Muddy with some nice new dings

Grabbed some pants from Patagonia yesterday, hopped on the motorcycle and rode up a bit past Bear Mountain to Mount Beacon Park. After a roughly 10 mile hike and some gorgeous views, the verdict was that the boots and socks worked great. (Only 1 small blister.) The synthetic shirt dried quickly after getting completely drenched in a downpour and the pack kept mostly dry. Only loser was the new pants that stayed wet for the remainder of the hike. Still, nice to be completely alone up here:

Mount Beacon Top

Oh well… I should remember to get out again today…

I’ve never camped before in my life. I’ve slept under the stars before, sure, but that usually had nothing to do with an interest in getting away from it all. So, here I find myself one week away from a 22 day, demanding trek across the Atlas Mountains in Morocco with not a clue as to what I’ve gotten myself into… or what I need to make it through.

My biggest fear (today anyway) is that I’ll be ill-equipped for the trek and get something painfully gross like black toe where I start bleeding out of my feet and losing toe nails… or something worse. With that in the back of my mind, I began the process of researching gear and equipping myself as quickly as possible in order to have time to test everything out before I find myself cold and broken in some desolate landscape with Arabs speaking French.

The first thing I noticed when I began to outfit myself is that there’s no getting around looking like a stereotypical hiker. It was hard to do, but after enough looks from store employees after I asked for an item that “looked cooler” or had “less straps”, I resigned myself to the idea of function over form.

Anyway, here are the spoils of an afternoon spent visiting Patagonia, EMS, and Paragon:

Round 1 Trek Equipment

1. SCARPA Men’s SL M3 Backpacking Boots: I am not messing around with my feet. These seem to be top of the line.
2. Marmot Precip Jacket: I don’t expect much rain next to the Sahara, so I didn’t go wild on a hardshell waterproof layer.
3. Marmot PreCip Pant: I really hope it doesn’t rain…
4. Marmot Afterburner Jacket: Yes, this is my first fleece article of clothing ever, BUT it’s name is “Afterburner”, so that makes it automatically cool.
5. Pearl Izumi Grip-Lite Glove: I’m a little worried these won’t be warm enough when we start getting to altitude…
6. Patagonia Men’s Active Brief: If I have to walk 8 hours a day wearing the same underwear over and over, these things better be made with magic and rainbows.
7. Eagle Creek Undercover Leg Stash: How cool is this thing? Top secret document storage. (I wanted it in black, but oh well…)
8. NALGENE 32-Oz. Wide Mouth Tritan Bottle: Yeah… I needed a water bottle… I still need another one, but “testing” out the Nalgene first.
9. SMARTWOOL PhD Outdoor Light Crew Socks: They were out of medium thickness, so I’m testing out light. Still need to buy 3 or 4 more pairs if they work out.
10. NIKWAX Footwear Conditioner: To help break in the boots with the added benefit of waterproofing.
11. Casio Men’s Solar Atomic Pathfinder Multi-Band Watch: I can’t go to the wilderness without a cool gadget or two. This thing does temperature, barometer, altitude, digital compass and more.
12. CAMELBAK Omega 70 Reservoir: A bit of an impulse purchase based on a recommendation from the guy helping me at EMS. The idea of riding a camel with a Camelback does appeal to me, though…
13. OSPREY Talon 33 Pack: This was one of the most difficult purchases and the one where I truly resigned myself to function over form. It does have a pretty evil looking, skeleton bird logo, so that’s cool.
14. OUTDOOR RESEARCH Helios Sun Hat: “SolarShield™ fabric provides UPF 50+ sun protection”… so I assume that’s good.
15. Adventure Medical Trail Easy Care Kit: Only rated 1-3 days… no problem!
16. Black Diamond Contour Elliptic Shock Trekking Pole: I always thought walking sticks were for old people, but everyone I talked to assured me I would be happy I had these.
17. Men’s Merino 1 Crew: This thing is amazing. Super thin wool feels soft and delicious on your skin. Plus the cut is actually slim instead of boxy. Very nice.
18. Men’s Capilene® 2 T-Shirt: Yes, the wool Merino is nice, but its price is very high, so I thought I would test out the synthetic alternative and see if I could make do.
19. Men’s Capilene® 2 Bottoms: I hope this stuff works…
20. Eagle Creek Travel Towel X-Large: “Extra large size allows for full body coverage.” That’s what I’m talking about… but seriously, this thing better dry in a hurry.

Notice there are no pants on this list. Every pair I saw looked horrible and I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase a pair, but after doing a little more research, it would appear that I have no choice but to look like a dork if I want to be comfortable.

Oh well… once I get the pants, I need to remember to put all this stuff to the test and quickly finish gearing up.

Oh Noes!

Back in 2000, Production IG created a 48 minute animated masterpiece about a morally ambiguous vampire slayer named Saya infiltrating a US military base during the Vietnam war on the hunt for hideous shape-shifting vampires. Beyond the main plot of the original Blood: The Last Vampire, there’s plenty of depth to the short film as it touched on Japan/U.S. relations as they pertained to war in a post-World War Japan (arguably like most post-war Japanese movies), race wars, a look back at Japanese history and more. Then wrapped this all up in a glorious presentation that blended cutting edge technology and masterful traditional animation in a way the world had never before seen.

So fantastic was this 48 minute film, it’s managed to spawn a manga one-off, a popular animated series called Blood+, and from that a new manga series based on Blood+… All of which I’ve consumed in hopes for more glimpses of the original brilliance.

Unfortunately, that was never the case… yet none of the extensions that came before have so completely shit the bed as the newly released live action adaptation of the original film.

One of the best things about the original was it’s insistence on making the world feel real, almost mundane. As though everything was just as you’d expect it to be in 1966, except lurking in the shadows were evil forces that would pull you up a tree and eat your head if you went walking after dark. This new version eschews reality based fear in favor of over-the-top, cliche vampires brandishing pipes as weapons (WTF?) that at times was quite reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Saya acquires a pathetically uninspired backstory of her father being killed by the “oldest, vilest demon” who (not really a spoiler since it’s so telegraphed) is actually her mother! Cue dramatic music!

Then there’s the transformed vampires. In the original, they were scary, bone-creaking abominations… In this version, it seems like they borrowed an old model from a 1970′s Sinbad film, popped some wings on it, then used the same model for two very different characters!

And don’t get me started on the CG blood splurts.

Oh, and the addition of some random white girl who does nothing but scream, get in the way and spout the most laughable dialogue literally had my fellow theater goers openly mocking her. The audience making fun of the film was actually the highlight of my experience.

Anyway, I should remember to re-watch the original so at least something good comes from this terrible, creaky and most certainly vile abomination.

A quarter of a mile to death...

After seeing coverage on a number of blogs I follow and The New York Times, I was excited to get a chance to check out Chicago’s newest attraction while there for a wedding last weekend. We landed in the windy city Thursday night. The next morning, we were standing in line at 9am in the basement of the Willis Sears Tower anticipating the 103 story elevator ride to the observation level.

Once up, you have to walk all the way around to finally get to The Ledge. Luckily, it was early so there wasn’t too much of a crowd. After making our way to the edge of The Ledge, you do instinctively find yourself questioning whether you should really step out onto the glass 1,353 feet above the pavement.

Of course, you do step out. It’s what you came here for. It’s certainly an interesting moment, however the exhilaration slowly moves from the focus to the periphery replaced by 2 parts awe and 1 part annoyance that the people sharing the glass enclosure with you get in the way of all your good photographs.

I should remember to indulge my tourist tendencies more often.

Yellow Scooter desktop wallpaper

So, posting a couple yellow desktop wallpapers at MyBestDesktops on the subject. The first one is the yellow scooter you see above (and previously saw in my first post on yellow). The next will be something even more yellow! That one should be available on Monday.

Enjoy.