Live Help Schedule for Sunday, July 7, 2002
Susan and Ivey are both now the proud recipients of that bio-engineered terrorist designer flu raging throughout New England like a Colorado wildfire. Normally, we’d all be at church for Divine Liturgy. But, in order to more fully attend to their every need in this, their time of distress, I’ve stayed home to help them. I know, I know, I’m a regular freakin’ saint. But their distress is your gain because this means I’ll be at home today and online a lot, available for live help. Ok, talk to you later.

Appliance Tip of the Day
If you can’t even find your model number, you have no business trying to fix it yourself.

Live Help Schedule for Saturday, July 6, 2002
I’ll be online this evening after about 1700 hrs (New Hampster time) and I should be steadily available for live up ’till about 2300 hrs. Later.

My dog bit my penis. Really. It wasn’t anything vicious or perverted; nothing as interesting as that. When we were playing tug yesterday, Ouzo, my German Shepherd, re-positioned his canine death-grip and, in doing so, accidentally included the business end of my manhood in his bite. I screamed. Really loud. Partly out of pain but mostly out of pure, blind panic, fearing that I may no longer perform my husbandly duties. Bent-over and clutching myself, moaning and whimpering in my most manly way, I hobbled back into the house and presented my injured member to my wife for comfort and first aid. Closer examination revealed a shallow puncture wound and two bulging, black blood blisters. Susan made me an ice pack which I kept applied to the injured area for about an hour. As the pain began to disperse, I started feeling the natural endorphins that the body produces in response to intense pain. Slowly, the pain gave way to a fuzzy narcotic haze–the one bright spot in this whole surreal episode. I’m fairly desperate to prevent an infection in order to avoid explaining to the physician how I sustained such an injury…and then reading about my own injury months later in a joke email circulating the internet. Fortunately, basic function doesn’t seem to be affected. Well, off to change my bandaid.

Heifer Hearsay
Here’s the real power of the internet: gubmints can’t keep their cows from grazing at other fields. The current wars and rumors of wars, for example, are reported in a whole different light in the UK press than they are here. This article from the UK’s Mirror neatly ties together many of the nagging suspicions I’ve been having about about how our Ameedican gubmint is playing in the “War on Terrorism.” And it’s been playing like a rogue…according to them. Even if you don’t believe it all, the article gives you a lot of cud to chew on. That’s the power of electronic print. Lots o’ cud from other fields. Ok, that’s enough bovine banter.

Can someone explain to me how a whacked-out, New Age beeotch, with a major case o’ da red-ass, can use aroma therapy to diagnose her refrigerator compressor? Ok, another one for the freak gallery.

Yay, Blogger is squared away again!

It’s Blogger’s turn to have a bad hair day. First the template server went down so I couldn’t make any changes to how this page looks. Then, it seemed like they got it running, you paste in your new template, publish it, no error messages…but nothing changes on the page. I think it’s time to have a little talk with Gentleman Jack, with a squirt of lemon juice, on ice.

I was going to post something patriotic for the 4th of July but this dude said it better than I ever could.

Ouzo and I hiked the Newbury Trail up Mt. Sunapee yesterday. It was a short hike, as you can see on the linked topo map. But the blistering heat and near saturated humidity made this hike tougher than it would otherwise be. Within 10 minutes of starting out, my shirt was completely soaked with sweat and my bandanna headband was so saturated that salty sweat was running right through dripping, burning into my eyes. I was sweating so hard that my sweat changed from liquid into a slimy mucous oozing out from the pores all over my body. When you’re covered in snot, you know it’s hot. I had never heard Ouzo pant with such a rasp before, either. That was one hot dog! I stopped several times to pour water for him. Usually, he just takes a few tentative licks at the bowl. This time, he gobbled down the water like it was beef tar-tar. When we made it to Lake Solitude at the top of Mt. Sunapee, Ouzo swam around for about half an hour biting lily pads. We made it down and back to the house just in time for the first wave of this damn summer flu to hit me. Fever, body aches, lumpy, green infected phlegm…you know, the whole sick trip. Details of my other diseased excretions coming soon, maybe even pictures! Stay tuned!

I got this summer flu that’s making its way around the northeast corridor. It’s really a bio-engineered terrorist designer disease, but I didn’t want to reveal that for fear of causing a panic so forget I said that. When I feel strong enough to stand at the computer, I’ll be either on-line for live help or answering posts in the forum. Otherwise, I’ll be laying on the couch moaning and whining, promising my kids that I’ll be dead soon. They’re already putting in dibs on my stuff. Let’s see: Sam wants all my tools, Stephen wants all my camping and hiking stuff, Ivey just wants money–smart girl, I’ve trained her well.

I’m off to the mountains for a few days for a little self-imposed exile. Maybe recharge the batteries, too. I MAY update this page from a public computer at one of the AMC hostels. In the meantime, jam on the coolest home-grown Athens band from my undergrad days at UGA: Pylon.

Ok, big decision at the Brown House: we will no longer thrash our kids brutally about the thighs and buttocks with a 2 ft. length of PVC pipe. No, they’re old enough now that we can use guilt trips, instead. Just wanted to share the love, yo.

Live Help Schedule for Saturday, 6/29/2002
I’m watching “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” right now but when that’s done, I’ll be online for live help. Say around 9:30 pm eastern time. Ok, talk to you later.

Had my ass kicked on a 15-mile section hike on the Appalachian Trail (AT) today. This section began at Lyme-Dorchester Road summitting Smarts Mountain and Mt. Cube and ended at NH Rte 25A. Ouzo and I started on the trail at 1005 hours this morning and got off at the Mt. Cube trail head at 1635 hours. Susan and the kids picked me up at 1700 hours and ferried me back to my truck at the Smarts Mountain trail head.

Why did this hike kick my ass? Afterall, I’ve done plenty of hikes with much steeper grades and higher summits than this one. I think it came down to humidity and trail conditions. At lower elevations, the air was so humid that water kept condensing on my eye glasses. This very annoying psychrometric reality once again reminded me just how badly it sucks to have to wear glasses. But, with 20/400 vision (legally blind in some states), hiking without glasses is a great way to bust ass big time. Also, all the rain we’ve had lately has made the rocks extremely slippery with new-growth algae. This was especially annoying ascending Smarts Mountain where every third or fourth step was a jolting slip. After four miles of that, I was one soggy, pissed-off cracker. By the time I approached the summit of Smarts, my vocabulary had degenerated into a near-constant stream of choice X-rated words.

And I sweated more on this hike than on any of the other hikes I’ve done so far this season. At one point, I realized that I had salt deficiency, evidenced by an inexplicable energy crash. I popped a couple of salt pills and electrolytic harmony was restored. That’s a tricky one to catch because it can fool you into thinking that you need to eat more when what you really need is plain ol’ salt.

Met several AT-thru and long-section hikers. All had been on the trail for at least six weeks. ACK! I can’t imagine living on the trail that long. It goes on for five months for the folks that thru-hike the entire AT. I admire these people immensely. They’re almost always young people, 20-somethings, and they make me optimistic about the future of this country when everyone else makes you think the whole country’s going to shit. Anticipating encounters with them, I try to bring along stuff to give them that they don’t normally get in trail life: chocolate, tobacco, alcohol, and toilet paper, all of which are highly prized by thru-hikers. Oh, I know, you’re thinking, “But these are back-to-earth, starry-eyed, granola-crunchers, why would they want such things?” You go spend several weeks in the woods–you’d be surprised at what you start craving. So I’m giving out bars of Ghirardelli chocolate, packs of Camels, cans of Skoal, pints of Jack Daniels, and rolls of Charmin to eager, grateful thru-hikers. It’s called Trail Magic in the AT culture. It’s a good thing.