Bike Commuting Begins

I used to joke about riding my bike to work. After all it sounded good and...I only lived 2 blocks away. Well now the commute is 17 miles, and the joke isnt' so funny. Even so the commute has begun! Today I just rode home (Moby is spending the night at MSM). It was a great ride. Tomorrow morning there will be a ride back. That's as far as the plan stands at this point.

Whale Street

Killing whales never really appealed to Giselle. But after being 'layed off' following nine years working in hedge funds she figured it couldn't be too bad. Besides she really wouldn't be killing the whales, they were long dead. Even extinct. Blubber, boiled for oil or some such thing. She would just be using her trading talents to sell 'the rich history of whaling.' She didn't see much difference...except she wasn't sure stilettos were the right shoe. They kept sticking into the cracks of the boat's floor.

...And a strange-looking man with a full beard, perhaps even unwashed, kept staring at them.

"The crew usually went barefoot" he noted. "The Morgan often sailed for five or six years without making landfall. Shoes wore out after only a few months."

She smiled, nodded, and looked away. "Um, thank you."

"Can you imagine being out of sight of land for five years? Spending your days chasing The Big Leviathan? Cutting it up into small 'bibles of blubber' and standing on the deck, stirring the oil as the black smoke rolls across the deep blue sea?"

"Pardon?"

"Whaling! It was a man's life!"

"Oh," she realized," You must be one of those interpreters?"

"Yes mam," he replied.

She looked at her watch, glanced over at the ground. She wasn't sure she could wait much longer. Matt said he would brief her here 'on the deck' at 3:00. It was 3:10 and she didn't want to talk about the 'deep blue sea' or a 'man's life' for another second. She was here to save this place, to bring in the big money. Not to talk about whaling.

"Have you seen Matt Hawthorn lately?" she asked the unwashed one.

"Why. Mr. Hawthorn is just off the port bow."

"Where?"

He pointed to land to the right and front of the boat.

Giselle sighed, how much of this historic horse stuff, nautical lingo would she have to endure? Maybe she could still go back to the Street, a few less thousand a month wasn't so bad.

A Short Rant: Earth Day

Every day should be Earth Day. Or, as studly says, "One day a year is just to assuage people's guilt."

What I say is - we don't need to save the earth, we need to stop messing it up. (Usually I use a more 'graphic' term).

What to do? Live an "Earth Life." Pledge today that when you leave here, no one will know you were here. Live a "Leave no trace" kinda life...and stop printing, selling, buying Earth Day stuff. Stop buying anything. Just stop. And I will now, stop ranting.

An Ode to Gore-Tex

When spring hikes follow showers
And mud fills in the trail
When the sun rises through mist at an early hour
And the day ends with a hearty ale,

Then it's time to salute the Gores,
Robert, Rowena and Wilbert.
Those saviors of all small, dry pores
Those inventors of ultimate water resistance.

But 'tis not Robert's induction in the hall of fame
Nor fluorosurfactant perfluorooctanoic acid
For which we toast his name.

It's the fact that we can hike all day,
In wind, and snow and rain
And all the time stay toasty dry
Through the 100 mile wilderness of Maine.