to the house, along with a 4 burner range and pancake griddle. I tested the oven out for the first time tonight by making Fred and I some Tempeh Rubens for supper. Later, I was in the middle of making chocolate chip pecan cookies when I realized there wasn't any vanilla in the house. I bicycled down to the grocery store (a few minutes) to get some, but didn't finish baking them before Fred left for the night. I hope there are still some left when he gets back! I hear this house is home to a cookie monster that makes off with baked goods when nobody is watching...

I'm sitting here on the comfy leather couch with my feet up on the sturdy wooden coffee table, listening to an old Dylan LP on the amazing stereo system. The speakers are positioned juuuust right for where I'm sitting. This is the living room...on my right is the fireplace, the entire wall made of flagstone, and essentially one big mantle area. Straight ahead are sliding glass doors that open into the enclosed porch area, where Fred has his office. (He's an architect/builder). On the left is a bookcase filled with classics.

Everything about this house is just so perfect. My room is about 16x16, with hardwood floors and two big windows. Right now it's kind of on the sparse side, but that will change once I get a job and money! So far all that's in it is a queen size futon bed (purple sheets!), and a curvy wooden dresser with mirror. I have three closets in there, so I'm definitely not lacking in storage space. My bathroom is painted a lively blue green color, with purple and yellow cabinets that have lizards for door handles. The bedroom is a soothing white, a perfect background for pictures of mine I want to blow up, frame, and hang on the walls. I'll be getting some hooks to hang my bike from the ceiling (And hanging it up, once Greyhound gives it back to me. They lost it somewhere in Dallas.)

All in all, I am having a wonderful time here. Now to make the picture perfect, I need a satisfying job and a nice boyfriend type, to bask in all of Austin's glory together.

New Website up and running

The new site of mine, www.heatherstars.com , is up and running. I updated the journals and pics section with two entires. Oooh la la! And so the journey begins.

I'm still alive

Has it really been since October? Gosh, I haven't been THAT tardy about updating before.

Life is busy. I've spent the past month making Mom and Brian's house like new. I'm in the home stretch ... just two more rooms to floor! And one is my bathroom...a whole 18 square feet. :-) There's some paint, molding, cabinet hanging, and neatening up to do. Eventually I'll put a new roof on, too. Undecided about when or what type.

My bike panniers are coming in the mail soon. Hooray! When I get out on the road, I'll be updating a new site: www.HeatherStars.com There'll be journals, pics, and assorted other things. Right now it's a very perfunctory site - just a few words here and there, and a gear list.

Heather's Grand Bicycling Adventure

Oh yeah, I never said what I plan to do. Well....

Mom and I are heading down to Florida the first week of November. We'll be meeting Brian (Mom's Fiance) in Disney World and having fun there for a few days. We'll celebrate my birthday on December 1st, in between me laying down a new hardwood floor in their house. On the 3rd they'll be getting married, then I'll be house sitting while they're on their honeymoon. Once they get back, I'm taking off.

I'm riding my Cannondale T800 bike from Florida to California via some warm, southern roads. I haven't figured out my exact route yet, or what I'll be doing for fun and excitement along the way. There are a bunch of National parks I want to see, and maybe I'll go into the big city of San Antonio to explore. I want to see Alpine, Texas again because I remember it as being a really beautiful place in the middle of nowhere when we visited it years and years ago.
I'm making a website about my whole adventure, and I'll tell you what the address is once I've got everything figured out and in a nice, neat format.

Toby the big red van is gone

Heather under the hood

I found a new home for my van. A nice couple from New Jersey came up yesterday to buy it. I was kind of sad to see my van motor off without me. I learned so much about mechanics from working on it!

After getting the bill of sale notorized in town and waving bye to the people who bought Toby, I took my new bike into the local sports store. I spent 2 hours in there drooling and getting a bunch of new bike goodies installed. Clipless pedals, an under the saddle bag, tube of lube, headlight, tail light, frame pump, water bottle cage, and cycle computer. I also had a couple of spare spokes made just in case. Turns out they have a fancy spoke-making machine in the basement. They let me go down there to pick out shoes for my new pedals...WOW the place is huge! The underground section of the store takes up almost the entire city block. I had no idea the place was so big!

Everybody working there was slightly jealous as they wished me luck on my trip. I'm going to be sending them postcards along the way. I'm so excited! I can't wait to get out there on the open road. :-)

Vermont Homestead for sale

Mom put up a site detailing about our homestead for sale. You can find it here.

What next for Heather?

The next few months are going to be busy. Mom and I are going to spend them cleaning the entire house and land, paring down our belongings to the nth degree. Once the homestead sells and everything else is in order, she's moving to Florida.

What will I do? I want to save money and eventually buy land and build a cool new house. It'll be a few years though. Also, today I went to my doc. He's going to take out the wires and some screws from my arm in December. I need to do everything that requires any strength between now and then. As soon as I hit the operating table, I'm not allowed/won't be able to do hardly anything for a few months. After my appointment this morning I went to a Barnes and Noble to look at their house building books. I want to build something really cool this time around.

Smoothies on Martha's Vineyard

I was reading my blog and realized I never wrote about going to Martha's Vineyard! Once again, I was having too much fun.

We all took the ferry over from Hyannis to Oak Bluffs. We drove off the ferry via a really cool old dock that was constructed of thick wooden beams and a wooden planked deck. Navigating through the cramped streets lined with shops full of tourist trinkets and overpriced but delicious food, we pointed the van inland. Masses of tourists and buildings gave way to a gently rolling, narrow road flanked by old stone fences.

After setting up the smoothie booth at the mostly empty fairgrounds, we packed our towels and headed to one of the many beaches. The weather was beautiful. Sunny, warm, with a constant sea breeze. We drove around, checked out the cliffs at Aquinnah, and took some pictures of lighthouses.

Once the fair started on Thursday, we were pretty busy all the way through. On Sunday we finally ran out of fruit 40 minutes before the fair officially closed. As soon as it did, we all hopped into the van and headed for town. That night we went to a fancy restraunt called Jimmy Sea's. They go there every year after the fair is through and treat themselves to a big dinner, hang the cost! Paula had puttanesca, Michael the fruit of the sea, Jesse some butternut squash ravioli, and I, the shrimp butter cream. We each had a drink from the bar, and no dessert. The tab came to $150. Figuring $200 was a nice round number, Michael gave our waiter a $50 tip. Even through I wasn't the one paying, I have to say that the dinner and experience were worth it. It was such a treat to eat at a place like that. The food was delicious, and the portions were absolutely huge. We ended up taking them in a cooler to the beach the next day and stuffing ourselves to the gills again.

The last day on the Island, we were able to go to a resident's only beach, thanks to a friend of Michael's who let us in. We spent the entire day baking in the sand, playing games, eating, and surfing the waves on a body board. I spent hours out in the ocean catching waves, and came back home a brilliant red from head to toe.

All in all, a great working vacation.

Life in General

Gosh, I've been such a bad blogger this year! I never seem to find the time to get online and update this thing unless I'm in a wicked bad mood and need to vent. The blog has been very therapuetic that way... like when I heard through the grapevine that some company called up John Christman and mentioned my blog to him. From what I hear, John is really pissed and looking for a way to "Get even" with me. I also hear that he's still treating his employees like crap. He's really digging himself deep.

I've been having fun being gainfully unemployed! I'm finally getting the garden and homestead all ship-shape for winter, before the snow starts to fall. Soon I need to enter the work world. In between schlepping wood and preparing the garden for snow, I've been searching for a good winter job. I've narrowed it down to either outdoor recreation or something to do with baking. Any good job leads?

I'm off for a nice Sunday drive with Jesse.

Car troubles

Yesterday mom and I took my old van grocery shopping. I hadn't driven it in a long time, ever since I bought my Toyota 4runner. It was just like old times .... on the way home, the van died. The starter motor kicked the bucket in the parking lot of the general store 1 1/2 miles from our house. Of course I didn't have any of the 4 fix-it manuals for the van with me, so mom had to tell me what to do, based on her foggy memory of what fixing her junker cars was like back in the old days.

Finding the starter took awhile. Instead of being near the front of the engine, GM thought it better to stick the thing in the middle of the car, behind the wheelwell. I had to lay on my back in the middle of a fairly deep puddle to finally get to it. Mom neglected to tell me the starter would start sparking and whirring around like crazy once I got the screwdriver wedged in there. Eeek!

Luckily the thing started and we made it back home. I'm going to buy a new starter for $47.99 and hopefully everything will work out ok. If only I were as lucky with my Toyota 4runner...

Yesterday I had the 'yoda set up to go in for a brake job and inspection. When I went out that morning to drive it there, the thing wouldn't start. It's never not started before! It would turn over just fine, but wouldn't actually start. The battery was fine, and I couldn't find a reason for it not to start. I had to call the garage and have them tow it there. A few hours later they called me back to say it would cost $800 to $1,000 to fix my car up to inspectable shape, and they didn't think it was worth it. Noooooooo!!!

Being poor sucks. You only have enough money at one time to buy a $1,000 or under car, then it keeps falling apart and needing massive amounts of money. (sigh) Too bad bike season is swiftly coming to an end...I could just bike to work, if I had a job...

Speaking of job, have you checked out Google yet? Now when you type in "John Christman Construction" , my blog entries about what a crappy business he runs are the third and forth link. Take THAT, you scum sucking pig. :-)

Ahhh, now I feel better.

Anybody want to buy a 1986 Toyota 4runner as a parts car? Everything solid except the frame and back brakes. :-) Only 116k miles...

Smoothies

I'm off doing smoothies. Be back on Monday or so...

Why I was fired

I don't know why I was fired ... When I asked John why, he looked surprised and said "I'm tired of your attitude of always moping around, and I'm not going to pay you to *expletive* draw on things".

Well gee, nobody has ever accused me of being mopey on the job. As for drawing on things? I drew an electrical meter on the side of the new garage to let the homeowner know exactly where to install a new one, and I drew a sun on a rafter after one of the foremen doodled a sun on his portion of the rafter while we were both holding it. Uh oh, better watch out!

A while back, I wrote on my timesheet to let John know I'd be taking a week off to travel out of state and work for smoothies. More than a week went by, and I hadn't heard anything. The next week one of the foremen told me that John had been talking about letting me go because he didn't want me to take time off. He said that if I wanted to keep my job, I should show up for work the next Monday instead of taking it off like I had said I would. So I showed up on Monday. John didn't say anything. I showed up on Tuesday. Still nothing. I worked 2 hours on Wednesday, then John showed up and promptly fired me, giving me his lame excuse. Bastard! How rude to fire me even after I came in the week I wasn't supposed to be there.

It's one thing to be a jerk. It's another to be so vindictive that he decided to fire me, without warning, after coming into work for 3 straight days after the date I wasn't originally going to be there.

His actions speak loudly of his character. (Or lack thereof.)

John Christman Construction

It has been 1 hour and 30 minutes since I was fired from my job as a carpenter at John Christman Construction. I burst into tears on the way home, but now I'm coming to terms with it. I've never been fired from a job before...it's a wierd feeling.

I'm actually glad it happened, because I've been thinking of quitting for a while now. I was getting really uncomfortable with being associated with John Christman. The work was getting shoddier by the job, the tools we worked with were defective and dangerous, and John didn't treat his employees very well.

John's brother Bob runs one of the crews. Bob made so many mistakes it was embarassing to work with him. The garage I was working on this morning when I was fired is a good example. For starters, Bob didn't make sure the garage foundation was square before he poured it. It came out so unsquare that the walls aren't even fully on the foundation, and the bolts that go through the wall to attach it to the foundation are too close to the edge, causing a multitude of problems.

It just goes on from there.... door openings too small for the doors, walls not lining up with the existing building, etc, etc. Not something I want my reputation to be associated with.

When I started working for John Christman, I would ask people I knew what they had heard of him. It wasn't good. I should have known...

What's new

Time flies!

My last post mentioned I went in for a job interview. Well, I got the job and have been working there full-time since, as carpenter. I'll refer to my boss as John Doe, the company as John Doe Construction, Inc. The pay isn't great, but it's been fairly steady work. Myself and the rest of the crew have become increasingly restless and irritated at our rate of pay and how the company is run.

John Doe owns a shiny new Hummer, a Toyota 4x4 truck with a massive lift kit and all sorts of optional accessories like off-road lights, another lifted 4x4 jeep, a brand new sports car with Hemi for his wife, a new tractor, a backhoe, a powerboat, big travel trailer, a big house and new garage/workshop across the street, several different properties, etc etc.

Our construction crew works with dilapidated and non-OSHA approved tools such as a chop saw with no safety blade quard, a table saw you have to turn on with a nail (Even worse, you have to prod the internal switch with this nail to get it to stop...not something you can do very quickly in case of an emergency), etc etc. We have a couple of cordless drills, but never seem to have the batteries that go with them.

Last week the boss bought yet another new truck. It's a quad cab, but is just for John's use. We get to use his wife's old truck as the company rig...enough room for two plus a midget in the back. Some of us found the invoice for the new truck - $35,000. That amount of money would buy an awful lot of working, safe construction tools, ladders that aren't duct-taped together, or even a little raise for his workers.

I started at $9 an hour. I'm up to $11, which is still less than my very first construction job with a company 3 years ago. Everybody else is paid within a few dollars of what I'm getting .... even one of the foremen, whom is worth oodles more. All of us peons are just bankrolling John's lifestyle. John has been through a lot of people just while I've been there. He can't hold on to people because of the crappy wages and inefficient way he runs the company.

Monday should be interesting. The rumbling of discontent is getting stronger every day.

New posting

I'm going to start posting again soon. I have a lot to catch up on! Stay tuned...

New pictures

This morning I went to a carpentry job interview at 7:30am. On the way back, I took the long way home and snapped a bunch of pictures of the surrounding area.

Garlic

Newt

Forsythia

Waterfall

Rosbinson sawmill

Swamp Cabbage

Adamant co-op

Random dirt road

Drive by cow viewing through van window

Crooked barn

Light through slats in barn wall

Heather and Jesse

Heather and Jesse are back

We've been back in VT for a couple of weeks now. I finally got around to reading all of my mail. Jeez, there's lots of it! It will take me a while to write back to everybody.

Right now Jesse and I are looking for some good jobs. We were working for a friend of his, helping build his house up in the northeast kingdom. That money tided us over for a little bit, but now we're broke again. Unfortunately part of the reason we have no money is because somebody else we worked for screwed us over. We'll have to sue if they don't cough up the money they owe us soon.

I'm slowly easing back into carpentry. My arm is still sore, but it's healing nicely. Only one of the breaks isn't completely healed...but the doc says I'm doing A+ and my progress is amazing. My bad arm is only 2 or 3 degrees off of normal when I try to straighten it out. In two months I see him again to talk about which hardware to take out. The 6 1/2" long screw is coming out, as are one or two of the plates. They took some more x-rays while I was there, which I used to gross out other people in the waiting room.

Overall life is going pretty good. I'm looking forward to making some money! I really want to get serious about saving it to buy my own land sometime in the next couple of years.

Ticks

Yesterday I went to browse the magazines after updating my blog, leaving Jesse alone with the computers. When he came to find me later that evening (I was in the photography section) he bounced over with a sly smile and announced he had made an executive decision...We were going to stay at a motel that night. He had been looking up Ocala area places to stay and found some good ones.

Weird. I never stay in motels. It sounded like an excellent idea though, what with the hot showers, the big beds, etc...Especially considering neither of us had washed up in at least a week. We ended up going to Howard Johnsons and splurging $40 for a room. We fell asleep sprawled across the bed, watching tv. How weird to catch up on the news after so long of not paying attention to it!

This morning I found a tick on Jesse. We've been staying in national forests for weeks now, and the first time he gets a tick, it's in a motel room. It definitely wasn't there last night...

So now we're in the Ocala library again, updating and researching places to go. Merle Fest has been nixed in favor of just slowly working our way back up to Vermont, enjoying our money while it lasts. We're going to buy tickets to Grey Fox instead, which happens in New York state in July. It includes camping and is almost/just as cool as Merle Fest.

Marion County

Ahhhh, yet another air conditioned, cool library. This one is the Marion County headquarters library in Ocala, Florida. It's huge! They have over 40 computers here. Lots of great books and magazines, too.

Jesse and I stopped by to read our mail and perhaps do a little catch-up on blogging. While in Ocala and on the way here, we stopped at a natural foods mart to get some soymilk. When we got back into the jeep, it wouldn't start! No turnover or anything....

This jeep has been through two starters already with the previous owner. We tried some trouble shooting in the parking lot and were figuring that was probably what the problem was. Since it's a stick, we tried to pop the clutch. After 5-10 minutes of pushing the jeep up and down the small incline in the parking lot and having no luck, this army guy comes out of the local recruitment center to give us a hand. He helps us wiggle the starter, bang on the battery cables, etc. We figure out that the problem is corroded battery clamps. Get the thing started and drive to a auto place, replace the clamps and get some duct tape to fix a hose problem. Woohoo, nothing too serious! Man, what a workout though ... I was the one pushing the jeep most of the time.

Our jeep now sports a holstein cow that's J B welded to the hood. You can wiggle the whole car by moving the cow. It looks dashing riding up front, above the pretty green Vermont license plate. We've gotten several smiles and comments over it already. A couple of little old black ladies walked by and admired the cow, saying they had salt and pepper shakers like that once.

This entry is a little bit disjointed because I only have a few minutes in which to compose it. Dang time limits.

Jesse and I are figuring out what to do next. So many possibilities! We've been bumping around the cheap campgrounds in Ocala for awhile now, now we're thinking of doing the free campground route, or perhaps moving upstate or even to Georgia for a different change of pace.

I'm starting to get a little mopey at the onset of hiking season. I want to be out there! There was an AT/FT hiker staying at Lake Delancy campground the past few days. Great charecter to talk to! Turns out he had run into my mother while she was doing the whole trail angel thing in Tennesse when I was out hiking that year. Maybe I'll do the LT again this spring...

I hope to run into some hikers when we get up to the smoky mountains. Part of the reason I got J B Weld for the cow instead of superglue is because I left my backpacking stove at home and figured I could make an alcohol soda can stove with it...something you can't do with superglue. That way I could go backpacking for a little bit while I'm up there.

Time to go,

Ocala

Ahhhh, just came in to the air conditioned coolness of the Umatilla library from getting our pictures developed at the local Walgreens. The lady there really admired our pictures and said we ought to go pro. This batch was of the Everglades and all of the wildlife we encountered. Lots of good bird pics and alligators.

Yesterday we drove up to Ocala National Forest from lake Okeechobee and camped at Lake Dorr. It's a pretty NF campground conveniently located right off the main drag. (Route 19) Today we went to town (Umatilla) to get soup, fresh greenery and ice for the cooler. We're going to chill out somewhere in the forest for a few days, finally organize the jeep, and catch up on writing in our personal journals. Then it's off to one of the springs for snorkeling and canoeing!

Camping is cheap here, usually $5 - $6 a night. Quite the nice change of pace from the $100 a night we had to shell out for camping in the Keys! The really scary part about that is that was the cheapest option available. Camping at other places was even higher, not to mention what the motels got away with charging...

They say if you really want to know someone, go camping or on a road trip together. Jesse and I have been doing both for a month now and haven't killed each other yet. Quite the opposite, really. So for all of those guys who keeping applying to be my boyfriend...that's really sweet of you and I'm flattered, but I'm quite taken at the moment.

Anyhoo, we'll be working our way up the coast pretty soon here. Merle Fest is in less than a month! North Carolina, here we come!

In Southern Florida

This post is coming to you from the southeastern tip of Lake Ochechobee in the South Bay library. We stopped off here on the way to camp for the night to check our mail and download applications for Merle Fest.

After we left Susan's house, we went to the Everglades. Saw lots of alligators and even more mosquitos. Went looking for a place to camp on Key Largo and ended up driving all the way to Key West before we were successful. Gosh, the place gets super, super, SUPER packed on Easter weekend! Stayed two nights, then drove back up to Long Key state park. Pretty primitive sites along a boardwalk and the ocean.

Now we're headed to Ocala for the cooler temps and fewer people. Lately it's been in the 80's and 90's. Ick! Sure beats freezing back at home though. :-) When it gets to hot here, we just jump into the ocean with our snorkeling gear.

Time to leave...my 30 minutes are up.

Fun in Florida!

Jesse and I have finished work here at the evil stepmothers house, and are off to start enjoying the real Florida. Remind me never to work for family again, even if it is a pseudo relationship. Blech!

Mom and us have been packing our respective vehicles all morning. She just walked in to find me writing this blog. "Give me a beer, I need to take a sip, Heather's actually updating!"

We just finished lunch, now it's time to hit the road. I'll try to update within a week.

This is the mother speaking :-)

Personally, I'm REAL tired of signing on only to find Update Central still there! Now that Heather is blissed out with her new boyfriend and being in Florida, you might want to check my blog for updates and pics....

http://journals.aol.com/wsm311/WendyUsuallyWanders/