blog (August, 2003)
RSS & TrackBacking
Some time ago, I jumped onto the RSS aggregation bandwagon (what's RSS?) to facilitate blog and news source consumption. Shrook is an excellent RSS newsreader for Mac OS X, with features and design that suit me more than NetNewsWire. I'm waiting on a just a few of the blogs I read to provide feeds.
Tonight I did a little work on my own blog. I've updated the RSS index to include full entries and photos, instead of just excerpts; something I like to see in other feeds I read. Thanks here to etc.'s MT RSS template. I've also opened up my entries to TrackBack pings, (what's TrackBack?) Thanks goes to Jeff from Beans for Breakfast for his lightweight TrackBacking method that I borrowed.
I'm more excited every day about how much this new medium is moving. I love watching how quickly the ripples not only move across the pond, but continually feed back into eachother.
Unlike traditional journalism, which seeks to provide complete information in a working final form, blogging is often exploratory. It's about what we are trying to learn, rather than about what I (or my journal) already know.
-- Doc Searls, Entrevue de Doc Searls by Michel Dumais
rough hew them, though we may
My dome is a bit small in this photo, but if you know me in "real life," you've probably noticed the glaring deficiency. A week and a half ago I went into the woods after dark and began hacking away with scissors at my shoulder-length curls and dreaddy knots. Reading about possessions and distractions from samadhi in Geshe Michael Roach's To The Inner Kingdom ultimately forced the moment, but the deed was some time in the making. I've been frustrated with my hair ever since getting the dreadlocks in Morocco a few months ago, and finally gave up trying to pull them out hair by hair.
I've surprised (and escaped initial recognition with) a few people, and have since received both positive and negative reviews. It was really very liberating, and I'm excited with the change and relatively happy with the results. Might keep it short for awhile.
These opposing mirrors badgered me to try and catch them in their neverending game. I've submitted the pic to The Mirror Project: here.
don't mistake us for some corny-ass crew
Yesterday the campers left; sad, but a breath of air after a hard summer's work, and an especially full-on week and a half. The summer flew by. I can't say I've accomplished everything I'd hoped to -- not in the least -- but I've labored and achieved, and enjoyed much of my time here. Last night was the final piss-up of the summer; the majority of my counselor co-workers left today for NYC, their starting point for travels around the states or, like my best buds, to Mexico, or returning back home to Aus./NZ/UK/etc.
I'm hanging around for a week of post-camp to take down the computer lab properly, and to work on a couple small projects. I have liberties with my schedule, allowing me to run with The Running School, which is using our camp for the week.
Here's to trying to keep up with many of the best high-school XC runners in the nation...
original kin
Late Tuesday we didn't get to the Econo Lodge to begin our night off until after 2am, so Wednesday's run was a grueling one in the upswing heat following four days' downpour and lapse in training. Near the end I hop=dodged a thin bright green double-S curve drawn across the hot asphalt, and stopped my watch to take a closer look.
Squatting quite close by, I labeled him as snake and he, me as who knows?, but we remained in our poses considering eachother for at least two minutes. His body was clean and his scales shone brightly in the sun. His eyes were fixed on me, but as for his recognition beyond that, I wonder. Was I a possible foe? Just colors and movement? He lay motionless but for the subtle pulsing of what I imagined was the area holding his lungs.
A car turned the corner down the street, and headed in our direction. Torn between averting disaster and involving myself in something not my business, I rose and stepped to the roadside, breath withheld. The vehicle moved to the middle of the road, I think to avoid me, but still missed my new acquaintance. He slithered a bit as the wheels rushed on either side of him, but remained on the road, and relatively still.
Twice more this happened, but the third time the car passed and the snake was flopping and flailing in the road, with an obvious kink in his neck. I started, cringed, and suffered a horrible "oh,no.oh,no" moment, but came nearer to watch the struggle that ensued. Eventually the twitching and gasping for air stopped, and as he lay still I drew closer and stared into his now-red eyes. Another driver passed, but the snake was now straddling the white roadside line; swingAndAMiss. But then the little mouth opened wide, fighting to gain air, and his "chest" slowly expanded and contracted again, and the as he moved a bit, the kink in his neck worked itself into almost the previous perfectshape. Before heading back off again, I tapped his tail end, and he slid off the road into the grass.
Yesterday, the lecture I've been reading supplied the moral of the story:
Then I started to think, when I was watching him flail, that I can't tell him I'm trying to save his life. He won't understand. There's no way I can tell him, "Don't put your tail back on the tape. I just got it off." You know, "Hold still, be patient. It hurts; it's part of something bigger."
Then it dawned on me that there are beings all around us, constantly, trying in the same way. There must be higher beings. It's naïve to think we are the only level of things. We look like little lizards to them. We flail when they try to help us. We think, "They're trying to kill me."
You can't judge events more than people. Events could be designed to strengthen and prepare you for something higher that is so foreign to you that you can in no way be communicated with by those beings, any more than a small lizard can be told to lie still.
-- Geshe Michael Roach, To The Inner Kingdom
not until we are lost
Noticed yesterday that tantek's log turned 1. Curiousity piqued, so I peeked, and found that today is my blog's second birthday. Two years have passed since my first post here.
Phooooooo.
They didn't make conversation; rather they let a seedling of thought sprout by itself, and then watched with wonder while it sent out branching limbs. They were surprised at the strange fruit their conversation bore, for they didn't direct their thinking, nor trellis nor trim it the way so many people do.
-- John Steinbeck, Junius Maltby
buggin' out
Why is it that when i come up
I just worry 'bout coming back down?
Never satisfied with filling my cup
Always spill it all over the ground.
stardust, golden, back to the garden
Today many of the other counselors took to The City for their day off, to see a ball game and a bit of Manhattan. I set out walking down the road armed with a camera and a plastic bag with fruit, a book, and my running clothes. My trainers I sling over my shoulder to tread the miles barefoot. Inchworms dangle, dancing, at eye-level from high branches, searching for their landing pads. A deerfly swims laps around my head.
On city runs in Cleveland we joked of measuring our distance in Kentucky Fried Chickens instead of miles. Here and now either POSTED signs or smooshed asphalt frogs would be appropriate.
Dogs bark as I pass a farmhouse. The owner at the door yells, "Come on guys, leave her alone!" I laugh and remind myself to pull out the rest of these dread-knots so I can get a haircut.
Coming up the last large hill I spy white tent tops. Voices and gentle music grow louder. Across the street from the Woodstock grounds and monument: the Bethel Summer Farmers' Market -- my destination.
A chairmaker and some pottery in the first open-walled tent. The next, a few tables bearing local produce, a man promoting his book, and the highlight for me, a guitar/mandolin duo tucked between a woman selling bagels in woven baskets and a man with an assortment of maple syrup products, pancake mix and ground beef.
I sat at a picnic table in the middle of the tent, facing the old tie-dyed, sunglassed musicians, plopping my bag and shoes on the grass next to me. Enjoyed a $1.50 pound of delicious plums and relaxed.
My cue came when the pair began "Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad." I walked past the Woodstock grounds until I found a suitable hiding place. Turning my head to direct my ears down the road, I changed quickly, slipping on shorts and shoes. Grabbed my watch, dumped my gear in the weeds, and started running. The main road I came to reminded me of Tuam Road out of Galway, where I did a few long runs in Ireland. The farms here were a bit newer, the cows fatter, and every car a 4-wheel drive, but the trucks blew the same giant gusts of exhaust on me as they thundered by.
Took a short detour down the road to Max Yasgur's old house, and another climbing stone steps up to an overgrown vantage point. I turned back early, though, tired perhaps from the morning's long walk and the anticipation of the return trip. Collected my things and retired to read Steinbeck on the end of a rock wall in the shade for an hour, before returning by alternate route back to camp in time for shower and dinner; necessary after the 16-mile day.
