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Well, it was bound to happen– amazingly, it’s taken all summer. I woke up late for work today. By late, I mean that when I woke, I was already late for my shift.

Fortunately, my schedule at B&B this summer has been exteremely flexible, so arriving “on-time” hasn’t been an issue. At Papa John’s, on the other hand, I definately have a traditional, rigid schedule. Normly, though, getting to Papa John’s on time is just an issue of leaving B&B when I’m supposed to– rather than something tricky like … waking up. I seldom arrive on time, but, similarly, I’m usually never more than 15 minutes or so late.

Today, though, I woke up about five minutes after my shift started. The kicker, though, is that my shift started at 5:00. That’s 5:00 … PM, mind you. Admittedly, it was a late night last night, but not that late. I just happened to sleep for about … twelve and a half hours. Heh.

Needless to say, I think I’m going to plug my alarm clock back in tonight. =)

And, as I get ready to go to bed, I feel rather guilty, knowing that I slept for 12.5 hours last night, I’ve been awake for about 10, and now I’m going back to sleep. *tsk*

Paul Simon sings that “these are the days of miracles and wonders.” Yeah. Well, are they? Me? I sing: “these days have been / another senseless whirlwind.” Without purpose, without intention, but with no shortage unfulfilled purposes and abandoned intentions. Flurry and bustle. No, it’s not “fulfilling,” per-se, but it’s time-filling, which amounts to the same, at the end of the days. [sic]

I could elaborate on that point. Or I could … not elaborate on that point. I’ll opt for the latter. I’ve written enough. Or I’ve written nothing at all– more likely.

School approaches rapidly enough. Fine.

I don’t have a phone any more. You can call me at home–307.634.9607. I won’t be there, but I’ll get the message if you leave one.

I realized tonight that there exists a tenuous but disturbing parallel between the early years of the Cold War and the current situation in the Middle East.

Although there was never any direct (“hot”) military conflict between the United States and the then-USSR, there were two significant “hot” conflicts– the Korean War and the Vietnam War– which could be described as “puppet conflicts” (there’s another term the history books use, but it eludes me at the moment), in which the two competing world super powers engaged each other, by proximity rather than directly.

At the end of World War II, Korea was divided in to Northern and Southern zones: the north occupied by Soviet powers and the south by the United States. In 1949 both forces withdrew.

The Korean War began in June 1950, as a civil war between the northern provisional Communist government and the southern provisional Nationalist government. North Korea’s military was advised and supplied by the USSR. Similarly, (erroneoulsy) viewing North Korea as a Soviet Pawn, the United States provided the South with military equipment and advice. After the North’s invasion, President Truman sent American troops into South Korea, who narrowly prevented the success of the North in their drive to re-unite subcontinent.

Moving back to the present, tensions between Iran and the United States have been escalating (not to mention that the situation with North Korea is still a mess, although primarily dormant at the moment) since the War in Iraq. The Western powers have just recently decided to refer Iran to the UN Security Council due to concerns about Iran’s development of a nuclear programme.

Still pending Iran’s actual referral, Israel schizes and invades Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon.

But here’s the kicker: Israel is American “eqipped and advised.” Israel’s current military offensive would be largely impossible without the support of American money and military equipment. Although America hasn’t openly sanctioned the invasion (how could they?) they certainly haven’t condemned it, nor has America stopped the influx of American money and military technology into Israel.

Meanwhile, the general speculation seems to be that Hezbollah receives significant support and amounts of military equipment from Iran. The rockets being fired in to Israel (over 3,000 since the war began) by Hezbollah are primarily Iranian rockets (or at least, so I read) (just as the Israeli jets pounding Beirut are American made).

So the question becomes: Israel being a blatantly American sponsored military power, and Hezbollah being Iranian backed, it is entirely improbable that the invasion of Lebanon actually takes the form of a “puppet war” between America and Iran?

There was once a run-away, hanging around Papa John’s.

Being the concerned citizen I am, I immediately to locate the parent or guardian– not much of a challenge, even from thirty meters, with respect to the cart’s bright red plastic and plainly visible “Target” emblem.

As any concerned citizen would do, I immediately called the run-away’s guardian:

“Ring … ring.”

“Thank you for calling Target on Dell Range. Our store hours are … blah blah blah. Press 1 for an operator.”

“*beep*”

“Ring … ring. Click!”

“Thank you for calling Target. This is Stacy. May I help you locate something this evening?”

“Hey Stacy. It’s Mark. I’m calling from Papa John’s, down the street. Actually, I might help you locate something: a run-away cart.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, well you see, we’ve had this cart hanging around Papa John’s all evening. It seemed lost, so I tried talking to it. My Cartese is a little rough; all I could make out was something about ‘trouble at home … bastards … they don’t understand … joining the circus.’ Quickly surmising the situation, I realized it was a run-away!”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s not a big deal– I mean, it seems like a nice cart and all, but Papa John’s has a policy against loitering. It says it right on the door: ‘No Loitering.’ So, what I’m saying is that it doesn’t have to go home, but it can’t stay here.”

“I see. Well, I’ll tell them.”

“Good deal. Thanks, Stacy.”

“Bye-bye.”

Whoever “them” is, anyway. Huh.

—

Five hours later, as Cory and I walked out the front door, I noticed that, what-d’ya-know, the cart was still hanging around in our parking lot!

The concerned citizen in me said “gee, maybe I should push this down the street to Target.” But then the sarcastic asshole in me thought “gee, wouldn’t it be funny if…”

So. Target being West, we set out East– the cart and I. We crossed the Sam’s Club parking lot, and the cart gave me a free ride down the incline to the parking-lot next door. At long last, arrived under the bright blue neon: “Wal-Mart. Lower Prices, Always!”

The first obstacle was the greeter (a.k.a. the person who watches to make sure you don’t bring in stuff you’re not supposed to). Assuming the air of a “serious shopper,” I brazenly pushed my cart through the sliding door and towards the designated greeter.

The greeter glanced up, but I paid him no mind. Satisfied that I was just another “serious” late-night shopper, her returned to sorting a pile of clothes (by size, I hope, not color!). Thinking a sigh of relief, we walked and rolled into the Food Center.

Once inside, I didn’t really know what to do. So we wandered around, just me and my bright-red Target cart. Two drunks noticed me. “Hey kid,” they slurred, “don’t ya know that’s a Target cart?” I winked back, and continued on my way.

We strolled through the Food Center and veered left towards Electronics. Meandering through Electronics we stopping to marvel at the worthless e-Machines computers being sold and continued on our way. Meeting no resistance, we trekked on, through sporting goods and auto-repair. But our good fortune could only last so long…

Approaching the pharmacy, we nearly collided with a floor cleaning machine + operator, coming around the blind corner of the isle. The operator gave me a dirty look and I meekly apologized, continuing on my way thinking “whew! That was a close one!”

Nearly out of cosmetics, a red-headed girl stocking the shelves finally noticed. “Hey,” she said, “you have a Target cart!”

“What? Me? Where?!” I responded, caught a little off guard. While she laughed, I resumed “serious shopper” and we made our get-away!

We paced pace past the checkout-stands, having nearly come full-circle. Sensing the time was right, I ditched my beloved (if somewhat confused) cart between two racks of clothes, feigned complete innocence, and walked alone toward the door.

On my way out, the greeter was still sorting clothes. He glanced up, and then I was gone, laughing as I went.

Photos from last night’s LAN party can be found here.

Last week I spent seven days in the Wind River Range with Sagar, my Dad, and one of his co-workers, named Bob.

We left Cheyenne early Friday morning, and stopped in Pinedale at a quintessential small-town American burger stand–the Sugar Shack–and loaded up on beef and milk-shakes for the week. Driving up the steep, winding road to the Elkhart Park trailhead, we stopped off to take in the panorama of the Wind River Range– running some 210km through western Wyoming. Flagging down an impromptu photographer, we smiled and let the Winds fill the background.

We parked in the half-empty parking lot, signed into the trailhead register, and set off– our packs loaded down, but with a spring in our step. We hiked through the warm afternoon, stopping off at the aptly named Photographer’s Point for a spanning view of the range we’d soon come to call home. We camped at Hobbs Lake, on a shelf some 50′ above the water’s edge. Our tent faced out, over the water.

Our first “objective” was to hike Fremont Peak– Wyoming’s third highest peak (behind Gannet Peak’s 4,207m and Grand Teton’s 4,198m) climb, and highest non-technical ascent, measuring in at a respectable 4,189m (13,743′). We camped out at the base of Titcomb Basin the night before. We set out for the peak at 7:00am. By 11:00 we had reached the “saddle,” where the “real” climb began. Sucking hard on the oxygen-thin air, we went up, up, up– over the jagged boulders and sliding shale. A veritable gale wind greeted us at the top, adding to the vertigo of the 500m dropoff to the Upper Fremont Glacier below. The view was indescribable– jutting peaks, shear walls of rocks, massive glaciers– stretching to the horizon in three directions

At the top, there’s a canister with a “sign-in” book for everyone who climbs the peak. Jerry and I added our names: a week since the last entry, and only a few pages after Jerry’s previous entry– from August 2005.

Looking at our map the next day, we concluded that we could save ourselves a few miles by taking a cut-off along side the river that fed out of Island Lake, rather than walking back to the Indian Basin turnoff and then to Fremont Crossing. We followed a well-worn outfitter trail for a while, which led us to a beautiful campsite on the northern edge of Island lake. From there on, the trail petered out and we just followed the river. There were two points along the way where we had to resort to class-5 climbing (with our packs on, mind you!), but we all made it to the other side.

Bob’s comment was: “Whew! That scared the daylights out of me! I’ve never done anything that technical before.”

Sagar’s comment was: “Wow! That was awesome. The next time someone asks me if I want to take a short-cut through the Winds, my answer will be ‘yes!'”

Passable? Yes. But only on foot, and not for the faint hearted!

Being in the bushwhacking state of mind, we bushwhacked our way to Big Water Slide (about 1 km SW of Fremont Crossing) and set up camp. The fishing in the pond at the slide’s base was fair, and we had fish for dinner.

The highlight of the trip, for me, was seeing the fish jump at Big water Slide. I’ve read, of course, about Alaskan Salmon swimming miles upstream to deposit their eggs, but to see it… The fish were trout, of course, but always something like this: a fish would vault itself out of the water, into the air– a meter or more, in a perfect arc, up the slide. Smacking into the rock, it would struggle with incredible vigour against the crushing flow of the slide, trying to swim faster up than the pounding down of the water. Invariably, the fish would be pushed back down, but invariably, another fish would try, and another, and another… such tenacity and strength!

From Big Water Slide we followed the Highline Trail (also aptly named, seldom dipping below 10,000 feet!) to the base of Stroud Peak. We camped on the tundra in Shannon Pass, without a tree in view. From the top of Stroud Peak (3,718m) our brightly colored tents at “base camp” were entirely lost in the expansive rocky perfection of the tundra.

Heading back below tree-line the next day, we hiked toward Bomar Lake. I hiked with Sagar, and Jerry with Bob. We were separated along the way, (a wrong turn) but, fortunately, if all roads in Europe lead to Rome, then all trails in the Winds must lead to Bomar Lake– where we met up an hour later, by different paths. Jerry sampled the fishing after lunch, and then we headed down the trail to Trapper Lake, for our last night in the woods. Jerry and I fished without much luck, aside from a dozen or so fish that were just large enough to wrap their mouth around our flies– six inches, at most.

We roasted marshmallows and stayed up as the sun went down. The lake was beautiful: as Conrad writes: “a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound.” The sky gradually darkened, and I found myself smiling to look at the trail below– an 18 inch strip of boot-trodden dust: our super-highway, our way here, our way home. The lake, beyond, was dotted with the rippling rings of bouncing insects and feeding fish– as calm and quiet as the shore and rising trees on the other side.

Unmolested, unpolluted and untarnished, I wondered how many times more I’ll enjoy such incomparable beauty, how many more times my heart will be equally at rest. I reflect the past with great reverence for those like Presidents Grant and Teddy Roosevelt, by whose efforts the Bridger wilderness has been preserved. And, I look to the future with no small trepidation– trepidation of development, encroachment, pollution, destruction. This year alone, President Bush cut funding for national parks by $100 million, funding for the Clean Water Act by $200 million, and funding for the Forest Service by an additional $107 million, while ignoring international efforts to reduce carbon monoxide emmissions and other pollution. But for now, our wilderness areas remain untouched by human hands. In the morning we scattered our firepit, leaving no trace that we had been, and again took to our trail.

We hiked out, the last day, on the unmaintained Pine Creek Trail. The trail was difficult, but our packs were light and showers and soft beds drew us on. We made the last 10 miles (and 4,500′ of vertical climbing) in great time, and we were soon enjoying the plentiful water at the trail head.

We stopped on the way down to look back and identify the peaks we had climbed and the route we had taken. It was a week well enjoyed, in a range of majestic mountains– mountains I am marvelously privileged to have access to.

—

Select photos are available here.

Many thanks to my Dad for planning and organizing the trip!

If you need me, I’ll be here:

Otherwise, I’ll be back in a week.

So. I’m “doing” my birthday, this year– call it base materialism. Call it a fall from grace. Call it a betrayal of principle. Call it what you like, but I mean, I’m broke. And I’m a college student. And there’re some things that I’d like to have. So… yeah. Hey! Birthday! Here I come!

That’s the 26th, mind you. On the 26th of July, at 6:00PM (that’s Mountain Standard Time, Sagar– don’t you try to get all smart on me!), I will have obtained the age of 20 years old. Or, put another way, I will have graced the world with my presence for a full 20 years (that’s just over ten and a half million minutes, mind you–man, I just had to go all out, if ya know what I mean!). Oh, I jest. For the most-part, anyway. =)

But anyhow. Back to the point. I have consorted with my base, materialist self (heh), and generated a list of items most likely to bring me … material happiness? Hmm. What-ev. Here we go:

Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest
(2.5 of 5 stars)

“Dead Man’s Chest” is not unlike a hundred other summer blockbuster sequels. The story goes something like this: the director and producer sit down and say “gee, we had so much fun making the last film, that maybe we should make another!” (Or was it “Gee, we made so much freakin’ money on the last film…?” — I can’t keep track.) As is too often the case, however, these “well, why not make another?” sequels only stretch out the life of the first film, without adding anything new. Such is the case with “Dead Man’s Chest.”

The film opens with our beloved William Turner and Elizabeth Swann arrested for crimes against the crown–aiding in the escape of an enemy of the crown– by a power-hungry East India Company usurper. In order to gain their freedom, William must locate the infamous “Captain” Jack Sparrow and return his broken compass to the usurper. Thinking only of his “true love,” William sets off in search of Sparrow.

Sparrow, meanwhile, is off on a search of his own, guided by his broken compass and a drawing of a key. Oblique references are made to curse and a debt– it seems, somehow, that our beloved Captain has become indebted to the old man of the sea– Davy Jones.

Every element that made “Curse of the Black Pearl” the smash hit it was is present in “Dead Man’s Chest”– the improbable, disorientated and dreadlocked captain, the attractive if sometimes petulant Commodore’s daughter, the over-the-top swashbuckling swordfights, etc. Everything– except for the freshness and originality.

Before the negative stuff, let me not that Davy Jones and his crew of men-turned-sea creatures are a veritable treat. According to the legend, a conscript in Davy Jones’ crew is guaranteed a hundred years of life, during which time one gradually transforms from human to creature of the sea. Gore Verbinski’s anthropomorphisms of man and sea creature are detailed, varied and impressively lifelike– rendered such that they fit easily within the flow of the story, without obviously or obtrusively being computer animated.

That, unfortunately, is where my praises of “Dead Man’s Chest” end. By the end of the two-and-a-half hour odyssey, the film felt stretched thin and canned. The humor was intermittent, and relied almost exclusively on gags and set-ups from the first film (lines such as “But why is the rum always gone?” or the pirate with the fake eye, scrounging around on deck for it). The witty, verbose exchanges that helped keep the first entertaining for those over the age of 12 are also present in the second– but too many, and often feel forced rather than clever.

In fact, even the set of characters is rather unvaried from the original. We get a new, if somewhat bland East India Company man, and Davey Jones and his crew of sea-creatures replace Barbossa and his crew of the damned, but the cast is otherwise unchanged– Swann, Turner, Sparrow, Sparrow’s crew, Norrington, etc. Unfortunately, the characters themselves are also unable to break out of their shallow and clichéd roles– honor-bound Turner, unscrupulous and goofy Jack, power-hungry Norrington, and so on.

While “Dead Man’s Chest” is not without its amusing or clever moments, overall it feels much too like sequels often do– a plot-less extension (though there is a plot, it’s rather vague and inane) of the same characters, gags and devices. It will be interesting to see how the third of the trilogy–“At World’s End” turns out when it releases next summer because, frankly, “Dead Man’s Chest” feels like it thoroughly killed everything great about the series.