What bad luck!

     So, it's a rainy day.  You're late for whatever it is you happen to be in a hurry to get to, you're stuck in traffic, and now on top of everything, you've spilled your coffee on yourself.  How unlucky are you?  No, really, how unlucky are you?  Surely you've said it before, but have you ever taken the time to really consider it?  Well, lets see.  You've managed to spill coffee on yourself so, presumably, you had money to buy coffee.  You're stuck in traffic, but to be stuck in traffic implies that you're fortunate enough to have a car to use.  In order to be in a hurry to get somewhere, you must have woken up this morning; in order to wake up this morning you must have been born; in order to be born, you're parent's must have met and conceived you; in order for your parents to have met, they must each have family roots that extend back as far as you can trace; in order to have a family roots, life must have come into existence on the earth; in order for life to start on earth, the solar system must have formed just as it did; in order for the solar system to form just as it did, all the particles of milky way must have come together just as they did to form the galaxy; and in order for the milky way to come together, the universe had to start exactly how, and when it did.  Now, how unlucky were you to be able to spill your coffee?

Have an unlucky day.

It's all over.

Here we are... at the end of days... but what better time to be alive.  How few people will get to be alive  when the world comes to an end? Wow, we're lucky!  It's almost five hours into this apocalypse, and so far, so good... but it doesn't really matter, does it?  If it's ending, it's ending, and if it's not, it's not.  What really matters is what you've done.  What matters is if you're happy with what you've accomplished in your time.  It may be the end of the world... or... it may not... but either way, it's a time for reflection.  Are you happy where you are?  Are you happy where you've been?   If so, then good!  Keep it up!   If the world ends, then you'll die happy.  If not, then let's hope the world doesn't end, but let's call it the end of the world anyways.  Let's wake up tomorrow in a new world.  A world where we're totally new people, and where we are what we really want to be.  There's no better time to start a new life than the end of days!  Good Luck!

Have an apocalyptic day... and maybe a new beginning.

Let's do something BIG!

     It usually happens near the end of the bottle.  You're out with some friends and everyone's had a bit more than their limit when someone comes up with a great idea!  Ya! Let's do something big!  We could run that company... or invent that product... or open that store... or....  Who's buying this round?  No I bought the last one!  No I did!  And then all of a sudden you're back in your bed. The sun's up,  your head's pounding, and you're too sick to eat 'til it's dark out again.  You probably won't recall all those great ideas, or at least won't talk about them until the next time you're too drunk to remember.  It's a shame.  There's no reason you couldn't really do any of these things, but they're just too big to start.  That's why you only think them up after a bunch of booze, when you're ten feet tall and bulletproof.  Nobody wants to start small, but that's what you have to do.  And you have to keep doing it!  Think about it another way:  You could try to build a tree, but it wouldn't turn out right, and it would be a lot easier to just plant a seed.  So, hey! Lets do something small!  Eventually it'll be something big.  

Have a small day.   

I hope nobody's been reading this.

   
     This is important!  The election is coming up in less than a week and tonight the Chiefs play the Chargers.  This country needs a real change, but we're given the choice between the two candidates that pledge to treat all the symptoms of the problems we're having while leaving the causes unchanged (and unmentioned).  What's that?  You think you might consider a third party candidate?  Go ahead!  Throw your vote away! --And here's Lady Gaga with a song to distra-- er... empower you to chose either of the two political parties.  You were born this way baby!  The federal reserve system is killing our country and Snooki is having children, and I could tell you in great detail about why we're going down the tubes in about 15 minutes, but Taylor Swift broke up with Conor Kennedy this week, and Gary Busey got plastic surgery, and Vince Vaughn should get it, and Cate Blanchett will never get it.  What an idiot!-- I admire her commitment to age naturally-- I think she should be kicked out of tinsel town.  And the chargers are up 7-0 at the end of the first quarter.

     This may sound like a rambling useless post, but I'm trying to make a point here!  It's pretty easy to get distracted from the important things in the world, we've got celebrities, professional sports, new cars, iPods, and every other manner of consumer good that we couldn't dream up a dozen years ago, but can't live without now-- and it can only get worse from here.  Look at the websites on some of the links above.  The one web address is 'nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip'.  Think about that for a second; gossip as a subcategory of entertainment on a news website.  More and more, we are blurring the lines between news and entertainment, and becoming less informed in the process.  When celebrity gossip and fashion trends are presented as the most important things, they become the most important things to people.  It's getting to the point that any message that would be received and understood by a large enough segment of society to cause a change would have to be so dumbed down and diluted that it wouldn't be worth telling anyone at all.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can't really count on anyone else to make the changes for you.  You've got to inform yourself, dodge the distractions, and be the change you want to see in the world.

God, I hope nobody's reading this, cause I don't want myself to think I dumbed this down for everyone.

Have an informed day.

A flash in the pan.

I wrote this a while ago as a preface to an essay that was never finished.  It was about living your life backwards by pondering what you would do if you knew you had one second to live.  Who would you be with? Where? Doing what?  Then doing the same for a minute, an hour, a day, a week... all the way up to a century.  By doing this you discover what's really important to you and what you want to accomplish with your life.  So, since I never finished the essay, I thought I'd share this portion of it with all of you.  
       It's been said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die.  The sum of all of your experiences in this world drifts through your consciousness to be reflected upon one last time before your passing into whatever lies beyond this life. I personally have never had a near death experience, but this idea seems plausible.  Everyone hopes they amount to something in this lifetime and it seems only logical that ones last thoughts would be on what impact they've made on the world and the people around them.  The part of this phrase that really provoked my thoughts however is not the idea of this stream of events pouring through your mind before you die, but the timing involved in the process, because who's to say how long a 'flash' is?  Is it a second? A minute? Five?  Maybe it's about seventy eight and a half years for the average person in the United States.  That's right, the entirety of your life is the flash.  It's interesting to look at life in this way, because then this 'flash' becomes not only your own reflection on your life, but a series of chances to change its course toward better reflections in the future.  This only works, however, if we have the foresight to look forward to looking back. 
If everyone was given an expiration date, a definite time and date when they knew they were going to die, most people would be more prudent with their time, using it productively to work towards an ultimate objective.  Unfortunately, we are not afforded this blessing (or curse) in our lifetime, and we consequently go on idly through our lives usually forgetting, and sometimes distracting ourselves from our eventual fate.  This is not to say that we should spend our entire lives fretting over the conclusion, but to ignore it is equally illogical and unproductive.  In any endeavor there is a goal towards which all other actions contribute, and life, being the ultimate endeavor, should be no different.  

George Carlin had the same idea a while ago, but he presented it a bit more comically:

I want to live my next life backwards:
You start out dead and get that out of the way.
Then you wake up in a nursing home
feeling better every day.
Then you get kicked out for being too healthy.
Enjoy your retirement and collect your pension.
Then when you start work,
you get a gold watch on your first day.

You work 40 years
until you're too young to work.
You get ready for High School: drink alcohol, party, and you're generally promiscuous.

Then you go to primary school,
you become a kid,
you play,
and you have no responsibilities.
Then you become a baby, and then...

You spend your last 9 months
floating peacefully in luxury, in spa-like conditions
- central heating, room service on tap,
and then...
You finish off as an orgasm.

Have a backwards day.

The sky is falling!

   
     Run for the hills!  Natural disasters are rampant, terrorists are running loose, the economy's collapsing and the end of the world is just around the corner.  Even if those darn Maya were wrong in their apocalyptic calendar predictions, we'll all be living in a third world police state within a years time.  It seems there's nothing but bad news everywhere you look anymore.  At least that's the world presented to us on television, radio, and the other media outlets we're surrounded by today.  But what about in your world?  Open up the front door... no terrorists here.  Look out the window... I don't see any volcanos in my back yard.  The truth is, some of these things may be happening in the world, but for the most part it's not nearly as bad as the media makes it out to be.  It used to be that there were about 30-60 minutes each evening dedicated to the news of the day and that was sufficient to keep us all relatively informed, but now with multiple 24 hour news networks competing for our advertising dollars there's just too much time to fill up with 'news', and if a story on one station isn't as sensational as the one on the next, then the audience will simply change the channel and take those dollars with them.  In today's world police look like soldiers, their cars like tanks.  They used to be our friends, remember?  "To serve and protect", I believe it was.  Even the weather doesn't tell us how beautiful it's gonna be outside anymore, it tells us how likely a severe storm or natural disaster is.  Fear is a terrible way to live, but only when you let it take over.  So, next time someone calls for doom in the forecast, take a moment and look outside.

     The sky isn't falling at all!  And even if it was, worrying about it isn't gonna help.  If you're really that worried then get off your butt and do something about it.

Have a fearless day.

Nature's gonna win.

       I love the outdoors, and I love nature, so you might think I would be a bit of an environmentalist, but the truth is I don't really care much for environmental causes. Maybe care isn't the right word.  I do care very much about the environment, but I don't worry about it.  Who are we to step in and 'fix' nature when we see something going 'wrong'?  For instance, is it any better to save a species that's meant for extinction than to kill off one that's time hasn't come yet?  I don't know, but I do know that we are one of nature's youngest experiments, and we treat her like a child because we think we know what's good for her.  The truth is, she's been around far longer than us, and I'm pretty sure she's got more knowledge and experience than we could ever know and she doesn't need our help to stay afloat.  That's not to say that we aren't hurting the environment all the time, and nor do I mean to say we shouldn't stop it, but I know that if we don't stop, nature's not going to be the loser, we are.  There's a balance in nature; we might be able to tilt it for a short time, but if we continue for too long, then she'll be sure to stop us.  Even if we put all our efforts toward depleting natural resources, and paving the earth flat, we'd be dead ourselves from the consequences of our actions long before we ever completed the task.  So, I try my best to treat the environment well, and encourage others to do the same, but I don't worry for her when people aren't so conscientious.  I know that in the end they're really not hurting her, just hurting us.  

I undertook a short expedition to photograph an abandoned steel mill just outside of Pittsburgh a while ago, and was amazed and uplifted by how quickly nature had reclaimed what we thought was ours.  The mill was only abandoned in the late 80's, but now paved roads were covered by plants; small animals and birds had moved back into the area; and trees had taken root directly on some of the crumbling structures.  This place wasn't ever really ours, and neither is anything else; it's all just on loan, and nature will take it back soon enough.  She always wins.  

  Have a green day.

Kids know what's up. ~or~ You learn all the B.S.

       
       Weather canceled my rafting trip again, but I visited my little cousins (and their dog) last weekend at their house out in the Alleghenny National Forest and had a great time with them. Kids are smart.  They know how the world works.  They might not understand it all, but deep down they know it.

   
      And I don't mean how adults run the world, I mean how we humans are connected to the animals, the plants, and all of nature...  The truths that are obvious to us until we have other ideas shoehorned into our brains.  It's easy to see it in children's motivations and their activities.  When kids have some free time what do they do? Waste their time watching other people compete in sports, or listening to people talk (gossip mostly) about what others are doing in the world?  No.  They go out to a field, or to the woods, or somewhere else in nature and explore their world and experience things for themselves... until they're taught not to.  How many times were you told as a young child to stay out of the woods? or not to play in the dirt? or not to eat the dirt!?  And you didn't see the tiniest thing wrong with it until it was beaten into your brain not to do it!
     Kids know whats up, but as they grow up they learn to be disgusted by the natural world that we're a part of and learn all the other B.S. that becomes the troubles of the world we live in.  That's why I've always tried to remember to stay a kid as much as possible.  At least as far as keeping the mindset of exploration and of our connection to the natural world.  It might not help me fit in with other 'adults' (I prefer being a 'grown up' personally), but at least I'm not selling my soul for a dollar or forgetting where I came from... and where I'm going.    

 

Have a childish day.

A pale blue dot.

   
       I came across this video long ago, but just recently rediscovered it.  Carl Sagan had an always eloquent way of presenting our world to us, and his programs shaped a lot of my philosophy on life.  Watching this video puts everything in perspective for me, and if you're any kind of thinking being it should do something similar for you too.  It's hard to get worried about the little troubles of life when you think of where we actually are, and how lucky each of us is to even be given a chance to experience this place for the short time we have.  Get out and explore it!


       If you liked that short monologue, you should consider watching 'Cosmos', a TV series featuring Carl Sagan that was produced in the late seventies (it's available on netflix, hulu, and at least partially on youtube).  If you can watch the entirety of that series and still can come up with reasons to hate things in this world, then you're doing something wrong.


Have a day (it doesn't matter what kind, but just appreciate it).

Problems that money can't solve.

     There will always be problems that come up while traveling, and there are several ways of dealing with them.  Some people choose to buy their way out with money, while other more adventurous souls might wing it and try to solve the problem without monetary assistance.  The latter is, in my opinion, the correct choice.  Problems that you refuse to, or that can't be solved with money almost always create great new experiences. 

     While hopping around Europe last fall my friend and I had the opportunity to piggyback on a newly acquainted French friend's vacation to Rome.  Upon our arrival in Italy we promptly became lost and made it to the villa well after sundown where we relaxed and winded down with a few beers.  At around 11:00, we were surprised to hear a knock at the front door.  It was the villa's owner.  We hadn't been loud or rowdy at all, so it didn't worry us so much as it struck us as odd.  Why would she come down to speak with us at such a late hour?  She spoke little English and we little Italian, but after a few minutes of broken speech and poor grammar it was clear that two of us would have to leave.  The villa was rented for five... my friend and I were six... and seven... and so began the worst and best time of our European vacation.

     We were faced with the loss of the roof over our heads, and no prospects of another to come.  The housing development that we were in was accessible only by major highway, eliminating the possibility of walking to a hostel or hotel; public transportation stopped running at 10:00, eliminating that option; and we were too far from any major metropolitan areas to get a taxi at such a late hour as well.  We would have to walk... somewhere.

     An empty field about a half mile away on the edge of the housing plan would be our bedroom for the night.  We found a hole in the treeline that made a small plant lined cave, set our sleeping bags out, covered the entrance with a poncho I had in my bag, and drifted off to sleep... BEEP! Only a few hours later we were jarred from our sleep by a car, nearly on top of us, and honking.  This was followed by a several minutes of unintelligible Italian yelling from the car's occupant.  We had apparently chosen someone's parking spot as our bed.  We would spend the next night in the field's tall grass instead.
  

     In my last post I talked about packing light to allow yourself to be more flexible and more immersed in your adventures and discussed a little about how leaving things behind can lead to better experiences along the way, but as you may have guessed, leaving things behind can also be detrimental in some situations... and I LOVE those situations.  Getting yourself in some trouble makes any adventure more noteworthy, and as we found out before, the 'bad' times make for the best stories to tell about later.  Packing and traveling light is the best way to get these stories.  That's not to say you should be reckless; always have what you need to travel safely in whatever environment you happen to be in; but depriving yourself of a few comforts will not only lighten your luggage, but also lead to problems you'll have to solve along the way which in turn lead to good stories to tell later in life.  The story above wasn't caused by lack of equipment, but rather lack of preparation, but the outcome was the same: a problem that money couldn't solve and a good story to tell.

That's about it for now. 

Here are some photos of nature winning.

No Keys

        The less you have, the more you will experience.  A car might get you to the grand canyon, but your feet will get you to the bottom of it.  This is a very important thing to consider when you're planning any adventure.  It's an inverse relationship, I suppose.  You might be able to pack up all the amenities of home in a nice big bag, but the bigger that bag gets, the less likely it is to make it to where you want to go.  I learned quickly that the best way to travel is light.  If I'm not gonna use it everyday (Sleeping gear, toiletries, camera), or I don't absolutely need it (food, flashlight, clothing), then I'm probably not going to bring it.  It keeps your days free of distractions and lets you really experience what you're doing.  One of my favorite things to leave behind is keys.  Keys are for people who have somewhere to be, or something keep away from others and even more than that, they're a symbol of responsibilities, and ties to the frantic modern world that you're probably trying to liberate yourself from when you're traveling.  On any adventure you should be opening up to others, not closing off, and the only place you have to be is right there in the moment, so why bring any keys?  I came up with this logic: 

(You might not totally agree with it, but it's treated me well so far.)    

adventures = freedom

freedom = no commitments holding you back

keys = ties to commitments 

Therefore, 

adventures = no keys

(I guess a car would be an exception,

but there are better and more fun 

ways of getting around)

So, maybe you see my logic, maybe not, but either way I always consider leaving a few things behind whenever I'm traveling about.  I might loose a few of the comforts of home, but they're more than made up for by new experiences.   

The summer solstice party is tonight.  I will be attending.  I will be bringing nothing but my camera.  

Have a liberated day.

Death. The great motivator.

        I found this video of the late Steve Jobs giving a speech at a graduation ceremony.  He touches on on all the points I've tried to make recently, although maybe a little more charismatically and a bit more concisely (and I thought I was doing a good job!).  Living for yourself, not worrying about making mistakes, having nothing to lose in the end.  If I'm not convincing enough for you, then maybe he will be, cause statistically you're probably reading this on something he made. 

Consider your future

     Every time I've dropped out of life to squander my savings on various adventures, I've been told I was careless, impulsive, irresponsible; and that I should take the time to think about my future before making such drastic decisions.  I guess that's good advice, but no one ever specifies a timeframe when they say 'future'.  Tomorrow's the future, so maybe you should get a good night sleep tonight if theres something important going on then.  Next week's the future, so making plans with some friends of yours might be a good thought.  Next year's the future, so you might want to do well at your job to advance your career.  The same goes for five years, maybe you want to get married, buy a house or make some investments for retirement, but that's about as far as a lot of people go when thinking of the future.
     I've always taken it a little farther.  What about 50 years in the future? or 100?  Well, you might be around in 50 years, and hopefully you'll have some good stories to share, but in 100 we can be pretty certain anyone reading this right now will be dead...  Then what?  All we'll have then are the stories we've left behind.

     The farther we look to the future, the less our mistakes, our shortcomings, and yes, even our finances matter.  Eventually all thats left is what we did.  You can spend your whole life working for someone else and making 'good' life decisions, or you can think about your future and do something to help yourself get to where you want to be.  Maybe for you that means working a job and advancing your career, but for others (myself included) that's not the right path.  I've boiled down my decision making process to two simple questions:

     1.  Will this be a good story?

     2.  If I think of this on my death bed, will I be proud of what I did?

     If I can answer yes to those two questions, then it's a good idea; if I can't, then it's probably not.  Even if the outcome is bad on one of my 'good ideas', I've still got a good story that I'm proud of.  That's a correct decision in my book.  And like I've said in the past, we all know the 'bad' stories are the best ones anyways.

Have an outstanding day.

Looking forward to looking back.

      I was at dinner with some work friends a few weeks ago to celebrate an employee's departure from the company to go to South America.  Of course, given the circumstances of the get together, the conversation soon turned to travel.  They all talked of their cruises and Disney vacations, and I of my months in tents and my minimally equipped, underfunded adventures, and though we spoke of opposite ends of the travel spectrum, it soon became apparent that we were all talking about the same aspects of our trips... The 'bad' experiences.  Their 'bad' experiences consisted of inadequate closet and bathroom space, queen beds instead of kings, and other annoyances, while mine consisted of riding bikes through barren marshland with no water for hours on end and pitching tents in cactus patches.  Each person has their own idea of bad, I suppose, but the point is clear: problems encountered while traveling make for the best stories.  It makes sense.  If everything goes to plan then there's no story to tell.  Would you rather hear the story about the time we spent the night in the woods and then drove home in our car the next day, or the time we had to spend the night in the woods because our car broke down and then we walked out the next day?  In my mind one story stands out as the obvious winner here.

     So, problems make for better stories than plans that work out. So what?  Well that's not such a big deal until you take it a step farther.  I realized this long ago, and because of it, I tend to deal with problems much better and more calmly than most.  If you have ever been around me when things start going wrong, then you'll know that as soon as they do, I crack a smile.  Everyone else might be miserable, we might be lost, or out of money, but I know it's gonna be a good story.
      I can't begin to count the number of times I've been sitting around with friends recounting a 'bad' experience I've had and laughing out loud with the very same people who were hating the world when we went through it, but every time I do I remind them that this is why I wasn't miserable myself.  That this funny story was what I was thinking about when everything was going wrong, and that I knew we'd all be here laughing about it together in the future.  So why would you ever be angry, or sad, or upset about problems that come up when you can just look forward to looking back and laugh at the situation you're facing?  It'll be funny later, so just think about later now.


        Micro-adventure video is almost done.  Hopefully I'll have it up later on in the week.  Until then enjoy this picture of Kenny psyched about our hot tub.

Have a 'bad' day.

The best beer I ever had.

       
         I consider myself a bit of a beer snob, so if I had to recall the best beer I ever had, the answer might surprise you a little.  It was a friday about a week in to my bicycle ride to florida, and we had stopped for the night at lunch rock.  We were starving.  We had been living on dehydrated vegetables and army rations since we had left home, and as for beverages, a bland, artificially sweetened drink powder packed in with the army food was the most flavorful thing to cross our lips.  It was around dusk and we were making ourselves comfortable, when a husband and wife with their two children happened upon our campsite, and as they approached we noticed a cooler in their hand.  Immediately, our food and drink fantasies began.   We ended up talking with them for several minutes about our trip, and about the area, but, as we would confess to each other later, always with the hopes of a surprise treat from that cooler in the back of our minds.  Eventually the family left, having invigorated and entertained us with their stories and friendship, but also having crushed our hopes of libations and gastronomic delights.  My riding companion, Bryce, had just turned to me to say "Man, I thought we were scoring a few brews or something!" when who else but one of the visitors would re-emerge from the darkened path with a gift of two Miller lites for we two weary travelers.

This story isn't about beer.  It's about the allure of travel and how it can change your perception of things; about living simply; and about enjoying the small things along the way.  Traveling, especially traveling very light, is the best medicine I've found for whatever troubles you.  Even if its only for a day, whittling your life down to what can fit in a backpack instantly shakes off the worries of the world and makes all the the little surprises more special when they come along.  I don't even like Miller Lite, but that night it was more enjoyable than any nice craft brew I might be able to come across at my house today.  I'd like to always live so simply.  

You may have read this story before on my old blog, but if not, you should take a look at it.  There are plenty of other interesting thoughts and experiences to read about there too.  

I filmed Eva setting up her honey bee hive today and got stung in the head, got a lot of good shots though.  I think I'm going to designate friday as the new blog day.  So, expect a new video next week and a new blog every friday (at a minimum).

Have a special day. 

Hopes for the future, thoughts from the past

          I finally caved and bought myself a Glidecam to steady up my videos... and it is totally worth it.  I can't afford it, but I figure $400 more indebtedness to help myself do what I really want to do is worth it in the long run.  Expect some (steady) new videos soon.        

         I'd really like for this to be a travel blog, but because of my current employment situation, I don't have much time for travel or adventure, except the micro kind. But if things go to plan, I might be doing a lot more in the near future... more on that as it develops.  For now, though, I'm going to focus on some musings of mine made in the past in journals, phone notes, napkins, and whatever else I had around while I was traveling.  I think it's a good insight into my philosophy of travel, and life in general, and it'll be fun to share.  So in the near future you can expect to see some blogs about:

       - The two questions to ask yourself before diving into something.

       - Looking forward to looking back.

       - Being where you are.

       - Keys.

       - Problems that money can't solve.

       - The best beer I ever had.

       That's all I really have for now.  So I'll leave you with an entertaining pic of myself with Jedi Mickey at the Brandenburger Tor. 

Photo credit for this blog post goes to Mr. Broox

We're learning how to unicycle.

I don't watch whole lot of TV, but if you do, you may have noticed that people on TV don't watch a whole lot of TV.  That's because the writers of the show make their character's (fake) lives sufficiently interesting and fulfilling to eliminate the need to live vicariously through others.  If they didn't, you probably (hopefully) wouldn't watch.  If you saw people on TV watching TV, you'd probably hit the channel + or -  button in quick fashion, but perhaps a better option would be the larger red button at the top of the remote.  Then you could go out and star in your own personal TV series with a cast, crew and story lines of your choosing and the whole world as your audience.  Get away from the routine! Do something! Start something! Make something!  This may not seem to be a profound undertaking, but it becomes more so when you realize that the only thing most of the people around you have made recently is money... whatever that is.

If this guy doesn't get you motivated to set out and chase all your dreams, then nothing will.  I'll be participating in his film festival this summer.  I encourage everyone to do the same.

Filler

Went camping last weekend at wolf rocks and loved it.  I have some videos in the works as we speak.  Until they're done (assuming they are up to standards) heres something for you to watch and think about.  I couldn't say it better myself.

I'll end this post just as an older woman ended her conversation with me earlier this week.

Have a nice life time.

Woods.In the woods.

Eva and I went for a walk in the woods yesterday.  It was fun.  I took all these (and many more) photos along with some videos that didn't turn out so well.  I need a steady cam to balance my shots out.  I woke up today with my first ever tick bleeding me dry from the back of my calf.  The sucker almost made me late for work (god forbid!).  In other exciting news, I found a counterfeit $100 bill at work today.  It is amazing what they've done with these things! They look identical to real bills, they have blue and red security threads throughout the paper, magnetic strips in the paper that read 'USA 100', a watermark, and they even pass the counterfeit marker test that is the standard in checking for bad bills.  The only thing wrong with the bills is that the serial number for the bills is incorrect for the year they claim to be issued in.  So, looking at all the bills in front of me, one fake, the rest real, I got to thinking what the real difference is.  I already harbor great disdain for our money system, so it didn't take a big effort to jump to the side of the counterfeiters.  If we had any integrity in our economy I might be upset with people trying to cheat the system, but when the system is cheating us, I'm the first to cheer on the little guy, big as they may be to have the resources to make such pristine fake bills.  If you don't yet know how our money system works you should look in to it.  Money as Debt on youtube is a good, if cheesy, intro. It may be a little boring for some but the information is extremely valuable and not enough people take the time to familiarize themselves with it.  Sorry to turn this into an economy rant, I'll stop now.  I'll be purchasing my steady cam with my tax refund (taxes, don't get me started on those!) and should be updating with some nice stable videos soon.  I also have three other vids in the works and on the verge of completion.  You'll see them soon enough.  For now, heres some woods photos.

Swamp

Nicely framed picture of nothing in particular

I love this thing! ^^^ as far as i can tell a twig was stuck in the ground when a flood happened and the twig collected various floating debris until it came out looking like a strange flower.

Eva loved this Red fungus so we put it near this nice green moss.

Thats all for now.  Have a relaxing day.