R.I.P. José Saramago, author of Blindness and Seeing.

As people all across the US watch the situation in the gulf (if they haven’t tuned it out already), you can’t help but agree with today’s caption from The Big Caption.

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.

So, this is a historic day. I just want to remember it…

As a person who inherintly doesn’t like to fly. This is a day I should remember.

It’s a day where a plane loses both of its engines shortly after lift-off and a talented captain and his flight crew set it down expertly in the Hudson saving everyone on board. Astounding.

To be honest, I’m surprised it took this long to happen… But today the inevitable occurred during a match of Call of Duty 4: The dreaded RRoD!!

I need to rememeber to buy a PlayStation 3.

It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the day to day nonsense that you go through in life. You forget that even with ridiculous work schedules, bill payments, having jury duty and other petty things, you’re so damn lucky to live the life you have.

I need to remember just how amazingly good I have it to be living my life.

Russian Bombardment in Georgia – The New York Times > World > Slide Show > Slide 6 of 11

Sure it’s morbid and probably been over exposed through the years from folks like Warhol, but I’ve never seen this photo before and am bizarrely drawn into it’s story.

I should remember to be a bit more morbid and get back to taking photos.

Via The most beautiful suicide kottke.org

Every year I try to make it out to Green-Wood Cemetery at least once during October. Last Saturday we went for a nice walk amongst the tombstones around dusk occasionally stopping to take a couple photos.

I should remember to visit the cemetery more often, and also remember not to get locked in after closing next time. Oops.

Last Saturday, after a morning of taking photos in Red Hook, I had to run into the city to buy a helmet before Motorsports closed at 5. By 4:20, I was in a car service car cruising through the Battery Tunnel. It seemed like I was going to make it, but then traffic stopped.

There were a ton of cops and all the tourists I assume were there to see Ground Zero were looking up into the sky instead of down at The Lack. When it seemed like we had come to the end of the traffic jam, there was a cop there forcing everyone going north on the West Side Highway to turn around!

I was pissed, it was 4:40 by now and there was no way I was making it all the way up to 46th street by 5. So, I got out and began walking to a different shop. When I rounded the corner to wade through the tourists past Century 21, I saw it.

It was a smoky blaze and it turns out that a couple firefighters died fighting it.

I should remember… I dunno… that bad shit happens, I guess.