ATTENTION: Is there anyone interested in hiking the Appalachian Trail?

Currently Reading Tales of the Mountain Men: Seventeen Stories of Survival, Exploration, and Outdoor Craft see related

Survey du jour

How old will you be in 12 months?
23

Do you think you'll be married by then?
No

What do you look forward to most in the next 3 months?
Canoe trip in August, Wilderness EMT in Sept, then Americorps in October

Who was the last person to call you?
I think my Aunt Gloria

Who was the last person to text you?
Tracy

Do you prefer to call or text?
Call

Do you have any pets?
I have a cactus that sits in my window

What were you doing at 12am last night?
Sleeping

When is the last time you saw your mom?
April 26 2007

How many houses have you lived in?
2

How many cities/towns have you lived in?
6

Do you prefer shoes, socks, or bare feet?
Depends on temperature

Are you a social person?
I'm social, but I'm not limited by it

What was the last thing you ate?
EDR food about 30 mins ago...I've already forgotten what it was

Favorite color(s)?
Black, lime green, dark green, orange

What are you doing for your next birthday?
I don't even know what state I'm going to be in for my next birthday

What is your favorite TV show?
Lost, I got hooked on it when I watched the 1st and 2nd season after surgery

What kind of jelly do you like on your PB & J sandwich?
Apricot, or anything wierd like huckleberry or thimbleberry

How many glasses of water a day do you drink on average?
Usually at least a nalgene

Are you in love?
Yup

What are you listening to?
The tireless white noise of my fan

Do you sleep on a certain side of the bed?
My bed isn't big enough to have sides

Do you like to cuddle?
Yes.

Any plans for this weekend?
I am going to let my dinner settle, and then I am going to go hiking if it doesn't storm. Tomorrow I will probably sleep in and then go hiking again. It finally cooled off some.

Do you eat out or at home more often?
I have eaten out of a cafeteria for the last 3 years

Have you ever been in an ambulance?
yes, in Antarctica as a patient

Pool, lake or ocean?
Pool only for lap swimming, Lakes for lots of fun stuff. Ocean for scuba.

Do you prefer a window seat or an aisle seat?
window!

Do you know how to drive a stick shift?
I've had introductory lessons a few times, but I've never had to drive one consistantly

What is your favorite thing to spend money on?
camping and other fun toys, like ham radios and spotting scopes

Do you wear any jewelry 24/7?
My watch?

Do you speak any other language?
spanish

Who is the funniest person you know?
I've had some pretty funny times with lots of people, Jake, Britt, Boes, Marie (haquy anniversary), Lots of people make me laugh

Do you sleep with stuffed animals?
yes

What is the main ring tone on your phone?
She thinks my tractor's sexy by Kenny Chesney

What is the color of your bedroom walls?
white, boring white

Do you shut off the water when you brush your teeth?
Yes if I use a sink. I usually brush my teeth while in the shower. It's faster.

Do you wish someone was with you right now?
Kinda, we could go hiking

Do you miss someone right now?
yup.

Do you talk to the person who posted this before?
We keep in touch through online journals.

Wierdest Dream Ever

Some combination of things I did last night produced possibly the wierdest dream of my life.

In the first part of the dream, I was living at my parents' house, but not any house in which I have lived with them before. I know that I spent the first night there by myself, and nothing unusual happened. However, the next night, my parents were sleeping in the next room. I had a pet black widow spider, and somehow I knew that it had gotten loose, so I got up and turned on the light. When the light turned on, there were bugs all over in the room, mostly large cockroaches, about 2-3 inches long, attached to the wall by their tails. They were struggling to get free, I don't know if they were supposed to be hatching or there for decoration (my parents have never been into the live insect wall decoration thing before). I went into the living room, and there were giant, adult cockroaches there, 1-2 feet in length. At this point I kinda freaked and ran into my parents bedroom. They were still asleep, so I woke them. I was in the process of telling them about the giant bugs, when they told me to lay down on the bed, fast. I obeyed, and a polar bear appeared through the wall, looking more like a laser light drawing than a live polar bear. They said don't look at it, and don't move until it says to. I felt a horrible pain in my feet when I moved. Then somehow there was a signal that we could move, but only in a certain way. The polar bear walked around to the opposite side of the bed, and my mother said that we needed to turn to the other side so that our back was never to the animal. We scooted to face the other way, and after we did this, the polar bear bounded through the wall and disappeared.

After this incident I was very angry. I asked my parents why they live here. What is the polar bear and why do you listen to it? She said she thinks that the polar bear is some kind of control mechanism, and that the polar bear gives you an injection of something to confuse you before it wakes you up. My mother said she fought the bear her first night, when she was alone, with a baseball bat, and won. It did not come back very often after that, but the pain was too great to do it every time. Now that they do not fight, it comes back often, but it does not hurt so much. I asked them many more questions, but I don't remember them now. I decided I was going to fight it. I brought the baseball bat into my room, hid a knife in my back pocket, and stood on my bed, yelling for the bear to come get me.

From there I blacked out and woke up hanging, locked in sortof a metal clasp that was holding me up. I looked down at myself and found that I was wearing a grey shirt. I looked around, and there were people also hanging from metal clasps, and they were all wearing different color shirts, mostly grey, green, and red. The guy next to me said that the shirts mean how well you play. Green is good, red is bad, and grey means you haven't been tested yet. He said they don't keep the red shirts around very long. I looked up and a claw grabbed me from my clasp and dropped me into a room. I found a number of instruments on a large table- flute, french horn, violin, harmonica, and some others I didn't recognize. I realized I was going to be a red shirt as I could not play any of these. I noticed there were windows in the room, and there appeared to be no one watching. I opened a window and climbed through onto a deck of sorts. The deck was a long long way off the ground, several stories. I climbed over the ledge and began shimmying my way down to the ground. The claw apparently realized I had escaped, and came after me. I had a head start, but the claw was faster than me. At the last moment when I thought it was going to get me, it ran out of length. It couldn't reach me. Empowered, I reached the ground and began to run. I know there were people after me, just on my heals, but my last memory of my dream was running away from them until my morning alarm rang.

What on earth could this dream mean? Does it mean don't mix a glass of wine with a can of Dr Pepper in the same evening? Why would I have a pet black widow spider? Why a polar bear? Do I feel there are things that I need to fight that my parents simply obey? Do I feel I am part of a caste system where I wish rather to climb out the window rather than play along? Do I climb out the window in challenges because I fear I cannot play?

I decided to consult an online dream dictionary and see what it says my symbols may mean, just to see if anything lines up.

Spider:To see a spider in your dream, indicates that you are feeling like an outsider in some situation. On a negative note, spiders may indicate a feeling of being entangled or trapped in a sticky or clingy relationship. It represents some ensnaring and controlling force. You may feel that someone or some situation is sucking the life right out of you. To dream that you are bitten by a spider, represents a conflict with your mother or some dominant female figure in your life. The dream may be a metaphor for a devouring mother or the feminine power to possess and entrap. Perhaps you are feeling trapped by some relationship.

It doesn't say if the spider is my pet and it got out of it's cage...And I wasn't really bitten with by the spider. I was injected with something by a laser light polar bear...while with my mother.

Cockroaches: To see a cockroach in your dream, signifies your need for renewal, rejuvenation and self-cleansing of your psychological, emotional, or spiritual being. You need to reevaluate major aspects of your life.

Nothing about giant cockroaches or cockroaches attached to the wall...

Bear: To dream that you are being pursued or attacked by a bear, denotes aggression, overwhelming obstacles and competition. You may find yourself in a threatening situation. To see a polar bear in your dream, signifies a reawakening.

Reawakening?  Renewel? Rejuvination? Self cleansing? I must need a trip to the spa.

Injection: To dream that someone is forcibly injecting you, represents your negative attitudes about a particular situation/person. It also indicates the influence of peer pressure working against you. You are recognizing that someone is forcing their negative and unwelcome views/values on you.

Yeah! I hate it when forcibly injecting polar bears made of light try to force their ideas and values on you!

Musical Instruments: To see musical instruments in your dream, indicates the expectation of fun and pleasures. It also represents your talents and ability to communicate with others. Certain musical instruments are symbolic of sexual organs and thus point to our sexuality.

What does it mean when faced with a table full of fun and sexual organs, I'd rather climb out the window and get chased by a giant stuffed-animal-grabber claw?

Running: To dream that you are running away from someone, indicates an issue that you are trying to avoid. You are not taking or accepting responsibility for your actions. In particular, if you are running from an attacker or any danger, then it suggests that you are not facing and confronting your fears

I could have come up with this one...

Nightmares: One reason for nightmares may be a way of our unconscious to get our attention about a situation or problem that you have been avoiding. It is time to take notice and confront a problem or situation. Nightmares serve an important purpose in showing you what is troubling you from within you deeper levels. Discussing, analyzing, and understanding your nightmares can lead to a solution for some problem, internal conflict or personal difficulty. 

So I'm pretty much just as confused with my nightmare as I was before. This makes me seem that I'm in some terrible situation that I am struggling against....but I'm not really. For the most part my life is fairly laid back and stress free.

By the way, the website I got the dream information from is http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/ . This was kinda fun!

My Weekend

Today is Sunday and my one office day of the week. I am so tired I can't hardly stand it. I swear, I looked at the clock and it was midnight, so started getting ready for bed and it was suddenly 2am!!! I think I was abducted by aliens. WHERE DID THOSE TWO HOURS GO?!?!?

The office day is the most excruciatingly slow day of the week because I am cooped up in an office by myself from 8am to 5pm. I realize most people would probably be like "ummm, it's called a job" but I have a hard time staying awake and I can't seem to make myself concentrate to work on the Powerpoint presentation I am supposed to be working on. I would guess that my boss will want to see some progress at some point. I'm really not a slacker. I'm just trying to wake up before I crank this stuff out. Last week the power went out and so I got to sit in a dark office with no work to do listening to the office equipment beeep beeeeep beeeeeeep. I almost lost my mind.

Let's see, what did I do this weekend. First of all, I almost got arrested on Friday. There is a thermal feature at the Mud Volcano Geyser Basin called The Gumper. It's a HUGE mud pot, truly one of the most amazing things I have seen here in Yellowstone. To get to The Gumper, you must go off the boardwalk at the top of the hill onto a trail. However, the area is "closed". I was taken there last summer by a Yellowstone Association guide, who said that it's sortof ambiguously closed, because employees know about it and like to visit it. The rule is basically don't get caught. I took 4 friends from Roosevelt out there. We went up the hill and pretended to be looking at a deer while we snuck off the boardwalk when no one was looking (understand that you can see people from a long way off at this spot, so it's really tricky). Well, this girl saw the 3rd to last guy go and sortof shook her head. Then when she was down quite a ways farther, the last 2 decided to go and she turned around and yelled something to the effect of "stay on the fucking boardwalk!" But we were already on our way down the trail by then. A ranger had just passed us too on the way up, so we thought for sure that girl was going to tell on us. We went and saw the amazing Gumper, maybe a little faster than if we weren't worried about being arrested. Then we snuck back to the boardwalk, thankfully without incident. We saw the ranger waiting for us at the trailhead, and we thought for sure we were done for. He looked at us, but didn't say anything and let us go by. Whew!

After that, we did the Storm Point loop trail, which has an old teepee ring, at least 100 years old, very possibly older. Storm Point is an easy 2 mile trail, but it's a really pretty.

Saturday I went to Bozeman to get make some purchases. It's funny how I prioritize now. I got a new pair of trail runner shoes because my old ones were about flat. I got my prescription sunglasses fixed, since I had demolished them in Antarctica. Then I had a bike rack put on my car. I always go to Bob Wards because they sell last year's sporting goods equipment for pretty cheap. Well, I got an extremely discounted bike rack that they jimmy rigged using two bike rack sets. It hooks to my trunk and it's pretty stable. Now it's time to start researching the bikes!!!

Fox Hunt and Sunburns

Yesterday I was so sore from numerous reasons that I was completely out of commission for the day. I went to get lunch and it hurt to lift the cup to my mouth to drink. I spent the day reading my book about a female journalist who traveled to Chechnya to cover the second Russo-Chechen war in 1999. It's a pretty good book, but it's translated from French, so the language is pretty dry (or maybe she is just very dry).

This morning I woke up feeling much, much better. Still sore, but certainly bearable. I decided to head to Bozeman to check out some racks for my car and to go to the Gallatin Ham Radio Field Day in Belgrade. I went to Bob Wards to look at bike racks (and kayak racks for later). I decided to think on it and do a little more research, but I think the bike rack might happen soon. Then the bike, because you have to get the car seat before you get the baby...otherwise you have no way to get the baby home, and it's really hard to hold a baby and drive. Yeah, that's an analogy. I have been told that Sacramento has a great trail system for bikes, and I would love to utilize that. I'm going to get the bike for now because at least I can bike alone. If I were to get a kayak, it would be a river kayak, and river kayaking alone is stupid. Unfortunately I don't have anyone to kayak with. Also, if I bought a touring kayak, there would be no flat water for miles around, but tons of rivers. And vice versa probably.

Next I went to the Field Day. They had a Fox Hunt, which is where you use a directional antenna to find little transmitters. I was able to learn how to use a directional antenna, and we found 4 out of 5 transmitters. It was a lot of fun. This is a useful skill in search and rescue, usually in finding avalanche victims, but also can be used anytime someone is lost and has a beacon or you need to find the source of a signal. I also got sunburned pretty bad.

I'm training hard daily because I want to make the wildland fire team in Americorps. By end of July I will start running with a load in a backpack. I want to make damn sure I can pass that pack test. Luckily I am training at 6500 ft what I will have to do at 52 ft above sea level. I look forward to how much easier it will be to run when I get down there.