Peeking at otters
May. 5th, 2003 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishNPR Interview with Gen. Reinwald: "But you're equipping them to become violent killers!" --recommended reading especially for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laughin and cxi162
Dork Tower editorial: "Funny how publishers hate it when their cartoonists are as honest about them as they are about politicians." (both fromskreidle)
Having mentioned the foggy goodness of Toastyfrog repeatedly yesterday, I feel vaguely obligated to post the actual text itself:
"I'd forgotten how foggy the weather is here when we're not being glazed with a few inches of solid ice. Driving to work this morning was a lot like playing an N64 game, with the magic wall of fog a dozen feet from my face as I cruised at 55 miles per hour. The only real difference was the absence of a layer of smeary textures (blame the new glasses for that one) and the fact that the frame rate never dropped below a smooth 60fps. It seems sort of dangerous to drive so fast with such poor visibility, but I was abetted with the confident belief that if I suffered a traffic mishap, I'd respawn a few feet away with a triumphant cry of 'I... AM TUROK!'"
After watching the badness that is The Ninth Gate Satyrday night (well-acted, well-directed, poorly-written crap-- read the book The Club Dumas instead), we got up Sunday morning to trip out to Peaks of Otter. Me, E, K, Z, Andrew, Richard. Good people. Drive was rather nice; good fog effects, lots of low clouds. Had lunch at the trail's base, which included a couple of kumquats courtesy Z. They look like small oranges and taste like sweetish lemons. They're very cool.
The hike itself was quite nice. A lot of up, of course. Cool plants and rotting stumps and rocks to mountain-goat along. The sun came out eventually, so I didn't freeze my butt off. Places where they'd had to build stairs into the path, it was so steep. Gorgeous views. A couple excellent rocks to perch on.
Buzzard's Roost was very cool-- five or six large rocks on top of a mountain. Gorgeous views in almost all directions... there's something very odd about looking down on buzzards circling. Sharp Top was less cool, in that it was more ... civilised, I guess. Paths and steps to get to wherever you want to look from. On the other hand, there were a bunch of directional benchmarks to various landmarks, like the town of Bedford (eight miles) or Buzzard's Roost (3/4 mile) or Turtle Rock (eighty feet). (Turtle Rock actually looked like a turtle, too.)
We lucked out and managed to catch the bus back down... the driver was only there because he was waiting on some other people who'd bought tickets and hadn't shown up. (Apparently you can only buy tickets at the bottom of the mountain... you have to make these decisions before you start climbing.) The driver was cool, though... gave us a lift down for free. He's been doing this for about five years now, and he owns a farm about fifteen minutes away. Nice guy. (It was all I could do to not tell him that I was "much obliged" for the lift.)
Dinner at Affle House, which was quite good. It's been awhile since I ate there. During dinner conversation I determined that four of the six people present (rbeyma being the other exception) hadn't seen Real Genius, so I decided to rectify that. So after dinner we all went over to our place and watched it. What a great movie. It's been way too long since I'd seen it.
Then crash for the night, then moving stuff around at Patrick's in preparation for the move. My new desk doth verily rock my world.
laughin and cxi162Dork Tower editorial: "Funny how publishers hate it when their cartoonists are as honest about them as they are about politicians." (both from
skreidle)Having mentioned the foggy goodness of Toastyfrog repeatedly yesterday, I feel vaguely obligated to post the actual text itself:
"I'd forgotten how foggy the weather is here when we're not being glazed with a few inches of solid ice. Driving to work this morning was a lot like playing an N64 game, with the magic wall of fog a dozen feet from my face as I cruised at 55 miles per hour. The only real difference was the absence of a layer of smeary textures (blame the new glasses for that one) and the fact that the frame rate never dropped below a smooth 60fps. It seems sort of dangerous to drive so fast with such poor visibility, but I was abetted with the confident belief that if I suffered a traffic mishap, I'd respawn a few feet away with a triumphant cry of 'I... AM TUROK!'"
After watching the badness that is The Ninth Gate Satyrday night (well-acted, well-directed, poorly-written crap-- read the book The Club Dumas instead), we got up Sunday morning to trip out to Peaks of Otter. Me, E, K, Z, Andrew, Richard. Good people. Drive was rather nice; good fog effects, lots of low clouds. Had lunch at the trail's base, which included a couple of kumquats courtesy Z. They look like small oranges and taste like sweetish lemons. They're very cool.
The hike itself was quite nice. A lot of up, of course. Cool plants and rotting stumps and rocks to mountain-goat along. The sun came out eventually, so I didn't freeze my butt off. Places where they'd had to build stairs into the path, it was so steep. Gorgeous views. A couple excellent rocks to perch on.
Buzzard's Roost was very cool-- five or six large rocks on top of a mountain. Gorgeous views in almost all directions... there's something very odd about looking down on buzzards circling. Sharp Top was less cool, in that it was more ... civilised, I guess. Paths and steps to get to wherever you want to look from. On the other hand, there were a bunch of directional benchmarks to various landmarks, like the town of Bedford (eight miles) or Buzzard's Roost (3/4 mile) or Turtle Rock (eighty feet). (Turtle Rock actually looked like a turtle, too.)
We lucked out and managed to catch the bus back down... the driver was only there because he was waiting on some other people who'd bought tickets and hadn't shown up. (Apparently you can only buy tickets at the bottom of the mountain... you have to make these decisions before you start climbing.) The driver was cool, though... gave us a lift down for free. He's been doing this for about five years now, and he owns a farm about fifteen minutes away. Nice guy. (It was all I could do to not tell him that I was "much obliged" for the lift.)
Dinner at Affle House, which was quite good. It's been awhile since I ate there. During dinner conversation I determined that four of the six people present (
rbeyma being the other exception) hadn't seen Real Genius, so I decided to rectify that. So after dinner we all went over to our place and watched it. What a great movie. It's been way too long since I'd seen it.Then crash for the night, then moving stuff around at Patrick's in preparation for the move. My new desk doth verily rock my world.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-05 06:19 pm (UTC)I loved Peaks of Otter. Of course that is where Neil and I started dating. He asked me out while we were on the big rock there. I think had I said no, he would have pushed me off.