eateggs

Gaa! My classes this semester SUCK! I have one good professor (or maybe I have a few good profs, and one great prof). One. Yaar! I mean, most of them are pretty accomplished (books published, one former CEO of FedEx Asia, one adjunct professor at Berkley…) but … I mean, maybe they would be better if my classmates were better … could teach the classes at a higher level … something. I guess I am at Montana State University, but…

I’ve realized over the last few days that the Procrastinator (shiny new website: montana.edu/procrastinator (put together by Carter)) is my top priority for the coming school year. But it’s also my second top priority. (In the past four days, for example, I’ve given the PIT a sixteen hour day, a thirteen hour day, and today a twelve hour day…) Then school settles in somewhere around third priority. There’s NO reason for me to not get a solid 4.0 this semester. Then recreation / the house / Green Club / dating fills somewhere in the fourth priority area…

Ha. As an amusing side note, I’ve dated two girls in my 21 years of life … and I have classes with both of them this semester. Heh. Go figure.

Nyaar.

Did I mention? Before I left for the Winds / Tetons, I got my motorcycle working? And, did I mention, that before I left for the Winds / Tetons, it broke again? I don’t even know what could be wrong. I haven’t had the heart (much less the time) to investigate. I think I’m just going to winterize it, and think about it next spring. Then probably spend all of next summer fixing it again… hopefully fixing it right, this time… Why didn’t I just buy a Honda? Talk about a source of angst. Angst!

Two … two two two. (Sorry … internal train of thought, there.)

I almost told someone to have a good weekend today. Today, being Tuesday. I guess, somehow, in the back of my mind, it feels like it’s almost the weekend… Maybe that’s just the result of two eighteen hour days on campus…

Well, I think I’m going to go to bed. And I’ll probably set my alarm for late. If I sleep through Econ 302… who cares? And if I keep sleeping, and don’t make it to Econ 301… who cares? We’re just doing math review right now (not that my math couldn’t use a little review, but…).

That’s all. I can’t even think or something funny to add in conclusion So I’ll just let my words trail off to an angsty oblivion…

Ah. First day of classes. Mmm. I’ve been on campus since 8:00 a.m. this morning … and it’s 2:30 now … a.m., that is. This damn Procrastinator Theatre is consuming my life! Yaar!

On the positive side, though, I certainly fleshed out my knowledge of residential and commercial wiring systems … 120v … 240v … single-phase … three-phase … L14-30R plugs vs 5-15R plugs. You know. The usual. Oh, and I built a really sweet shelf / counter thing, out of the wood that my popper was shipped in (yeah… my popper came on a wooden pallet, in a crate. Had to get facility services to come pick it up from the SUB and drive it across campus, right down the middle of the mall, with a Gradall. It’s like a 200lb popper… retails for something like $4,000 and draws an obscene amount of power. Finally figured out how to power it, though (by splitting a 50amp 240v outlet). Just need to go to ACE tomorrow (ah, they know me by name!) and buy more obscenely overpriced connectors ($20-$30 for just a silly little connector!) tomorrow morning (say around 7:00 a.m.).

Oh, and on another positive side, I’m almost done hiring staff for the coming year. I’m really excited about the group of guys I’m going to have working for me: they’re all (seemingly) solid and bright. And they’re all film students, too, which I think is appropriate.

Anyhow. I’m going to go home tonight and sleep for a couple hours.

Because that’s how I like to start out a semester: pulling an almost-all-night-er on the first day of classes.

Rock it.

Not a classy pirate, mind you…

Yaar! First day of class… going to be a long semester. One, possibly two interesting classes … must motivate self to go. Do it, Mark. Get up in the morning. Go to class. Do it to it. er…

Spent some time in retrospection yesterday and realized: Damn, it was one great summer. From first to last, the summer’s been full of fun and laughs and adventures and activities. I’m really quite glad that I didn’t do anything worthwhile this summer. It was a wasted summer, yes, but as Berty (can I call Bertrand Russel … Berty? Sure!) points out: time one enjoys wasting isn’t wasted at all…

So yeah. Now I’m back in class. And blogging, because it’s really quite boring (don’t you HATE how the first day of class is always a waste … let me show you pictures of my dog … tell you about the time I spent teaching in Beijing … blah blah you-probably-can’t-read, so I’ll read-the-syllabus-for-you blah. I hate it… don’t waste my time. I’m paying for this. Don’t give a shit about your dog. Yaar…)

Driving back to Bozeman tonight, I came across a forest fire, outside of Sheridan. Like any rational person, I drove straight toward the fire. The result are some rather colorful photos.

By the time I made it half-way to the fire, though, my battery died, and I discovered that I didn’t have my spare. Yaar!

From north of Sheridan, looking back in the pitch-dark, the hillside looked like the fires of Mordor–glowing yellow and red in the night, billowing smoke, flaring as though to fill and consume the sky…

Feel free to browse through them at
http://picasaweb.google.com/markegge/20080812FireyPhotos

Last weekend, Sagar, Carter, Pat and I summited Granite Peak. The Beartooths–running from central Montana down into central Wyoming–are beautiful, certainly, but I’ve never been in a more awe-inspiring mountain range.

Departing Bozeman around 7:00 a.m., we arrived at the West Rosebud Trailhead by 10:00 a.m. on Saturday — packs packed, bottles filled, and eager for the trail.

By 10:30 we had crossed in to the Absoraka-Beartooth Wilderness, and by 12:00 we crested the view of Mystic Lake–an agrandized version of a once smaller lake, thanks to the 1920s era Mysic Lake Hydroelectric Dam (still pumping out 11 megawatts, 80 years later). Along the trail, I was thrilled to find a wild raspberry or two, growing here and there. (No one else in the group seemed as thrilled as I, but how fun! — not only to find food growing in the wild, but to find such tasty food, too!) We dug out the gorp (good ol’ raisins and peanuts … a.k.a. trail mix) on a sandy stretch along the lake and rested before the switchbacks.

Two hours later we bid farewell to trees and crested the Froze to Death plateau. We had lunch by some running water and put on our rain-gear for our four-mile trek across plateau. The rain started around 3:00, and stayed with us the rest of the day, making for a cold and grey afternoon. We pitched our tent in one of many rock bivouacs on the plateau, near the start of the summit trail. We ate dinner, huddled in Sagar’s tent. I retired for the evening with a few pages of Ayn Rand, and drifted off to fitful sleep.

We awoke to a breathtaking tundra dawn in the company of Froze-to-Death’s perennial mountain goats. We left camp just after 7:00 a.m.; the sun quickly melted away the morning chill.

Leaving the plateau, we descended some 1,300 feet to the crest of the saddle between Tempest Peak and Granite. The “trail” (usually marked only by the occasional cairn) was a treacherous slope of jutting talus and granite, making me glad for my sturdy hiking boots.

The ascent includes four or five pitches of Class Five–“technical”–climbing. The climbing gear we had with us proved unneeded, but I understand why it was recommended to have.

We summited just after 10:00 a.m.. The morning sun had driven away the clouds in the Western sky, and we were greeted with what might be one of the nicest mornings every recorded on the peak– warm, sunny, and amazingly calm.

Despite the haze (from forest fires in Idaho and Utah, primarily), the view from the top was humbling. “Beautiful” would be the wrong adjective; we were surrounded, as far as the eye could see, in a 360 degree panorama, by a terrain of rugged, jutting, and harsh rock, glacier and alpine lakes– a testament of geological forces and stupifying violence. Standing there, I found myself in awe of the forces that could form such an immensely forceful and violent landscape.

Coming down, we rappelled two or three pitches, and down-climbed the rest. By 2:00 p.m., we were back at “base camp”. Another group of mountain goats joined us for lunch along with a marmot or two. Pat left ahead of us, wanting to make it back in time for work the next day.

Having accomplished that which we set out to accomplish (pardon me, that…), we elected to hike out the same day, rather than stay another night. We crossed the tundra, and began our descent back to the 6,500′ elevation of the parking lot.

The trip out, invariably, seems somehow longer than the trip in. Conversation is exhausted and feet are weary. Nevertheless, we descended as dusk settled over the plateau, the lake, and the valley.

We stopped for a beer in Roscoe at the famous Grizzly Bar–dirty, smelling of sweat, but with that bright-eyed air of accomplishment–and, at last, drove through the cool night air back to Bozeman.

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/markegge/20070730GranitePeak
http://picasaweb.google.com/patrick.dyess/2007_07_29