Weekend Getaway - or, Up a Creek without a Paddle

So, not having an idea of time range or even destination for a real vacation trip on the horizon, I opted to take a Friday off and head south to the Hocking Hills region in Ohio to see what that was like in summertime. I opted for a cabin in the woods, complete with hot tub on the outdoor deck and a fully stocked kitchen, along with a bbq grill and fire pits down along the valley floor. The spot, Campbell's Hollow (Brookside Cottage), was great - right next to the Buckeye Trail, so offered a little stretch of hiking at the end of each day as well.

I arrived on Friday, July 6th, and took a bit of a look-around in Logan, the nearby town. Even though many of the cabin rentals were booked because of vacationers around the 4th of July weekend, it was hard to tell by looking at Logan proper - the town was immaculate and eerily empty. I spotted the canoe/kayak livery that I was going to be hitting the next morning for some fun on Saturday, and hit the local Kroger for a few cooking items that I'd neglected to bring along.



I wrapped up the day with a snack in Logan and the historic walking tour through town. Upon finding a fantastic Bistro around 4:30 pm -nothing like eating upon white linen tablecloths, smelling of grime and sunscreen, wearing flip-flops, and being treated like a consummate customers in late afternoon with no crowds! - I devoured a smattering of appetizer dishes and cocktails before starting off on the walking tour, ironically, only a block away.

Logan is wonderfully sighted in beautifully rolling hill country, and after the appetizer extravaganza, I was getting the best light of the day. Additionally, the weather was perfect - temps in the 80's, super low humidity - and what I'd call Utah Blue skies.

There are lots of churches in Logan...

There was a particularly picturesque cemetery along the walking tour. I was more taken with its entrance.

Is this a jingoistic Jesus? Note the blue eyes, the Eagle at his shoulder.....
Better yet: to the tune of Purple People Eater:
It was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, eagle-wearing Jesus figure...

A place for happy cows.

After the walking tour, I made it back to the cabin in time to light up the grill and season some salmon filets. While waiting for the wood to burn, (yes - wood in the grill - the best way to go), I had to take advantage of the hot tub on the deck and watch the wildlife for a bit as dusk drew down the light of day. It was all just seemingly perfectly timed. Dinner was by candlelight, and by that time, any little aches and pains from kayaking by the unfit were melted away, and every inch of food was devoured. Any other timing would have found me taking the walking tour in overhead light too harsh for good photos, or not having enough space between appetizers after kayaking and the Great Salmon Feast, or missing the open-water opportunities on the river between the groups of other kayakers and canoeists. I was able to absolutely fill the day at a perfectly pleasant, relaxed pace and cram it full with almost everything I wanted to do, without feeling rushed at any particular time. Completely by accident! It was the highlight of the trip.

On Sunday, I took the scenic drive back, which took waaaay toooo long compared to the 'scenes' offered....nice to see once, but probably not warranting a second drive. I stopped for a gourmet type picnic lunch at Buckeye Lake State Park and enjoyed some spicy tuna salad, some baby greens and spinach salad with blueberries and walnut/raspberry dressing and olives, and some blue corn chips. It was just the right touch of cold foods on a hot day.

A building shot taken while stopped at a red light en route back home - just for the sake of its funky outside staircase.....

At any rate, a nice weekend getaway and recharge for the week to come.

Only 12 hours left to vote for the New 7 Wonders of the World!

Voting ends tonight in the global campaign to identify the "New 7 Wonders of the World." Of course, I've got to throw in my own bragging rights here, so places that I've been fortunate to visit are coded in blue...

Right now, with 90 million votes cast, organizers say the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum in Rome and Machu Picchu in Peru are leading the pack. The final results will be announced tomorrow in Lisbon, Portugal. So, get to crackin' and VOTE!!!

Here's the list of Seven Ancient Wonders that was created 2,300 years ago:

• Lighthouse of Alexandria
• Temple of Artemis
• Statue of Zeus
• Colossus of Rhodes
• Hanging Gardens of Babylon
• Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
• Pyramids of Egypt

What would be on your list of wonders at the dawn of the 21st century? Vote here.

AP's list of the 20 finalists:

ACROPOLIS, GREECE
HAGIA SOPHIA, TURKEY
KREMLIN AND ST. BASIL'S CATHEDRAL, RUSSIA
COLOSSEUM, ITALY
NEUSCHWANSTEIN CASTLE, GERMANY
EIFFEL TOWER, FRANCE
STONEHENGE, BRITAIN
ALHAMBRA, SPAIN
GREAT WALL OF CHINA
KIYOMIZU TEMPLE, JAPAN
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE, AUSTRALIA
ANGKOR, CAMBODIA
TAJ MAHAL, INDIA
TIMBUKTU, MALI
PETRA, JORDAN
STATUE OF CHRIST REDEEMER, BRAZIL
EASTER ISLAND, CHILE
MACHU PICCHU, PERU
PYRAMID AT CHICHEN ITZA, MEXICO
STATUE OF LIBERTY, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

And finally, an Ancient world wonder in addition to the new 7 wonders:
PYRAMIDS OF GIZA, EGYPT -It will retain its status as a wonder of the world in addition to the seven new wonders.

Posted by Mike Carney, USA Today, July 06, 2007

July in Ohio....

Couple of random July shots.

Mmmmm......preemie cereal!!!!!


Capped off by a fantastic moonrise, interrupted by a lone driver.....

Finally, I made a YouTube thingy!!

This was from a mini weekend adventure, visiting Orrestrand beach in SW Norway in February, 2005. It's just under a minute, at sunset, and my camera didn't like looking directly at the sun. And there are no people in it. But, at the end, it's kind of humorous to hear/see me almost get a little wet from an encroaching surf......

Cobra. Autographed by Carroll Shelby. Rawwrr...!

My friend Bob took me for a ride today in his Cobra - what a thrill!








Want to learn more? Here's Carroll Shelby's official site link - he's still going strong.

Summertime.....and the watering becomes necessary

This is an evening shot of my back deck - peeling paint and all - for the sake of mom, who couldn't believe how big my geranium planters were via my description. It's been so dry here lately I've had to water them (and the rose bushes awaiting transplanting into the back yard) pretty frequently - as I was doing in this photo - hence the inelegant hose line across the foreground. Enjoy!

What the Blog is Going On Here?

Regular Readers,
I don't want you to get big-brothered-out here, but yes, on occasion, I do check out my Sitemeter stats on the blog, just to see what entries tend to strike the most visitors, or to see from what regions of the world my visitors tend to hail from as a result of recent posts. It's no surprise that, due to my collaboration with my friend Diwakar Maskey in Nepal, I'm seeing a small bump in viewership in Central Asia, which is a neat association. And, through friendships in Morocco, I see occasional bumps there after speaking to friends in that country, or Norway, as a result as well. The Sitemeter function has a neat index allowing a blog owner to view recent activity by country, by length of visit, etc - and today, I accidentally clicked on "by referral" - which showed me the recent activity by way of the search terms that users typed in, eventually leading them to my humble pages and images.

Imagine my surprise when seeing the following. Apparently, it referred the viewer to essentially my current home page, which happens to contain a number of the words in the search parameters.

Apparently, it takes all kinds.......I just hope this had nothing to do with that psycho astronaut stalker case in Florida, because, scarily, the timing was about right...... Although I'd have to think that an astronaut would be able to spell the word "wear" correctly, even if enraged and about to embark on a cross-country stalking adventure.

This May Hurt (just a little.....)

I've received a few additional images from my Eyes in Nepal, Diwakar Maskey - I've learned a little more about some of the fascinating culture that it would apparently take a lifetime or 10 in which to achieve full fluency. But, for now, I'll continue to use this as good motivation for my next trip.

Following the Nepali New Year, one of the festivals that occurs in the Thimi area is the multi-day Balkumari festival. It's said that there is a festival, pilgrimage, or other ceremonial event for practically every day of the year for Nepal's complex cultural traditions.

In this event, a volunteer in a spiritual trance gets his tongue pierced with an iron spike. Good fortune to the village and to the volunteer will follow should he succeed in spending the whole day thus spiked. Interestingly, I've found one article referring to this tradition but it indicates no written history of it. In his article, the Tongue Boring Festival of Thimi, author Subhash Ram relates its traditional beginnings. I’ve paraphrased them here:

Once upon a time, Thimi was haunted by man-eating demons. The demons scared the living daylights out of the people, who eventually petitioned the royal palace to protect their lives. A Tantrik said that the demons could be punished by the charisma of lord Bhairab, so rituals were performed, and the demons were caught.

As punishment, in front of Lord Bhairab, with permission of the king, their tongues were pierced. Each of them was made to carry 108 flaming torches on the shoulder with small bells, and all were made to walk around the country. Afterward, each demon was exiled from the country. As a reminder to be good neighbors, and that those who distresses others will be punished in this way, the Tongue Boring festival is celebrated every year. But apparently now only one person volunteers to be the demon.....




Photos courtesy of Diwakar Maskey

Another Art Car Parade, come and gone...

(mirror car, pictured above: previous winner, and personal favorite)

This year (May 12th) was the 20th Annual Art Car Parade in Houston. I wasn't there. But I heard about it from some old friends. Might have been nice to have met with the ringmaster for this year's event, the Grandfather of Punk himself, George Clinton...but I'll just have to look at webpics/vids of the winners like anyone else who wasn't there to enjoy what can only be experienced. For a complete list of winners and entry photos, check out the Orange Show Foundation's site. Kudos on another year of rolling creativity!

More Festival Images from Nepal: Colecha Jatra at Thaiba or Funeral Procession: You Decide

Another festival update from my intrepid friend and fotog in the field in Nepal, Diwakar Maskey. This posting is for a Goat Festival in Thaiba, south-east of Patan near Kathmandu, en route to the Royal Botanical Gardens. I didn't even know there were Royal Botanical Gardens SE of Patan.

I enjoy Diwakar's update emails - they're more of a personal communication, and almost as a post-script, there will be an attachment with some photos and the name of the festival. I usually don't get much more than that information, the assumption being that I've been there a few times before, and everyone should be familiar with such events. I suppose we all have similar ethno-centric tendencies. What I do enjoy, though, is having to do a little research on my own to learn what a particular festival name is - emailing Diwakar back and making sure I'm getting my facts straight, or asking for more information. Usually, if I ask for a fact, I'll get a 3 page email response, with about a half-page of apologies for not including the facts in the first place, so I don't want to make anyone feel badly for not including them - and I do enjoy digging up the information.

At any rate, this festival was a hard one. "Colecha" more often than not has Spanish-language references. But I was able to learn from Diwakar it's 'just the traditional name of that festival'. "Jatra" is a Nepali term for Festival, and Thaiba is akin to the suburban Kathmandu location. So, mystery solved - it's a locale celebration. What we weren't able to figure out is what the story is in the photos. To me, it looks like a funeral procession.

So, I'll chalk this one up to:

(a) Colecha Jatra at Thaiba
(b) Funeral Procession at Thaiba
(c) Mix of Both
(d) Interesting Subject Matter Lost in Translation

Holi of Holies! March 3, Nepal - Holi Festival, Full Moon, & Lunar Eclipse. Can you say Trifecta Festival Event?

I've mentioned my friend Diwakar previously, who allows me to see what's going on in Nepal when I can't be there. It’s mostly festival-themed, though as hard as it is for him to refrain from presenting anything than a smiling, happy, positive correspondence countenance; sometimes we can share brief commentary in between the e-lines about progress with the country's attempts at a republic in the midst of maoist-led demands to break the strangle-hold of its dictatorial monarchy. But, I digress.

In early March, the globe enjoyed a full moon, and some parts more than others were able to enjoy viewing a full lunar eclipse. In addition to this, in Nepal, it was also the Holi festival. This is often a time of mayhem. Young people wear old clothes and finish the evening in a decidedly multi-coloured look. Holi, also known as the festival of colors, has roots in various Hindu myths and is celebrated in Nepal in a myriad of methods.

(this photo is a bit blurry: no tripod, pre eclipse)



I understand in prior days, people used to hurl buckets of paint at each other, or water balloons of dyed water. Nowadays, it seems, the paint seems to be more of the Halloween make-up version, and it seems to be relatively self-applied - at least from the start. The festival symbolizes the victory of good over evil and heralds the end of winter and the beginning of spring.

I like to think of it better thusly:
As nature blooms into the colors of spring, so do the people of Nepal!

Of course, many of the people - particularly the malefolk - seem dourly serious in the photos attached, this is fairly common. Most of my friends in Nepal are male, and most of my photos of them are similar in nature to those of men in the old west U.S. at the turn of the century - By God Serious. But this belies the nature of some of the warmest people on earth.

Even so, with the myriad of traditional theatrics that go on - you can see the tension in these young boys. They live with daily "disappearances", political ambiguity, an uncertain future, and being citizens of one of the 3 poorest countries on earth while their King is one of the richest rulers on the planet. They will either go into the army to fight the maoists, join the maoists to fight the corrupt government, become monks, become petty criminals to support their families, or become one of an ever-growing population of locals who feed off of the tourist industry. Tourism, incidentally, is suffering intermediary to long-term damage due to the violence that the maoists have embraced initially to get their message heard, but have been reluctant of late to release now that they have driven change in the country.






The future is less bright for the young women and girls of Nepal. Many are being forced into prostitution or kidnapped across the border into India, never to see their families again, doomed to an early diseased death. Gloomy, huh! And Nepalis, despite this, are still the most genuinely warm people you could hope to meet.

I hope that the leaders in Nepal working on an Interim Government truly bridge their differences and work toward a Republic, as they've stated, rather than let things disintegrate further into tribal friction and further fractionation of such proud, hard working, talented, culturally and geographically wealthy people.

Happy Belated Maha Shivaratry

My friend Diwakar in Kathmandu, Nepal keeps me tuned in to goings-on when I'm not there. I've often told him that I'd love to see a year's worth of ceremony and festivities in Nepal. So, this year, with a little digital help, he's helping me see that from a half a world away.

Maha Shivaratry is, pardon the pun, a high holy day for the Shiva sects of Hinduism, was celebrated mid-February this year, I'm told. It commemorates the marriage of Shiva to Parvati. In Nepal, at Kathmandu's Pashupatinath temple, the surrounding hills are cloaked with bonfires the night before the celebrations to the lingham of Shiva begin.

Within the temple, there is a maintained space for the sadhus for the festival. These naked or near naked ascetics representing various sects of belief like the Kanphatta yogis, Naag sadhus, Kundan sadhus, Bairagis and Nirmad sadhus congregated in their allocated space within the temple complex.

For Shivaratri, tradition is that the sadhus - who traditionally smoke ganja on their chillums as part of a meditative process, originally - become the main attraction. They can be seen puffing away - stoned, dreadlocked, bearded (no shearing of any hair) wearing garlands of beads on their ash-smeared bodies and, for the last few decades, have become a photographer's delight. More so at Shivaratri than at any other time of year.

After the hippie trail discovered Shangri-La and Himalayan ganja biscuits, Nepal quickly became known as much for its tolerance and wild-growing stands of marijuana as for its mountainous hiking or its heartwarming culture. The dope destination mentality has significantly reduced over time, but there is always a stream of people who rarely seen ganja usage in a religious manner on a festival occasion, in public, in such a culturally different situation than possibly their own.

As a result, many sadhus perch in the woods across the Bagmati River to be accessible especially to curious tourists prohibited from entering the Pashupati Nath temple premises and also to local youths - in true Shivaratri style and spirit - wanting a puff of the "Shiva buti". (Now that's some holy pot!)

Interestingly, in Nepal, apparently ganja usage has declined so much that the local youth are as curious as the tourists. Free sampling the Shiva buti by the sadhus has raised concern in Kathmandu over whether restrictions should be placed on future Shivaratri festivals. Which is terribly ironic - because just an hour outside of the city, marijuana grows wild in 8-foot tall stands in the foothills of the Himalayans, as many a rubber-legged hiker can attest.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

The Lunar New Year begins February 18th, 2007, so Happy New Year of the Pig to those celebrating!

Bon voyage, Imp......

Third Snowfall of Winter

So, we had a winter storm earlier this week that was so much fun to watch blow in. It began Tuesday afternoon on Feb. 13th and settled in for good on Valentine's day. Most workplaces shut down on Tuesday afternoon, but I had a little presentation to give on Wednesday. Besdies, I walk to work. On Wednesday, I knew a number of co-workers wouldn't be there, but they would all be on the morning conference call, so I came in just in case I'd still need to put on my show. Turns out I didn't, but I did get to see what a nuclear winter might look like in a small town, minus the destruction and all. There were virtually no cars. In the main operations center, which runs around the clock, there were a few hearty souls, but other than that, the three buildings were empty. Even the cafeteria. I hadn't counted on that. I got a few little work things done, hung around long enough to hear that my presentation portion was postponed, hung around a little longer to get a few more little work things done and drink some of the coffee that I made, and decided that I was going to make the most of this free snow day off work. But not before sending a funny little email to my co-working friends about the irony of heading into work on a level iii emergency snow day to encounter none other than another hearty Texan first thing in the morning.

So I went back home to assess the work cut out for me for the day in daylight (it was still dark when I went in).

Here, you can see my lovely reindeer skin, rabbit-fur lined boots I picked up when on assignment in Norway. I Super Duper Love these boots.



Before even getting to the house, I approached via the back alleyway, through the back garage, to grab the snow shovel - thinking I'd clear a path from the garage to the back deck. My first few scoops told me this might take a while.

Then I looked up toward the back deck and groaned. And then thought, "thank God I don't live in Oswego, New York."

A handy self-shot. I know, in typical me-fashion, absoLUTEly nothing matches, but EVERYthing has a story. Hat: from a trip to go camping in Rocky Mountain National Park where my gear got diverted to Atlanta, and I could either mope about it, or buy new stuff and go camping anyway, which I ultimately did, and with enough nice whining, even pried a flight voucher out of Continental for the inconvenience. What you can't see are the gloves that came from that same trip. The balaclava thing that is rolled down for this photo: found on a trip to Orrestrand beach in Norway in winter. Headphones: New Zealand. Scarf: Singapore. I know, of all places, right? Well, they're the most wonderful quality wool.... Jacket: Norway. Glasses: Wal-mart, circa 1996, camping trip emergency. I was on a camping trip in the Texas hill country, had a little too much to drink a little too close to a campfire, and my glasses were somehow a casualty. Next morning, I drove an hour into town to find a super-Wal-Mart, showed them my charred glasses, from which they were able to clean a lens and take a reading. I had a new pair waiting for me at the end of that camping trip just in time for the drive back home. Front teeth: Houston, 2005. Originals were chipped out in Kansas in 1978 when playing with a friend but I was afraid that if I told my parents about this, they'd make me stop playing. Next morning, with a nerve danging from the stub where my whole tooth used to be, when I took a big swing of orange juice, I felt the presence of God via Raw Nerve. Emergency weekend dental visit and "temporary bonding" later, I had two new temporary front teeth that were supposed to last "a couple of years". 27 years later, I chipped them pretty badly on a bike accident on the Ho Chi Minh bike trail in Memorial Park in Houston. Decided to spring for a real veneer job, but that young dentist in 1978 did a great 'temporary' job. And here I thought I was all out of good stories........

Hope the snow (or lack of it) is just as you like it this winter......