radiopeter

I’m back in Albuquerque right now, nestled in my hotel room safe and sound. I made it ’round a good portion of the Southern half of the state, and I have to tell you, I’m bruised, sore, and walking like an elderly man.

But damn it, I did some caving this weekend and it was awesome.

I was too exhausted to post yesterday. Two ’strenuous’ tours back to back was a bit much, but I wouldn’t have done it any other way. They are both still rolling around in my head, and I suspect it will be a very long time before I can really tell you how they were. I got into it a little bit in my last post, but as you can tell, it was mostly a physical description.

It’s rough trying to nail down exactly what I learned in the ground on this trip. I suppose I’m jumping the gun a bit by trying to rush through what I’m feeling. But I never want this feeling to end. Ever. And I seriously doubt it ever will.

I woke up pretty early Sunday morning to have a hearty breakfast at the Best Western Stevens Inn in Carlsbad. It’s around a 30 mile drive to Carlsbad Caverns, but with a complimentary buffet in the morning and complimentary high speed internets, I couldn’t be mad about the drive. Mentally, it was also nice to leave the town and drive into the countryside each morning.

I decided to take the Kings Palace guided tour in the morning. It was a walking-only trek, not very far, but you got to see some areas of the caverns that you can’t see on your own. That started at 10am, but I took the elevator down at 8:30am.

Much to my delight, I was the only one in the elevator. Other than one ranger at the bottom, I saw NO ONE for around an hour and a half. I did the big room self-guided tour again, but this time in eerie silence. Literally I felt like I was alone in the cave. No one but me, no sounds but my own and the dripping water. Nothing.

Pure. Clean. Drip-drop.

Several times along the path, I managed to scare myself with my own noises. The thing about a flat rock-face is that it’s a great sound reflector. Near the furthest part of the trail there is a pool called Mirror Lake. The water sounds were coming from every direction, so I reached for my iRiver and recorded a minute or two of them. While trying to put my iRiver back in my bag, my rustling nylon backpack made some noises that bounced off a rock about five feet away and hurled themselves at me.

Imagine it. You’re in a darkened room. It’s humid. The ceiling is nearly a hundred feet or so up. Eerie gothic-like formations surround you. Droplets of water smack your head every now and again. For the last hour the only thing you’ve heard are drops of water, your boots on the path, and your breath. All of the sudden you hear a loud rustling noise coming towards you.

Trust me, you’d be scared too.

After the initial adrenalin-laden jolt of terror, I realized I was the one making those noises. For fun I did it a few times. The lag was barely seconds, but the effect was profound. Thankfully I hadn’t soiled my pants. I was going to be in another cave for another few hours in close company.

After milling around on my own, I took the Kings Palace tour and one of the rangers who tailed our Hall of the White Giant tour, Laura, was tailing this one. It was great to see her again, plus I had the chance to chat with her quite a bit more. She works at Jewel Cave in South Dakota, and I suspect that’s where I’m headed for my next caving experience.

Oh, yeah, speaking of caving, the subject of this post. While it’s in my head, I’ll recount what Keith, the Spider Cave tour guide said (I haven’t talked about Spider yet, but I will shortly. Just don’t wanna forget this.) Someone asked him what the difference was between a spelunker and a caver. As the axiom goes: Cavers are the ones who save spelunkers.

I’m not 100% sure of the truth in this, but ‘cavers’ tend to use that term as a more serious definition. Folks who have gone ‘caving’ are ‘cavers’. Spelunking is the outsiders term. If you’ve never done it, you are more apt to use the terms ’spelunking’ or ’spelunker’. Semantics yes, but each culture has it’s own language. And you know I’m a stickler for languages.

No, I’m nowhere even near an amateur caver yet. Do I intend to become one? Hell yes! I’ve been bitten by the bug in a big way. I don’t know much about the sport, but you can bet that I’m going to learn more and do more.

Speaking of bugs, so my second caving experience was at Spider Cave. Once again, the entrance is a secret so folks don’t go getting in trouble, but we had to drive from the Visitors Center out into the desert some. Then a serious hike down into a valley ensued. I say serious because hiking in a forest (or at least the forests I’ve been to) are generally pretty soft on the foot due to the terrain. Lots of dirt and floor litter as cushion.

Not so much out here. Rocks, rocks, more rocks, spiny cacti, lechuguilla, yucca, and many other oddities you have to deal with. You have to pay attention to every step, much like you do when you are in the cave. None of us were leading the hike, but the ranger also had to keep his eyes and ears open for snakes.

Even when we arrived at the entrance, he had to head in first to check the entrance for snakes. Yes, you read that right. There may, although the chance isn’t very high given how they’ve designed the entrance, be snakes in the cave entrance. If you were an reptile, you’d prolly want to find a cool place to hang out during a hot day too…

Anyway, as we headed in (down a ladder) the crush was on right away. If the squeezes on Saturday were tough, these were downright nasty. I’ll give you an example. You may wish to read this bit then drop to the floor and try it out. Lay yourself down flat. All the way, no arching of the back, hands at your sides, knees on the floor, crotch touching the ground too. Now try to move without raising any of that (because you cannot. There is no room to raise ANYTHING up!) Oh, and keep one ear to the ground as well because your big head won’t fit upright. Has to be sideways.

Are you down there?

Your only choices for locomotion are your feet/toes (heels together now, no room to raise them!), your wrists/hands (elbows down, no room to move them up), and believe it or not your hips. Now picture having to wriggle about six or seven times your body length in that position, over fist sized rubble. No, you can’t really look up (head to the side, remember). No, you can’t really see where you are going (follow the curve of the tiny tunnel you are in). And oh look, there’s a big juicy cricket crossing your path. No room to be scared, it’ll get out of your way.

That’s how you enter Spider Cave. According to the original cavers, the entire tunnel was COATED in daddy long legs when they first entered. Looking up they could see the roof of the slim tunnel pulsating. Naturally, being in such close quarters with them, they fell on your neck, in your shirt, between your glasses and your face, crawling around on your mouth, over your nose, and just about everywhere else they could possibly get to as you entered.

Praise the Lord they aren’t around any more. If they were I seriously do not think I could have made it in. But I did. And I made it out again to tell you about it.

Radically different from the Hall of the White Giant, Spider Cave is known as a maze cave. Named for both the original coating of bugs at the entrance and for the way it branches out into different places, Spider is more crawling, slithering, straddling things, where I think Hall was more climbing, maneuvering, holding on for dear life.

Not that Spider didn’t have it’s share of dark pits and slippery slopes. On more than one occasion in Spider I had to depend on another person to help me over the gaping holes in the ground. And one by one, in turn, we each got to the other side of said chasms, grabbed three stable points of contact, and offered a steady hand to help the next person over.

Climbers know this, but I didn’t until Saturday. When climbing/caving, you must at all times maintain three points of contact for stability (duh, a tripod). Hands or knees or elbows or butt or feet or in extremes, head. Doesn’t matter. Three strong points of contact and you can use whatever is free for to find the forth and free up one of the previous three to move on. Crossing those gaps, for us newbies, someone else had to become part of that tripod.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but that kind of dependency on other people has never been an easy thing for me. I always want to do things on my own. I’m very much type-A big-ego like that. But truly, you cannot be that way in a cave. A big ego has no place down in the earth like that.

We moved through so many chambers, with each one having what looked like four or five different exits. Along the way, Keith (mentioned him earlier) pointed out how cavers tend to name things using the alphabet as a way to remember the path. We passed different formations, each named with a progressive letter of the alphabet. There are many more ways to track your progress inside a cave, but I liked that sort of mnemonic one because it stuck in my head.

With a cave like Spider, there seem to be n number of paths you can choose along every point. So not only naming things in order, but using them as guides to ‘point’ to the right path also helps. For example, there was a cluster of stalactites (hanging ones… they ‘hold tight’) that pointed down to a hole. As the early cavers moved through the cave, they realized the formation pointed to an exit, so they noted it down. We learned tons of things like that as we moved through the cave, most of which I’ve promptly forgotten.

As we backtracked out of Spider and eventually hiked back to our cars, I was kind of sad thinking that the experience was over. The entire trip was really based around these two tours I had planned, and being on the other side of them left me melancholy. I’m still a little depressed I have to head back to Chicago.

The silver lining, and you know I always look for one, is that I do, indeed, feel different. How different? What changed? Well, honestly that part is still foggy. Time will tell.

One thing is for sure. As soon as possible I’m going to schedule my next caving trip. To be completely cheesy, and to quote my favorite Disney movie (laugh if you must, it fits):

I don’t know when
I don’t know how
But I know something’s starting right now

Watch and you’ll see
Someday I’ll be
Part of your world!

I’m going to skip over my description of Roswell NM and save that for a later time. Truly, it isn’t worth much.

I’ve just gotten out of an incredibly hot shower in my hotel room. Absolutely necessary because I’ve just returned from spending my first of two days at Carlsbad Caverns.

O.
M.
G.

I arrived at the park around 9am this morning. The visitors center is under construction at the moment, so there is a fairly large trailer farm marked with TICKETS, GIFT SHOP, etc. Inside I collected my entrance tickets for both tours, The Hall of the White Giant and Spider Cave, along with a general admission pass.

First things first, I hiked a short path to the Natural Cave entrance, which I recommend as the ‘full version’ of the self-guided tour. The cheater way is to take an elevator 750 feet down, but seriously, you WANT to hit the Natural Entrance. Unless you are in poor health, it’s no sweat and a clear, marked trail with tons of handrails and lots of information.

It was spectacular. Only a brief glimpse into what I was going to end up doing later on in the day. You leave from full daylight and descend into the darkness. And darkness indeed because for a good portion of the cave, it’s only lit with gentle yellow footlights. Special formations are highlighted with spotlights, but this is a dark tour and at times you can’t see very much except the foot path. Spectacular I assure you. The massiveness of the rooms doesn’t quite hit you for some time, but when you’re perched on a switch-back walkway looking down hundreds of feet at the specks of moving shadows, only to realize they are people, the grandeur of this place sets in.

If White Sands was magical, this place is downright spiritual. There is a quietness and a stillness to the caverns that is simply astounding. But as the day pressed on, it got so much better.

At 755 feet you hit the rest area and lunchroom. I purchased a sandwich, struck up a conversation with some friendly South Carolinians that turned into a creationist theory discussion which I feigned neutrality about. They handed me some sort of a pamphlet as they departed for their walking tour. You meet all kinds I suppose. I haven’t read it yet because I had more important things to do.

From the rest area, after my snack, I headed into The Big Room. An unbelievable cavern that seems to go on forever and ever, winding here and there in a large loop with formation after formation. Still dark, dimly lit, with spots on the better features. By this time I’d worked up a bit of a sweat, so the cool dampness of the cave felt wonderful. I stopped in one point and felt a small breeze, which I later learned was part of the convection process of this cave. As hot air rises, the cooler air sinks, dampening with the nearly 90% humidity in the cave.

After I got back to the rest area, I decided to ride the elevator up, dump my bag and most of my stuff, and grab my caving gear, which consisted of:

soft kneepads (Mizuno)
soft elbow pads (Truefit)
flexible gloves (Novara multi-purpose)
a head rag for under the helmet
hiking boots (I have Stanley steel toed)
shirt and pants (both REI Brand)
spandex undies (to wick sweat away from the boys!)
a spandex biking shirt I love
a SIGG liter of water
4 AA batteries

I also brought a granola bar, but it turned out I didn’t need it. The SIGG was a bit too clunky as well, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I headed back down to the rest area via the elevator, and slipped my kneepads and elbow pads on on (under my pants/shirt) and sat down to think about things before the trip. I was more than a little nervous to be honest, but a few drops of Rescue Remedy in my water bottle helped smooth out my head. I think I’ve blogged about that stuff before.

Anyway, soon enough the rangers (three AWESOME women, Lauren, Lori, and Erin) collected us and sat us down to talk caving basics as part of The Hall Of The White Giants. We learned how the helmets worked, some calls for getting on/off ladders and rope (”On Rope!”,”Off Rope!”), and the different types of markers on our tour. Plus more rules and regulation stuff, including not revealing where the cave entrance was.

So after we had our helmets, we headed up the elevator and hit the Natural Entrance again. I can’t say more than at some point along the way, we hopped off the trail and snuck into a crack. And when I say crack, think something you wouldn’t even possibly think of getting through. There was a group of Mexican tourists, and one elderly lady kept making the sign of the cross as she watched us slip into the wall.

And that was how it began.

Right away we were vaulted into the world of caving. Gaping holes with the littlest foothold on either side, clambering over boulders, squeezing through spaces you would never dream of being able to fit in, and edging around rocks with a 30ft to 40ft drop right under you.

This wasn’t for the weak. This was serious, potentially dangerous stuff.

I was terrified AND exhilarated by what I saw and what I managed to convince my body to do. My head was screaming “you’re going to climb that rope up that slippery wet and shiny wall?!?!” and my body was doing it.

Where is the next hold? Can I use my knee to brace my body? Keep my three points of contact. Hand on rope, knee, foot, go up.

Over and over we went through passages you wouldn’t want your pet to get lost in. Flat on your belly crawling, lumbering on your side and slithering through cracks, and trying to keep your balance next to a pit so deep that your headlight can’t even see the bottom.

I’m seriously shocked there were no major injuries. But the reason I’m telling you that is because the sheer joy of it was looking back and thinking “Wow. That wasn’t too bad after all. Holy shit, that ladder in front of me only has room for one foot at a time. And is slippery. And I’ll have to make my way back down that at some point!”

The endless twisting and turning at times opened into large rooms. Other times the room was small enough for only two people. Like the game telephone (without the obfuscation hopefully) you had to instruct the person behind you what you just did, or where the best hold was, or even how to navigate a particular passage. (on your butt, then switch to your belly, etc.)

Along the way beetles that look like ants, and some crickets crossed our paths. Amazing that down there life exists, and even thrives. But it was by no means a buggy tour. Just a few were all we saw. I think they know better and have far more interesting things to do that watch the humans.

The end of the tour was a… I don’t even know how to describe it. It was large, beautifully white pillar. The part that almost made me cry was thinking back to the first people who arrived here. How awestruck they must have been to see something so beautiful after such a strenuous journey. And they didn’t even have the benefit of ladders or ropes.

That final room was drenched in beauty. And it was something that very few people ever get to see. Two to three thousand people may visit Carlsbad Caverns in a day. And only eight people per week get the chance to travel to see The White Giant.

There’s something spiritual in that. A pilgrimage of sorts, to see something that so few people have seen, yet so many people could never make that journey. It doesn’t make me a better person to have traveled that path, to have crawled through tight passages, to have seen something that so few people have seen or will even have the chance to see.

What it has done, at least just a two short hours after experiencing it, has made me think about my life. I’m a consumer, standing tall the food chain. I live an extravagant lifestyle in many ways, and I’m thankfully not living outside my means. I have a lot. I’m blessed to have what I have.

But there in that cave, all I had were clothes, water, a light source, and a group of people I was forced to rely on. There’s something so pure in that. So spiritual. As I unravel that thought more and more, I’ll share.

Before we left the last room, which seemed to strike the same sense of awe in everyone, we all sat on the floor, turned out our lights, and sat silent for a long time. I could just barely hear the drops of water over my heartbeat, which seemed like a bass kick. For a second I felt like it was so loud I thought other people would complain.

The ranger told us some stories about the first people to come in, and about her philosophy of conservation. Some really profound stuff that is jumbled in my head at the moment but I’ll get it out eventually. I was hit hard by the reverence that all the rangers have for the cave. Their dedication to preservation is inspiring.

We had to exit the cave the same way we came in. And honestly, it’s like two different trips. Rocks you leapt over because there were handholds on the far side no longer had handholds! The pits you scampered over suddenly look entirely different. Maybe it was fatigue, or maybe it was an optical illusion, but I swear they were deeper on the return trip.

Since, as I mentioned, we entered somewhere in the Natural Cave entrance, we came back out into the cave. But what I didn’t realize was that the cave was closed and darkened by that part of the day. No more visitors, no more lights, only us, with our headlamps in the larger-than-large main rooms.

That part, by itself, would have been wonderful. But to finish an incredible journey into the earth with a stroll through one of the largest DARKENED rooms in the world was beyond. I kept pinching myself. We spread out at one point and it was so dark that you could barely see the dancing headlamps on the ceiling hundreds of feet away.

Ok, I could write for hours, but I’m starving and clean, so it’s time to go eat then collapse in bed, because I have another cave tour tomorrow. Plus there is a ranger led walking tour I want to take in the morning.

I’ll end on this. Think about the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Why was it beautiful? Who were you when you saw it? How did it change you?

Those are the questions I’m trying to answer at the moment.

After a tasty breakfast in Albuquerque, I hit the highway to head southwest to the Very Large Array. Basically the HAM radio geek in me wanted to visit a field of giant radio antennae. Not to mention it was featured in that horrible movie Contact with that Jodie Foster. I couldn’t resist, and the trip was well worth it.

Aside from actually getting close to one of the giant dishes, the landscape change was immense. Bigger bushes, drier air, redder land, and more heat.

I’m amazed at how sparse everything seems. I don’t know why it’s surprising because I’ve been in the southwest before, but it really set in today. I keep trying to imagine what living would be like out there. Obviously you’d need to depend on a car for everything. But the stores, the gas stations, food, it’s all so spread out.

Maybe I’m just a spoiled city boy. Entirely possible.

After VLA I made my way down to Truth or Consequences. It was, in a *blink*, over. Not too much to see really. I grabbed some food and pushed on to White Sands.

However, by this time the dirt on the side of the road was giving way to actual sand. Honest to goodness slumps of sand a sparse yucca and rosemary-mint bushes (I think that’s what they call them.) And cacti. Paddle cacti began to litter the slopes of the hills along I-25 as I headed south.

As you come down out of the mountains into the White Sands National Monument, the gypsum sand dunes began to dot the side of the road, Like giant Chia Pets, the dunes are dotted with plant life. Clumps of grasses and yucca make their homes on the dunes.

The monument, the largest gypsum dunes in the world, make up only 2% of the sand dunes around the globe. They are extremely large and very rare in the world, covering something like 200 square miles. The next largest gypsum dunes in line, in Mexico, cover only 8 square miles.

The geology is pretty neat. In a nutshell, the mountains that surround White Sands have created a basin. Unlike a valley, where there is always an exit, a basin is just a big bowl. In a valley, a river made up of water rushing down the mountains eventually carries things away. Not so in a basin. It’s a big bowl. What goes into the bowl doesn’t come out. Unless you are a water molecule.

Over time, rain washed lots of the water-soluble gypsum down into the basin. At the lowest point lies Lake Lucero. Given the climate and the winds, the lake is constantly evaporating, leaving behind lots of crystal disks made up of gypsum. The crystals break (they do have freezing temps, and we all know what water does when it freezes) and mash against each other, the wind blows, and over time the basin has filled with the white gypsum sand. Ok, enough geography.

Driving into White Sands, you’re greeted with a Visitors Center, which I recommend spending a few minutes in. I also recommend arriving later in the day. I arrived around 5pm, but would have preferred a couple more hours to wander around.

Anyway, after paying your $3 at the entrance, you literally drive into the dunes. At first, they are coated in plant life. But as you head deeper in along the 16 mile track, the blacktop road turns into a road carved out of sand (it’s hard) and the dunes become more and more gleaming white.

I jumped out to a ‘boardwalk dune’ train and wandered along the pathway, reading signs about the various plants and animals that live in the area. But I didn’t come here to learn about plants, so I hopped back in the car and drove further in.

In the heart of them, there is very little plant life. Only towering giants of sand that you are encouraged to walk onto. I hopped out of my car at one point, parked in a makeshift semi-circle lot, and climbed onto a dune. About 30 steps in, I realized I wanted to feel it on my feet, so socks and shoes came off and I got the biggest surprise of the day.

It was 85 degrees out and the sand was cool.

Burying my feed just a few inches down, the sand was moist and cold. Cold! Amazing! Here I was thinking all the people I saw running along the dunes must have had asbestos feet. Completely untrue.

I did a quick scan of the horizon to orient myself to what the various mountains looked like (just so I wouldn’t exactly lose myself among the huge dunes) and I set out. Up the soft wind facing side of one dune, and down it’s steep opposite side.

Like huge whales, you can go on and on for a long time if you want. However, at the bottom of a dune, THEY ALL LOOK ALIKE. You can do a 360 and everything looks like everything else, except for the odd yucca or clump of grass. This could be a very dangerous place to get lost.

Some of the sand is really stiff. Walking on it feels a little like concrete. And on the steep side of a dune, the side facing away from the wind, it is soft and pliable. Each step creates a mini-avalanche.

It really is a magical place. For a while, I walked in one direction, over and down a number of dunes. I had a major Dune moment (the books, or the movie, you pick) as I sat down at the crest of one of them. All around me was gleaming sand. No sounds but the breeze, no people anywhere I was empty and full at the same time. Sitting there, thinking about nothing and everything all at once, I had the hunch that at one time Frank Herbert must have visited a desert and felt the spiritual power of it. The awe inspiring nothing/everything-ness of it surely had something to do with his Dune books.

Damn, sitting here, writing this, I want to go back!

I can’t recommend enough the 6:15pm evening stroll tour. It’s led by a ranger (ours was named Kathy I think, super fantastic) and they will explain a ton about the area. It is free, and it’s designed to end just in time to catch the sunset over the mountains. You really should consider a late afternoon visit if you ever get to White Sands. I know I’ll be back with better gear (compass, camelbak, etc.) sometime in the future to dunewalk again.

After White Sands, I decided to find a Motel 6. They did leave the light on for me, and $40 later I was showering in a hot shower, about to collapse from a day on the road. One quirky thing about the water down here. It seems to be so soft that I can’t really tell when all the soap is washed off. Back in Chicago, you can tell when you’ve washed everything off your skin. Not here. It’s still slick.

Something very naughty and exciting in that. Would be nice to shower with someone… But that’s not why I’m here. Not at all.

It’s ten minutes to 6am, and I’ve been up for an hour writing this and getting the pics together. Hopefully I can find an internet café to post this today.

Next stop, Roswell. I’m praying for non-stop alien kitsch.

—

Ok, I’m here in Roswell right now. It’s overcast and gray, and a ton smaller than I imagined. But seriously, there are aliens everywhere! I’m going to put some jeans on (brr, it is still pretty chilly this morning) and wander around with my camera. The visitors center has free internets (faboo!) so that’s how I’m gettin’ to ya’ll.

Off to snap pix of the aliens!

Well, I’m here. It’s so beautiful here in Albuquerque, I’m almost sad to leave. But I do have to get on the road in just a bit. I’m sitting outside the Albuquerque Aquarium right now using their free Wi-Fi to post this, and it’s chilly this morning, so I’m going to be off in a bit.

I’ll warn you, some of the posts I’ll do vs. some of the podcasts won’t be in sync, but it won’t be too bad, I promise!

This first photo is off the side of Sandia Mountain. I drove all the way up one side, then went around the mountain and took the tram up the other side. The peak is over 2 miles above sea level, and let me tell you it was Chicago cold up there. From 75 degrees in Albuquerque to less than 45 degrees at the peak, it was seriously chilly.

I spent the night in a delightful no frills hotel called Hotel Blue, but I’d choose somewhere else next time just ’cause it was so dead at night. I hear Nob Hill is the place to be, but this came after I already had a room.

On the food front, I decided not to eat at Durans and instead hit the Route 66 Malt Shop for a DELICIOUS Green Chili Cheeseburger and homemade root beer. It was seriously good, and the tiny Mom & Pop shop is the kind of business I love to support. They were super friendly, up for some good chats, and wondered why me, a Chicagogan, was in New Mexico road tripping. As soon as I said ‘the lure of the desert’ they understood exactly what I meant, and the conversation moved on.

After the Sandia Peak trek up the tram, I hit this place called County Line Barbeque for the biggest plate of turkey, sausage, pork ribs, beef ribs, and brisket I’ve ever eaten. With a side of slaw and garlic mashed red potatoes. Food coma immediately set in and I slept well.

Breffest at IHOP this morning, and I’m off to the Very Large Array outside of Socorro, and then onto Truth or Consequences (yep, named after the game), then to White Sands National Monument.

Busy day. Gots ta go!

eh-lee-nee-key eh-pa-nah-sta-see kay ev-an-geh-lee-smos tees thay-oh-toh-koou
(Greek Revolution and the Annunciation of Christ)

It’s a double Greek holiday today!!

Today, March 25th, Greece celebrates it’s independence from the Ottoman Empire. It was a long and bloody war, preceded by more than one failed attempt, that eventually led to the signing of the Treaty of Constantinople in 1832 which granted the land rights to what we now consider Greece.

Coincidentally, today also marks on the Orthodox calendar the day that the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would carry the Son of God (which means Christmas is in nine months!)

Ευαγγελισμός της Θεοτόκου is an interesting phrase because of the first word ‘ev-an-geh-lee-smos’. Say that a few times and you can hear exactly where the word evangelism comes from. We call Mary the ‘Theotokos’ (thay-oh-toh-kohs), which means “God bearer.”

Fish for dinner tonight!

Just wanted to shoot a quick video before I leave on my trip to New Mexico. Not much other than me blabbering on about who else? Me.

See you in the next timezone!

This weekend I’ve fallen in love with the music of Gnarles Barkley. Lord only knows why I haven’t thought much of them prior to now, but they’ve infused this past weekend full of tunes, and I suspect their two albums St. Elsewhere and The Odd Couple will become the de-facto sounds of my New Mexico trip.

The song “Who Cares” on St. Elsewhere has a passage that’s fairly haunting. I loves it.

It’s deep how you can be so shallow
And I’m afraid ’cause I have no fear
And I didn’t believe in magic
Until I watched you disappear

I’m loooking forward to driving in White Sands National Monument with this blasting on the stereo, surrounded by peaks of glistening sand dunes.

Is it Wednesday morning yet?

I’m so supremely stoked about my upcoming trip to New Mexico that I haven’t been able to sleep properly. I spent the weekend shopping with my sister and wrangling my bits and pieces together. Tonight I need to get the final packing in order, but basically I know what I’m doing and what I’m taking.

The hardest part has been sorting out the tech for this trip. Gone are the days when I’d pack my Nikon D70 and be done with it. On the contrary, I’ve got my SLR, Canon P&S, HV20 vidjo camera, microphones for said vidjo camera, 12″ Powerbook, and a tangle of cords, adapters, and USB cables like you wouldn’t believe. Not to mention batteries and chargers for every gizmo mentioned. And a tripod. Overwhelming is one way to describe it.

Chaos would be another.

I know what you may be thinking. “I thought he was leaving the city to escape all that.” And honest to God, I truly am leaving the concrete jungle to get out into the natural world. But my goal is to capture as much of the experience as possible. Then I can share it with you and selfishly relive the experience over and over again.

It’s also going to be great practice. Traveling with a balanced load of tech gear is an art that I am certainly not a master of. The only way you get better at it is by doing it and then figuring out what you can leave at home for the next trip.

I’ve alluded to this before, but there is some heavy-hitting video work in my future, and every little step along the way is bringing me closer to that goal. Practice, practice, practice and I may just get good at it.

Thankfully, I have this website and an incredibly wonderful audience to share my experiences. You guys seriously rock, and the fact that anyone is paying attention is worth more than you know. Thank you, thank you, and again, thank you!

I bought a hat for my trip. How much do I love it? Well, you can see below. I’ve also been playing fashion show with my new caving gear, but I don’t have photos of that. I’ll save the snaps of the clothes for when they are in use in the caves.

There is a line in the sand that I hope most people never cross. It’s defined where people’s religion is concerned. I am 100% in favor of condemning any religious practice that causes bodily harm. Let people do what they will inside of a holy place, unless someone is being hurt. But protesting in a church, during a service, is completely unacceptable no matter which way you slice it.

That’s why churches have front steps.

Six ignorant assholes decided they were going to protest the war during Easter mass at Holy Name Cathedral here in Chicago. Mid-mass the six decided to disrupt the service, lie on the floor, and squirt fake blood on themselves and parishioners, chanting “Even the Pope calls for peace.”

Now, there can be no denying that everyone has a right to their own view. But the complete disrespect for the church, the services, and the congregation as a whole is appalling to me. How dare these people sneak into a place of worship and mess with other people’s right to worship!

The level of ignorance this displays proves to me that the people behind such a protest are a bunch of idiotic and thoughtless assholes. I might have respected their opinion had they held a protest OUTSIDE of the church. But inside? That is disgusting and completely uncalled for. Stay out of other people’s religious experience. It is not, ever, acceptable to protest inside of a church in my book.

Sun-Times story
Chicago Tribune story

My friends Adam and Joe stopped by this afternoon to play with my Wii. My kitties were fascinated with all the goings on. Plus honestly, this was yet another excuse to use my HV20 and test out some things.

The only thing I hate more than throwing up (which is one of the most disgusting things ever) is having the flu. And I managed to catch a case of the nasties which left me shivering in bed, sweating buckets, and pissing off my cats because every five minutes I was shifting from place to place.

I didn’t even get to enjoy TV because my eyes were hurting. Even time I made a trip from the bedroom to the bathroom I could hear my new television laughing at me. Grr.

I ended up bundling up like a snowman and walking to The Bagel on Broadway to purchase a large vat of chicken soup, thus busting my Lenten fast wide open. However, their ambrosial soup seemed to cure what ailed me because I’m back at work today. Still groggy, but aware enough to put on clean underwear and clothes, tie my shoes, and venture out into the world.

All I want to do is curl up and nap.

nihon no kimochi
a japanese feeling

All I’m going to say is 56″ HDTV rocks my freakin’ world. I watched Kill Bill Vol 1 last night and the climax battle between Beatrix and O-Ren was nothing short of magic. I almost felt the same when I saw it in the theater.

When Meiko Kaji’s “Flower of Carnage” song began playing, I got chills. The Japanese lyrics, the snow, the triumph of a successful revenge, it was all nearly too much. I’ll share the lyrics of the intro passage with you, and my own personal translation:

Shindeita asa ni tomorai no yuki ga furu
Hagure inu no touboe geta no otokishimu
Iin na naomosa mitsumete aruku
Yami o dakishimeru ja no me no kasa hitotsu
Inochi no michi o iku onna namida wa to ni sutemashita

During the deadly silent morning, falling snow buries
A stray dog cries, the sound of wooden sandals cut the silence
I go with the weight of heaven on my mind
Open to the dark night, holding a patterned umbrella
Following the path of life as a woman throughout my journey, tears fall.

Such a Japanese feeling.

I received a comment on the δοντια μου (my teeth) post I did a couple days back from Jealene (Hi Jealene!) and I wanted to dish on living with Invisalign for over a year now.

It has been a long, and honestly fairly easy journey. But I learned a ton along the way. And while it’s not 100% done, I’ve certainly come to know a few tricks that I didn’t know before.

When I first began, I realized that I eat a lot. I eat all the time. Seriously. Like six or seven times a day, albeit small meals here and there, with the occasional large meal now and again. With all the in and outs of my trays, I didn’t want to have tons of food stuck in my teeth, only to rot while I was wearing my trays. You may squirm at hearing that, but imagine having yuck-mouth times ten, and that is what I got when I don’t brush and pop my trays back in right after eating.

SO, I went out and bought a handful of toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste and scattered them everywhere I was. What does that mean? One at each job (I had several jobs when I began), several at home (I’d be brushing my teeth six or seven times a day, so I’d rotate toothbrushes), and I went online and bought a DentaKit to carry with me in my backpack (which I normally have) everywhere I went. I ditched the extra tray holder included, because the foldable cup stored inside the kit can be the tray holder if you need it to. And stow a couple Advil / Tylenol / Alleve / whatever you like in the kit.

The DentaKit was the single most useful thing I bought and I still use it regularly, but I’ve swapped out the travel toothbrush with one I like more. It has a mirror (a godsend for a vain guy like me) and places for floss, a portable cup, a toothbrush, and a small tube of toothpaste. If I’d recommend one single thing for Invisalign wearers, it’s the DentaKit. The convenience of having everything in a handy kit that is smaller than a paperback book is worth the $30.

The other major thing I learned, aside from developing a love for mint-waxed floss, is that the “Retainer Brite” cleaning tablets are pretty much useless. Same with the Polident, Efferdent, etc. I tried them all and nothing works better than a .79 cent (or .59 cent) hard bristled tooth brush from the generic section of your favorite pharmacy/convenience store.

Each morning I pop out my trays, toss ‘em in a glass of water before my shower and scrub them with the hard toothbrush after I brush my teeth. Takes a couple extra minutes in the morning, but the stiffer bristles get all the gunk out of the nooks and crannies nicely. With or without the cleaning tablets, you still have to scrub to get them clean. I even bought a ’sonic cleaner’ (not an ultrasonic…do they make those for Invisalign?) and it did little good. The only thing I found the tablets did for my trays was make them taste a bit minty. Since I use mint mouthwash and mint floss, minty trays were a moot point.

Beyond that, I always kept a folded paper towel in a pocket somewhere in case I was out and wanted to eat something. Pop out the trays, wrap them in the paper towel, put ‘em in your pocket. That way you aren’t tempted to leave them on a table somewhere.

Thursdays are the days I change my trays. I started on a Thursday night and I still stick to a Thursday night schedule (I have a couple lowers left). Thursday mornings I’d put the new trays next to the sink so I wouldn’t forget to change them that night.

As far as pain goes, yeah, it hurts sometimes. Not necessarily a sharp stabbing pain, but it throbs a bit. The morning after some new trays my teeth are a bit sensitive, but it depends on which ones are moving. That is where the stowaway Advil etc. comes in handy in the DentaKit. Sometimes during the first day or so of new trays, my mouth would hurt. It wasn’t a regular thing, and usually one Advil took care of it. But better to be prepared.

When my front teeth were moving around, the first couple days after a new tray I couldn’t even think of apples or carrots. But by the end of the first week, I could return to chomping away on harder stuff with no problems.

Ok, that was a total brain dump on Invisalign stuff. Jealene, I hope that helps some!