The Hiking Writer

I'm still completely phoneless. No mobile and no home phone. I'm out of the loop, but it's a strangely attractive lifestyle. Hmmmm.

Sprint is evil. I've been a loyal user for over a decade, and whenever I want to upgrade a phone or my plan, they basically say "Thank you for your business, bend over". Right now, I just need a new phone. And I want to keep my current service package WITHOUT a contract. They advertise the phone I want for $49.99, but that price is only valid if you sign a 2 year subscription contract. If you just want the phone, it is $250.00. That's highway robbery. I'm still waiting to get the refurbished battery for my current phone. And when that dies, I'm switching carriers. Companies should be nicer to loyal customers.

West Virginia and USF are playing football right now, very entertaining. USF is up 14-0.

Iran's Ahmadinejad is a loon. The only reason he thinks there are no homosexuals in Iran is because they put them to death when they find them.

The local media hasn't been very kind to my Louisville Cardinal football team. I'm not sure it is rightfully so. Yes, I've piled on myself, but Coach Kragthorpe is in the middle of a serious gutcheck. If they turn it around and still go to a decent bowl game, he can redeem this season. If with go 6-6, his tenure at my alma mater will be short.

You. YES YOU. Put away the cell phone and drive. That is all.

I AM FARTICUS!!!!!

Bill O'Reilly has been given a pass for racial language much worse than Don Imus' silly nappy head hoe joke. He's an evil media turd. And the media should be ashamed of how they've let it go.

We still need about 7 straight days of rain.

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton continue to keep racism alive because it pays their bills.

OJ will go to jail for being a thug, not murder. Color me surprised.

The media really needs to stop all the pretty white woman/child gone missing drama. When a white woman or child goes missing, it's a national story for days, when a person of color goes missing, it barely makes the local news. Fear journalism is the new racism.

I'm shopping for a backpack and a 2 person tent. Any helpful opinions would be welcome.

I love my family. Seriously, hug your parents and brothers and sisters and let 'em know you love them. Friends come and go, family is forever.

We had a HUGE thunderstorm this morning dumping over an inch of much needed rain on Louisville around dawn. It was quite surreal as I crossed the Kennedy bridge around 7:30 AM and the East was nothing but a charcoal and navy sky while the West had patches of light blue and even had the full Moon pop into view amongst the grey smudges of trailing storm clouds.

We had spotty rain showers until almost 1 PM, and then it cleared gradually. Fall temps are headed our way soon, but we'll still see almost 80 degrees for a few more weeks.

The gloom of the early morning hit home this afternoon when I found out that Louisville football was dealt another low blow.

Willie Williams had a very checkered past before arriving at my alma mater, and it seems he won't be spending much time here. He was arrested for marijuana possession and felony tampering (he tried to eat his stash when pulled over). To top it off, he didn't have a valid drivers license.

Louisville has a history of being Rehab U, where troubled players come to redeem themselves. It can backfire on you certainly, but we've had some nice turn around stories. Willie Williams was easily the wildest of all the bad boys we've ever admitted, and it is a little sad to see him fail so quickly.

He was dismissed from the fotball team this afternoon. At least we didn't drag our feet like some universities might have (FSU, etc).

More bad news on a season in jeopardy. Bring on basketball.

My cell phone is on the fritz and I've been phoneless for about 4 days now.

Surprising how much I don't miss it, but I'm going to break down and buy a new one soon, or at the very least, purchase a refurbished battery.

Phones really are the curse of the modern age.

I'll miss the peacefulness.

Tom Cruise got mad at a crew member on his current film Valkyrie.

Apparently, they're filming in Germany and they decided that they would take a minute before starting the work day and dedicate it in silence to the fallen anti-Nazi fighters the film is depicting.

An unknown crew member farted during the "minute of silence" and this incurred the superstar scientologist nutjob's ire.

But that isn't the funny part.

For some reason, the crew was filming this minute of silence and the director along with Cruise have both vowed to find the flatulent offender. The result is most likely his firing.

But that isn't the funny part either.

The funny part:

I was reading a famous web site that hosts discussions of humorous or strange news headlines. This website just happens to be based in Kentucky. It's called Fark.com.

In the discussion of this silly news story, some comedic genius pointed out that the crew should take up for their gassy colleague.

When Cruise and company decide to accuse the offender, they should, one by one, step forward and say:

I AM FARTICUS!

NO! I AM FARTICUS!

NO! I AM FARTICUS!

NO! I AM FARTICUS!

Seriously, this image gave me the giggles all afternoon.

Long day.

Walking across the fresh asphalt I feel my shoes squish ever so slightly into the hot parking lot tar. It’s late September and the temperatures are still in the upper 80s. The petroleum smell rises in waves as I make my way to my car. With the wind blowing slightly from the South, the smell of tarmac sealant mixes with the rich odor of the sewage treatment plant next door.

Lovely.

Opening the car door, I toss my gym bag into the passenger seat without much thought. I haven’t gone to the gym this week, but I have good intentions. In addition to gym clothes, the bag also contains my MP3 player, which I always take into the office so it doesn’t cook in the heat of the afternoon inside the car.

I back out of my parking space after plugging in my MP3 player to the iRiver broadcaster. Tuning my radio to 107.5, I can listen to the 3000 songs I have loaded on my Creative Zen Touch.

You have to back out of your parking spot according to the Census Bureau rules. Even if the parking spot in front of you is open. Don’t get me started on the security rules.

So I back out, pull around to the entrance and cruise on down to 10^th Street. Taking a right, I move on to the on-ramp of 65 south bound, heading back to Kentucky. At 4:15, the traffic over the Kennedy Bridge is nominal, slowing down only slightly before the 64 east one lane off-ramp. Merging with traffic while rocking to the Funk Junkies, I make my way on to the 264 section east to I71.

It’s not a bad drive really, the only downside is spotting a doe carcass by the side of the road. I get off at the exit to Brownsboro and make my way down back streets to Westport Road.

As I turn left on to Westport I drive the two blocks to the Washburn light where I take a right. The stereo breaks into Radiohead’s National Anthem as I catch up to a forest green mini-van tailgating the dude in front of him.

Coming up on railroad tracks, I realize the minivan has no brake lights and I curse him out loud as we pass over the tracks a few meters apart. To top it off, the damn minivan is so close to the guy in front of him I begin to wonder what his problem is. He’s so damn close, geez, this is getting ridiculous.

The light on New Lagrange Road looms ahead and we all slow down to stop at the red light. I’m thinking to myself “What is the guy in the green mini-van’s problem?”. He’s on that trucks bumper and his damn brake lights aren’t working.

The bastard!

As we settle in to the red light, the truck in front of the mini-van turns right on red and to my amazement, the green minivan follows him. As it turns out, the mini-van is being towed.

It’s all about your perspective people. Take your time. See where the facts lie.

I laughed out loud for the last few blocks home.

But this is sort of an anti-love song. And I dig it. A LOT. 

Third Eye Blind: Motorcycle Drive By.

Summer time and the wind is blowing outside
in lower Chelsea
And I don't know what I'm doing in this city
The sun is always in my eyes
It crashes through the windows
And I'm sleeping on the couch
When I came to visit you
That's when I knew
That I could never have you
I knew that before you did
Still I'm the one who's stupid
And there's this burning
Like there's always been
I've never been so alone
And I've
Never been so alive
Visions of you on a motorcycle drive by
The cigarette ash flies in your eyes and you don't mind
you smile
And say the world it doesn't fit with you
I don't believe you
You're so serene
Careening through the universe
Your axis on a tilt
You're guiltless and free
I hope you take a piece of me with you

And there's things I'd like to do
That you don't believe in
I would like to build something
But you'll never see it happen
And there's this burning
Like there's always been
I've never been so alone
And I've
I've never been so alive

And there's this burning
There is this burning
(yeah yeah yeah)

Where's the soul I want to know
New York City is evil
The surface is everything
But I could never do that
Someone would see through that
And this is the last time
We'll be friends again
And I'll get over you
And you'll wonder who I am
And there's this burning,
Just like there's always been
I've never been so alone, alone
And I've, and I've
I've never been so alive

So alive

I go home to the coast it starts to rain I paddle out on the water
Alone
Taste the salt and taste the pain
I'm not thinking of you again
Summer dies and swells rise
The sun goes down in my eyes
See this rolling wave
Darkly coming
To take me
Home

And I never been so alone
And I've never been so alive

I don't have a lot to say about his visit. I'm glad it was fairly uneventful, but it was also rather inhospitable and naive on our part. I doubt any other foreign leader (dictator or otherwise) has been treated quite so dismissively by the press.

Bottom line?

Yes, he's a dangerous nutburger. But on the flip side, he never lost his cool when he was asked again and again to defend some of his policies. This is a wee bit scary.

No homosexuals in Iran? Well, unless he's killed them all, he's kidding himself. But his brand of theocratic despotry is all about denial. Denial of truth, denial of factual evidence and denial of reality (see his thoughts on the holocaust).

Was it good for him to visit?

Hell yes.

Exposing these people to open cultures that accept divergent thought is always good. It might have confirmed his thinking that we are the great Satan, but it also exposed him more openly to the rest of the world outside of Al-Jazeera.

Sorry Coach Kragthorpe, my blood pressure won't take another game like the loss to Syracuse at home. Louisville football is dead as far as I'm concerned. I'll watch a little, but this season looks like it can't be redeemed.

Only a few more weeks until basketball cranks up and I can forget completely about this gridiron debacle.

UK fans: Nice to see you make your highest ranking in 30 years.

I'm forty three.

For my entire life, my parents have lived at the same address. This is my concept of home. I've lived in several apartments as an adult, but home is where Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays are celebrated and shared with my family.

I lived there until I was 19. I mowed the lawn, trimmed the bushes, and weeded the garden like a good son.

I have great memories of my home. I have a few bad ones, but who doesn't? I had a miraculously happy childhood even though I grew up in a neighborhood similar to Stephen King's Derry Maine. There were some evil children there, but my home was a sanctuary.

My mom had a peculiar love for a flower called a live forever. Appropriately named since you could pluck off a hunk of the plant from anywhere, stick it in moist soil and faster than you could say "SPROING!", you'd have a healthy new flower growing. And they never died. Winter would come, the plant would dry up, and the only thing left would be a gnarly bump above the soil line, looking like some sort of earthen carbuncle. And with the first sign of spring, they'd once again sprout green and succulent.

Every year in late September, while Summer still burned brightly before giving way to Fall, the live forevers would bloom, and bring forth a quantity and variety of insects like no other plant. They were a plague for me, the lawn mower, because bees of almost every kind and wasps loved the nectar of these plants. Conversely, they hated the noise and smoke of my father's Snapper lawn mower. I have the stings and the allergies to prove it.

That was then. This is now. I don't mow the lawn anymore, but the same damn live forevers are still around and attracting the plethora of insects they usually do. On a whim, I took my camera when I visited my Mom this evening and snapped a few bug and flower pictures for your enjoyment. Enjoy a slice of my childhood.

I'm sure you've probably seen the clip.

A participant in the question and answer session of a John Kerry speech in Florida becomes unruly, is asked to leave by the attending rent-a-cops in charge of security and when he protests at length, he gets a taste of the taser.

The now infamous line "Don't tase me bro" coming in a quavery voice just before he gets the juice.

In John Kerry's defense, he asked several times for the police to let go of Andrew Meyer and said that he would answer his questions, but the police didn't listen after Meyer started resisting.

Outside of Kerry's protestations in the clip, his silence in the media since the episode seems a bit appalling from this once outspoken radical former Vietnam officer.

Most alarming to me however is the dogpiling on of the media who seem to think in a large majority that "The dude got what he deserved". Of course Fox thought he was "being a little punk" (Thanks Dennis Miller, you've redefined Hollywood Media Whore), but even more moderate or even liberal media outlets chimed in with the same opinion.

He had it coming.

Granted, Mr Meyer is apparently a conspiracy theorist blogger, who likes to film his protests and comment on the stir that he causes, and how it all seems to fit together. As wacky as his opinions might be, he certainly didn't deserve to be whacked with 50000 volts the other day. But I submit that given the added publicity, he may have gotten what he wanted.

The fact that so many opinions in the media stated that he did deserve the jolt sickens me as to the state of this country in the extreme.

What have we become?