This is the first of my posts about my upcoming backpacking trips. I plan to write more before leaving and to finish the series upon my return.

Last night I started organizing all my gear, in order to see what I can and cannot carry on my trips. It is a methodical process of taking things out of boxes, folding them down as small as possible, and getting on and off a bathroom scale with my pack to make sure it will be under 45 pounds, with camera and water. The process inevitably leads introspection and consideration of my motives for doing such things…

When planning to go into the wilderness, I relate more to Meliville’s Ishmael than I do to Shelly, Emerson, or Thoreau. I fully expect moments of sublimation and transcendental experience to happen once I am there, but my main impetus for going is that I am ready to start knocking the hats off my fellow citizens. I have not romanticized the wilderness to the extent that Ishmael has the sea, and I am fully aware that Emerson and Thoreau never really ventured too far into nature, so it should be Muir and Abbey who are really on my mind, men who ventured out into the mountains of the West. Nevertheless, Ishmael’s flight from society with all its rules, customs, and niceties is what drives me to pack what I can wear upon my back and set off into the mountains.

(more…)

tags: Backpacking | camping | hiking | transcendentalism | wilderness

For a while, I was a big user of del.icio.us. The tagging and ability to access from anywhere made it more useful than browser bookmarks for keeping track of web resources. However, it is particularly bad for web archiving, because the web is not a static place. For example, del.icio.us links the New York Times articles break, unless you remember to link to the permalink. Even then, you are banking on the resource remaining available online.

A better approach for me is to go to the print view, select all, and then clip the article to Evernote. This keeps an actual copy of the article, along with the original link location. I can tag, search by content, and even share the item too. Evernote is really filling the void that local content management systems could not, and it is replacing my use of social bookmarking as well.

tags: archiving | social bookmark | web

I am looking through a tunnel of light filled with sparkles when I hear a voice. I hear it again and realize it is addressing me. The tunnel widens and I remember that I am standing over my bike on the top of Mt. Evans and that I just had the brilliant idea to sprint through the last switchback and into the parking lot at 14,130 feet above sea level. As my hypoxia dissipates, I see a child standing in front of me. “What,” I say, assuming the voice came from him. “Do you need a special kind of bike to ride up here,” he asks, a bit impatiently this time. “No,” I say. “You just need to be a special kind of crazy,” I tell him as I fumble for my wind breaker.

(more…)

tags: colorado | Mt. Evans | road cycling