No. Really I did. At work today.

Towards the end of the day, I was getting ready to head out. Most of the office was gone. I stopped in to say something to one of the network engineers. He was sitting in front of his computer staring at the monitor. Next to him was the other senior engineer, staring along with him. Not a good sign. They were looking at the console of the webfilter that plugs works with our antivirus solution. Apparently the updates weren’t working. And they were attempting to update it manually. They downloaded the files and tried this and that, but it would not accept the files.

I watched what they were doing and tried to compare it in my mind to what i had done with our antivirus at my old job. They were different solutions but I kept looking and thinking. Finally, I said, why not do this? They were out of ideas, so they tried it. It processed the files and said it was updated. Not bad for the new guy.

I’m thinking of ditching cable and going with Dish Network. If anyone has any experience with them, let me know. Thanks.

I’ve had five days off. I made the most of it by doing nothing. I mean really… nothing. I sat here in front the computer most of the time. Writing. Well… blogging anyway. I still can’t think of what I do as writing. And Reading. Other Blogs mostly. Shitty Blogs. But that ’s OK, they know they are shitty. They are in the club.

Today I was back to work. All and all it was ok. I had to entertain an intern. We bring in high school kids from the Local Tech Center and let them “intern” for us. I guess the probably get school credit for it. Personally, I think they don’t really contribute anything and I prefer not have a kid tagging along with me as i go to support users. I hope he got something out of it.

Yesterday, I saw something that made me … well let’s just say it made me very happy. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is going to be a movie! It looks great. I loved those books.

I read them when I was in the 8th and 9th grades. I was completely taken by the originally and creativity of those books. And, of course, the humor. I had a teacher in the 10th grade. Ms. Sopher, I think. She 22 or so. She taught Composition. (She wouldn’t believe you if you told her that I write every day now.) She was always using these Anne Tyler books, like an Accidental Tourist, as example of good descriptive writing. She made us hear some passage about how the cat was curled up like a comma. I guess it was an ok example but it didn’t do much for me. I gave her my Hitchhiker’s Trilogy to borrow for the summer. I told her that there was some good descriptive passages in there. Of a different kind, but still good. She thanked me and told me she would return them to me the next fall.

She got married that summer and quit teaching. I never saw her again. And she still has my damn books. I was 16 and broke. I bought those books with my own money. But I digress. I have bought new ones since then. I am pumped for this movie. These thing were written to be put on the silver screen. Well the small screen anyway. They were written as a BBC Program, I’ve seen it. Pretty good, but low budget. I hope this one doesn’t disappoint.

I wish there was a way to make you say how my thought process works. It is akin to free association bred with stream of consciousness. I never actually stop thinking about one thing and start thinking about another. The most visible example of this is on the occasions that me and both of my brothers are in the same room. We will hold conversations in that fashion. Conversing seamlessly about sports, politics, movies, books and who know what else. Each of us able to follow the others segues without any trouble. I’ve been told that is very frustrated for any one else who happens to be in the room, because they can’t understand how one minute we were talking about football, and then Star Wars and now Social Security.

I describe this to you so you can when I tell you that this made think of that, you will not think that I am trying to show any link, moral or allegory. OK. Good.

This morning, I was thinking about a certain issue that has been hogging the headlines and webspace of many blogs including the one you are reading now. I was wondering what if she was conscious in there? What would she think of us. Would she be grateful for the outpouring of support? Would she be appalled at the behavior of her loved ones. Would she be thinking “let me die!” Of course, we’ll never know what is going on in there.

That train thought reminded me of a book, I once read, Johnny Got His Gun. It’s the story of a soldier who has return from World War I so damaged that he is unable to communicate at all. Eventually he finds enough strength to communicate with the outside world by moving head and using Morse Code. The message he sent ….”Kill Me.” This book was published in 1938, but gained a lot its popularity during the Vietnam Conflict. A movie was made in 1971. Johnny Got His Gun, received it’s most exposure in 1988 when Metallica used clips from the movie in the music video for the song One.

The point of the book is not a question of euthanasia. It is an anti-war book. Written before there was such a thing as a anti-war movement. It is simple, stark, in it’s description of the horror of war. What could be more horrible than a young man who’s life is over even though his heart still beats. I think we need a reminder that war is horrible. We seem to have forgot… again. If you get a chance, it’s a good read.

Schiavo, Johnny Got His Gun, Metallica, Iraq. You see what I mean.

So here I sit, enjoying my 5 day weekend. I’m listening to Jesus Christ Superstar. I do this every Good Friday. I guess that is a little twisted, but some how it seems appropriate.

If you are not familiar with Superstar, it is the story of Jesus Christs’ last days, taking the plot mostly from the Gospels. The twist is that Judas is the central character. Judas is not evil in Webber’s Masterpiece, he’s just confused. Very confused. What makes it complete is the music. Even though the music was composed in the early 70’s it doesn’t sound dated. It a very rock and roll sound, incorporated into this opera. It is a true opera every word is sung.

I went to see the Revival Version of Superstar in DC last year. It was awesome. The stage settings and costumes we designed to imply that the Roman centurions were fascist stormtroopers and the Jesus and his Apostles were “insurgents” of some sort. It was very shocking and moving to watch the Romans dressed in flak jackets and full riot gear, come arrest and beat Jesus. This set and interpretation was designed in 2000, but it made me think of the violence in Iraq and Israel. It was overwhelming, I everyone in the place was reduced to tears. Not in that chick flick tear jerker way, but just being so overwhelmed by what you are seeing that it evokes a very strong emotional response. I am not religious at all, but seeing Jesus put on the cross and then having the cross lifted above the stage was beyond intense.

I have listened to this Rock Opera every Good Friday for the last 15 years. The appeal of it for me is not only the music, but the way the libretto turns the relation between Jesus and Judas on its head:

Jesus
Peter will deny me in just a few hours
Three times will deny me - and that’s not all I see
One of you here dining, one of my twelve chosen
Will leave to betray me -
Judas
Cut out the dramatics! You know very well who -
Jesus
Why don’t you go do it?
Judas
You want me to do it!
Jesus
Hurry they are waiting
Judas
If you knew why I do it . . .
Jesus
I don’t care why you do it!
Judas
To think I admired you
For now I despise you
Jesus
You liar - you Judas
Judas
You wanted me to do it!
What if I just stayed here
And ruined your ambition?
Christ you deserve it!
Jesus
Hurry you fool, hurry and go,
Save me your speeches
I don’t want to know - Go! Go!

Not exactly Sunday School.

You’re right. I’m sure it will be more like 17 cents. Grubby nickels and pennies that were pulled out of the sofa and the cup holder in my car. I’m sorry about that, but it’s what I’ve got to offer.

With apologies to a-[e], mango, punditz and everyone who has already blogged about this subject, I want to say a few things about Terri Schiavo. I do not know if this woman should live or die. One could make an argument that she is incapable of keeping herself alive, so the natural thing is to let her die. One could just as easily make the case that we have the ability to keep her alive, and since life is precious, we should take advantage of that.

I can empathize with her husband. I have read many attacks on this man. When some one you love is a vegetable, then you may attack him. No one knows what this woman’s state of awareness is, but he is very aware. The woman he married, the person he was presumably in love with is gone, forever. But there is this shell of a person, who looks like his wife, who legally is his wife remains. Part of the grieving process is to let go. How can he let go when she lingers? He wants to remember his wife as a real person, not a husk.

On the hand, I can’t exactly criticize the parents. I do not want to see my sons die. I fully have every expectation that they will outlive me. But I can only imagine that if something happened to one of them, that I would not give them up easily. That I would hold on to any shred of hope, even if it defied all rational thought.

You see, I don’t have an opinion on this, because it’s none of my business. I am sad that the husband and the parents find themselves pitted against each other, but still who am I to take sides. I don’t know any of them or anything about this, not really. So why am writing about?

The same reason you are talking about it, everyone is. It has became an “issue.” Beware of issues. Really why is it an issue? Do you know? It’s not because some one’s life is in the balance. People die all the time, and it’s not even newsworthy. Almost 20,000 civilians have died in Iraq, but that’s only Page 5 news. Below the fold. So why is this an issue?

I’ll tell you. Abortion. I know, what does a woman who is living off of a tube have to do with unborn babies? The religious right realized a couple of years ago that they would not be able to get Roe v Wade overturned in court. Not even with conservative judges. So they have been on a mission. A mission to legislate life over death in any case that pops up. Congress is not involved with Terri Schiavo because they have compassion for her. Jeb Bush is not concerned about Terri Schiavo. They are using her. Posting pictures of her blank face all over the place. To set a precedent. That if she can live then, legally she must. If that precedent is set. It can be applied to Roe v Wade at some future point.

I’m not saying that abortion is good. I’m not saying this woman should die. What I am saying is this: it is sick to use this woman and her parents and her husband in this way. It is sad that they had to go to court to have her fate decided. It is an abomination that politicians from both sides of the aisle are using these people to further their own agendas. Terri Schiavo is not a victim, she is hopefully beyond suffering. Her husband, her parents on the other hand, are victimized every time a politician or journalist capitalizes on this “issue.”

Yes it is beginning to be spring. I have cleaned the grill. I have been cooking dinner on it. I love this time of year. I hate winter. It is so dreary. Now it is warming up. The sun is shining more. Soon, it will be time for mowing the lawn and taking care of the garden. The Orioles and playing catch with the boys. And, of course, backpacking. I have a five day weekend coming up, so I am hoping that I can twist my brother’s arm and get him (and the dog) to go on a 2 day trip with me.

I had a killer day at work today. I have been in “training” for the last few weeks. Today was my first day “on my own.” I was able to close out several calls. One of them was very tricky. I could bore you with the details, but I like you. It had to do with the fact that computer would not boot with a USB printer installed and turned on. I found, in the CMOS settings, a “no boot” option for USB devices. Problem solved. Oops, did I just bore you with the details? Maybe I don’t like you as much as I thought.

Anyway, I love solving a problem. It was good to be out there working. I also went to the gym today, for the first time since January. Changing jobs and everything threw my schedule off and it doesn’t take much of an excuse for me to not go to the gym. It wasn’t too bad. I do feel it though. It will take a week or two of going to get back into the swing of it.

New job, good weather, a good workout. My mood is pretty good right now.

The few people who actually read this blog and know me in the real world are usually surprised that I don’t write about politics more. Truthfully, I’m a little surprised. The reason for this is because of the way politics is handled in the blogosphere. Think of a political blog you like. Now ask yourself, does it offer any thoughts or insights in to the complex world of politics, or does it simply bash what the other guys think?

It seems like most political blogs aren’t really political, they are knit pickers. Want to know what is wrong with the Democrats, go to a “Right Wing” blog. Want hear the latest on why Bush is a scumbag, go to a “Progressive Blog.” Want to hear answers? Want to see an open debate willing to hear opposing views? Want a dialogue? Good Luck. (Actually, if you want these things go read Anti-Everything; an exception to the rule for sure.)The point is this, the blogosphere (and the real world for that matter) don’t seem to be interested in addressing the issues that face us. What we do is pick a side. Are you for or against the Death Penalty? Gun Control? Abortion? Pick a side and stick to it. Never mind the fact that the world is more complex than that. You can be opposed to war and still find yourself willing to fight for something. You can be atheist and support peoples right to worship what they believe in. You can be devoutly religious and respect the fact that the government is not the appropriate place for you message.

My beliefs do not mirror the platform of the DNC, they do however line up much closer to the Democrats than the Republicans. It is very frustrating that when I assert an opinion of a political nature to told how I think because I’m a liberal, or worse yet that I can’t think a thing because I’m a liberal.

I will probably continue to air my politics here upon occasion. I do try to be real careful and make sure that I am voicing my opinion and not one I’ve heard. Sometimes it easier to just have the opinions you’ve heard elsewhere. Anyway I think that may be the problem with so called Political Blogs. They don’t often express a new thought, they parrot each other and the cable news channels. It’s bad enough that the Cable news networks repeat themselves all day, don’t make me read it while I’m surfing blogs.

What is it with this blogging thing? This is a question I ask myself all the time. I’m not even sure why I do it. I read other blogs. Most of them seem to have some sense of purpose. I have none. I’d like to say I’m just doing it for me. But if that was true, wouldn’t I just jot my thoughts down in Word and save them to the hard drive. Or, Hell, I could by a journal and write (with a pen!) my thoughts in there. OK, maybe not that. But I don’t do that. I put it out here. For you to read. That seems to be an important part of it. I don’t whore, as some you some ineloquently put it, my blog out. I have given up on tricks to gain more readership. They don’t give me more readership, they give me more hits. Yet, I have gained a tiny little following.

That blows my mind. The fact that there are a handful of you out there who are interested in what I have to say is awesome. I used to be sad that I didn’t get more comments, but I realize now that people are much more likely to comment if I post silly shit, than on the kinds of stuff I post here. Recently, I have been experiencing, for lack of a better word, some writers block. This strikes me as very funny. Unlike a lot of my fellow bloggers I do not consider myself a writer. Just sitting here getting these words out of my head and into the computer is very hard for me. Before I started blogging, I hadn’t written much of anything that wasn’t mandatory for some class. My freshmen English class had us type our work in to some computer. The computer evaluated our writing level. It told me I had a fifth grade writing level. My professor told not to sweat it because the computer would give Hemingway a third grade level. That made me feel better until I read The Old Man and Sea.

The problem is I’m still not sure why I am doing this. I think it irks my wife some. I probably spend a bit too much of my free time working on this and reading other blogs. Yet, I’m at a loss to explain it. Some of it come from the fact that you are reading this. It doesn’t matter who you are. It just matters that you are reading. Why? Because, it keeps me honest. It keeps me on my toes. If I went off on some bullshit tangent or made some absurd assertion you might leave a comment and call me on it. It doesn’t even matter whether or not you would really leave that comment, the fact that you could keeps me from kidding myself. I don’t write to attract traffic, nor do I allow whether you will like what I’m going to post about influence whether I post about it. That’s a good thing, because every time I write about backpacking the tumbleweeds roll on by.

The other part of it is the community. And that weird because I hate that kind of stuff. But it works here, in the blogoshpere. I read your blog because I like it. If I don’t like I won’t read it. If it stops being interesting, I’ll stop reading. Occasionally, things get a little clique-ish, but it passes. There is no central forum, no home. It is distributed and democratic. This is good.

Yet, I do not have any idea why I do this. I can tell you in detail why I like to backpack, why I like football, why I am a Democrat, why I think Lord of the Rings is awesome. But I cannot even begin to articulate why I blog.

Here is it Saturday and I haven’t posted a thing since Monday. I suck. This week was brutal. I didn’t feel all the way normal again till Wednesday and then on Thursday my oldest son decided to make life interesting.

At the risk of sounding like a mommy blogger, I have to say that if I had known how my misbehavior as a child affected my parents, I would have been a saint. My oldest is 11, and he’s a pretty good kid, but every few months he seems to need to something really bad. And each time it gets a little worse. I won’t get into what he did, maybe someday he’ll have a blog of his and he can write remorse filled posts about his behavior (or more likely posts about how much his dad sucked when he was a kid.)

What I will get into how this shit makes me feel. I feel powerless, I feel responsible, I feel angry. I can’t make him be good. It simply isn’t possible. I can explain right and wrong. I can set limits and enforce them. But at the end of the day, its up to him to choose. And I am powerless to do anything about it. I’m terrified too. I read stories about Middle School kids doing drugs and having sex and other disturbing things. What if he does? What will I do? I feel guilty as hell every time something like this happens. I want to go to the Principal and say, “I swear I explained that this was bad, he just doesn’t seem to care. We are not bad people. I promise!”

All this made me remember something from when I was 7 or 8. My family had driven from home outside of Philadelphia to Allentown to visit some friends of my parents. They must have been close friends, because we called the aunt and uncle so and so. I can’t remember their names, but I remember the name of their oldest son. His name was Eddie. There was another kid there who was younger. My brothers and I played with Eddie and his brother. I really liked Eddie. We were best friends in an instant, in the way that only young children can be. His brother on the other hand was a pain, like little brothers can be. His little brother kept bragging about all this change, pennies, which were stacked up in their bedroom. For some reason, at the end of the night, I loaded my pockets with these pennies. I think maybe it was my way at lashing out at the younger brother.

When we got home my mom noticed the pennies and questioned me about them. Maybe they had called and asked, I can’t remember. I do remember that I had to write a letter saying I was sorry and taping each penny to that letter. My mom was so mad. She told me that I had embarrassed her and that maybe they would never invite us back, because I was such a bad kid. I also think that I found out that the pennies belonged to Eddie, his little brother was just bragging on them cause little brothers are like that. I was overwhelmed with guilt. We never did visit them again. That is probably because we moved to Virginia not too long after that. Probably. But I still bore a lot of guilt over it.

To this day I am a very honest person. I think that this incident; along with a few others along the way; have something to do with that. I have a whole new sense of guilt as I think of it now. I have a clue how my parents must have felt. And I feel terrible for doing that to them. That was far from the only time I disappointed them, but its one of the first big ones that I remember. Is there a moral to this story? No. I’m not good at those kinds of stories I guess. The point, I suppose, is either that I built up a whole lot of bad behavior karma as a kid and I better hold on tight s a parent. Or that life goes on, and that these things pop up from time to time but life goes on anyway.

This past weekend we, the wife, kids, and my brother(the one who goes hiking with me,)went on a road trip to Rochester, NY. I know what you are thinking, why would we go to Rochester. We went there, because that is where my other brother lives. And he has a birthday coming up soon. The Big 3-0, actually. My parents had gone up Friday night to visit him, and we were planning to crash the party so to speak. My mom let me know the name of the restaurant that they were planning on going to. It took about six hours for us to get there, so we had enough time to check into the hotel before going over to the restaurant.

It was a pretty cool looking Greek restaurant. We had arrived before my parents and my brother and sister-in-law. The look on my brother’s face as realized what was going on was worth the trip. He had made the trip down to Maryland for my 30th and my other brother’s 30th. It was the right thing to do. And we had fun. The food was excellent. We had some kind of flaming cheese and a dip sampler for an appetizer. For the main course we got a few platters that covered most of the menu and shared them. Beef, shrimp, lamb, pork, calamari, scallops, chicken and few things I’m not sure what they were. It was awesome and it all looked so good. I try not to over-eat but I decided that it was a special occasion, so what the hell. I tried one of just about everything, just a small portion but it added up. And the calamari was especially good, I’d never had it broiled before. We had a great meal, and then we all headed back to my brother’s place. My parents picked up a small birthday cake for him and a great time was had by all.

I was stuffed, and my stomach started to feel a little upset. We packed the kids up and headed for the hotel. I had my wife drive because I was beginning to feel pretty lousy. We put the kids to bed and I excused myself to go to the bathroom. I figured some quality time in there would help with my discomfort. No such luck. I went to bed. I woke up an hour or two later, stumbled to the bathroom, go on my knees and puked. Great. I washed myself up, went back to bed. Got a little later and puked some more. I knew at that point that I was running a fever, because I felt very chilled. The next time I got up to puke, I was shivering because I felt so cold. My wife went to ru my back, after I crawled back in to the bed, but I had to ask her stop. I was so sick, my skin hurt.

It went on most of the night. I drifted in and out of dreams, crawled out of bed to go puke while delirious with fever. I began to get things very confused. I started to worry about if I was to sick to make the ride home. What about work? I can’t take a sickday in the first month, they’ll think I’m a slacker. Somewhere in between my fever dreams and my fever delirium, I became convinced that my sick hours were already being used that night. Why not, I was sick. What If I used them all before Monday? At first, I had avoided drinking water because I was afraid I would puke it up, but after the third or fourth trip I was very dehydrated so I started drinking a glass of water after each trip. My 9th and last trip to the bathroom was around 4:30 AM. I was drenched in sweat, my fever must have broken. I puked one last time and then went to sleep. I know I ate a lot that night, but I still don’t understand how I had that much in me.

We had planned to go to breakfast in the morning, but I decided the wife and kids should go ahead and meet everyone with out me. When we called my brother too tell him this, he was concerned and want to know if I need to go to the emergency room. I assured him that I was fine and the worst had passed. I decided I better go to breakfast, or the rest of the family would declare me dead before they were done talking about it. I had a quarter of a bagel and a sip or two of coffee… and plenty of water. As a matter of fact, that’s all I ate all day on Sunday.

We said our good byes and headed out on the road. My wife was nice enough to handle the driving, even though I think she didn’t get much more sleep than I did. I dozed off and on for most of the trip and I went to bed (after taking a nice nap) at the late hour of 8:00 PM. I feel mostly OK, today. I am still a little tired and very dehydrated despite my efforts to drink enough water.

I have no idea what brought this on. I doubt it was food poisoning, we all ate the same stuff, and only I suffered. I guess it could have been some sort of viral thing that just happened to coincide with this. Maybe I didn’t react well with some of the Greek spices, or maybe the calamari. I’m not sure. But I do know this, I don’t think I’ll have Greek food anytime soon, just to be safe.

Work sucked today. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the job but that doesn’t mean every day will be great. It is a job and some days just suck. Like today. Not that anyone cares about my bad day at work, but too bad. That is the topic of today’s post.

On Tuesday, one of the Novell Servers crashed. Some moron was working on the HVAC in the server room and left the A/C off for too long. The server had a meltdown. This had no direct effect on me, but did cause some excitement around the place. They were able to bring the server back up but the RAID array would not except one of the drives. With the server running in degraded mode, the decision was made to migrate everything to a new server. (Apparently, they were planning on doing this at some point in the future anyhow, but not all the engineers thought that migrating in the middle of a crisis was a good idea.)

They worked overnight, Tuesday and Wednesday to get most everything migrated. Considering the that this was the server that everyone in the main office logs into and has their home directory on, it was pretty transparent to the users. The hang up was the printers. The way the printers were set up, they were going to need to be redirected to the new server and then reinstalled on every workstation. I’m not sure how may workstations that is, but it is not a small number. So today, your fearless geek, spent the day reinstalling printers. All day long. Actually, there were about 5 of us and 2 interns (although, I’m not convinced that the interns actually moved the process forward) We got the first floor done today. Tomorrow floors 2 and 3.

Not only was it tedious work, but the tech who was spearheading this effort was doing nothing to keep it organized. I (and a few others) tried to make suggestions about how this might be done in an orderly fashion but he wasn’t hearing it. So there were techs and interns milling around saying things like, “Did you get this one?” “No, but Bob might have check with him” “Where are the interns?” I am sure that the users were not impressed with this display. I couldn’t handle it. I found some smaller offices where no one else was and just knocked them out. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do the same tomorrow.

So for now you can just call me Super Monkey Printer Boy. Hopefully on Monday, I can be a Support Tech again.

Read Part II

My sleep didn’t last long. My sleeping bag wasn’t heavy enough and I woke up shivering. I could see by the luminescent hands on my watch that it was only around 10 o’clock. The river was still roaring. I felt like I was laying on a plank. This is most likely because I was. I couldn’t get comfortable. Every time I fell asleep, something woke me up. I rolled to my side, my back, my stomach. Every time that I woke and looked at my watch, I hoped to see that I had been asleep for hours and it was almost morning. Each time, I was disappointed when I found that only a few minutes had passed. It was a long night. I wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping either. Dirka was restless. He had walked pretty well, but now that we were done walking he did not know what to do with himself. He paced and whined. Yes whined… he makes this high pitched little noise when he is anxious. I don’t think Dirka slept much, which means my brother didn’t get much sleep either. I woke up, sore and exhausted. My back ached from sleeping in the shelter, my knees and feet ached from the 11 miles the day before. We started to pack up our stuff after our morning snack. I put new dry socks on and put my feet in my boots which were still pretty wet. What a great feeling.

Dirka was very ready to go. He kept straining against his leash. Eventually the rest of us were packed and ready to go. We said goodbye to Notes and wished him luck on his thru-hike. And then we were on the trail again. I was too tired, I was slogging before we had walked a mile. But I was happy. And it wasn’t raining. We started up a pretty steep climb. Dad and I slowed right down, but Dirka was still straining to get ahead. Finally my brother couldn’t take it anymore, he decided to let the dog wear himself out. He was going to walk at Dirka’s pace for a while. I tried to keep up with them, but I couldn’t do it. I was just too beat. Dad and I continued on at our pace. We finally got to the top. We expected to find my brother and the dog there, but instead we found a troop of Boy Scouts there. We chatted with them, one of the boys showed us where there was a Copperhead. We climbed up the Pinnacle Rocks and enjoyed the view. It was starting to get warm and humid, but the breeze up there was nice and the view was fantastic.

After a short rest we moved on. The trail ran along a ridgeline for most of our for this trip. We figured it would be pretty easy walking. We were wrong. There were rocky outcrops all along the ridge and the trail instead of going around them went right over and through them. As we walked and my legs got more tired I kept kicking the tips of rocks accidentally. Each time I did it, pain shot through my toes straight to my brain. After a while we came to a road crossing. There we found my Dirka the Dog along with my brother. My brother looked whipped, but Dirka was still straining at his leash. We stopped and had lunch there. We met a lady who waiting for here husband. He was running the entire trail. He ran like thirty or forty miles every day. She said he was going to take a break soon, so he could go run in a one hundred mile/24 hour race. We smiled and nodded. 100 miles in 24 hours! Some break.

We got back on the trail. Before long Dirka the Dog had dragged my brother ahead of us. Dad and I trudged along, climbing over rocks, and me doing my best not to kick them. I kicked a lot of rocks that day. The day wore on and my feet were killing me. I was no longer enjoying myself, I only wanted to get to the end. Eventually we did. Dirka was there waiting for us, so was my brother. I was dead tired, but by the time I got home, peeled my boots off and took a shower I knew I would be doing it again soon.

And I have… many times. And most of those times its rained — at least a little bit. It doesn’t bother me. I know I will never get rained on like that first time. I expect it to rain when I backpack. It is my destiny. I am the Rain King!