now the spam is pissing me off

Until now I have suffered with much patience the daily onslaught of ads, both decent and naughty, in my hotmail inbox. After all, what can I expect from a free service? But my kindhearted forbearance is no longer enough for the spammers. In their perseverance to ensure, among other things, that I have a healthy supply of viagra to complement my newly enhanced manhood, they have begun employing a downright underhanded tactic to get my money. These unscrupulous jerks have figured out I have a cable modem, and from time to time (three an hour?) send me a wholly unsolicited textad that "pops" up on my computer. No matter what I have running, the ad appears and must be clicked on to disappear. I usually ignore the subject of the ads, but one caught my attention this morning, as it popped up probably ten times. These guys sell software that purports to kill the popups, but can you guess how they advertise? With popups! Lots of them! This reminds me of the Far Side cartoon where a guy is reading a note tied to a rock that has just been thrown through his front window: "For window repair, call Al's Glass." Surely this cannot be legal. Do others have this problem, even on computers without cable connections?

mayhem and fish guts

We seem to have survived this weekend's fishing extravaganza, though I know several king mackerel who came off badly (Jim couldn't wait to sink his chops into this one, apparently). I'll post the particulars when I'm done with the fillets.

50 Words and Phrases Not to Use on a First Date

Conjecture Restraining order Piglet How-do Time served Hair remover Offal Splendiferous Dahmer-esque Blogosphere Dangling chads Pittance Fanny Hernia Pants-worthy Tits De-Nazification Government cheese Posthaste Pre-moistened Hat Franco-German Babs (Does not apply to first dates with women named 'Babs') Redi-Wip (Does not apply to first dates with women named 'Redi-Wip') Walking pneumonia Barnaby Jones Clean needles Futon Sixpence Tomfoolery Paul Krugman Third base Dutch Simulacrum Fanfare Oozing Pustule Oozing pustule Nighty-night Détente Credit rating Boy-Ar-Dee Ineffectual Three-way Na-na-na-na-nineteen-nineteen Bifurcated Eggzactly Schlitz Mendacity I'll call you tomorrow (via VodkaPundit)

cool site

"Symbols.com contains more than 2,500 Western signs, arranged into 54 groups according to their graphic characteristics. In 1,600 articles their histories, uses, and meanings are thoroughly discussed. The signs range from ideograms carved in mammoth teeth by Cro-Magnon men, to hobo signs and subway graffiti."

This fellow is a trip

Literally. While eating pizza with Dave the other night I ran across this article in Relix magazine on an artist who is truly out there. He's obviously heavy into drugs and tends to wax new-age at times, but his art is astounding.

   The energies of consciousness that surround us, radiate from us and flow through us are like complex oceans of subtle light. My visions of the energies are similar to sunlight sparkling and undulating in weblike strings across the surface of water, or like whorls of smoke through the air pierced with bio-electromagnetic lines of force connecting people.
Whatever it is, I like it. His web site is interesting, especially the part about the Chapel of the Sacred Mirrors he is working on to display his work. Heavy stuff indeed.

Etc. etc.

For you cat lovers. Do these people have jobs?

great site

Check out Word Spy for a great collection of newly-coined words. According to the site, "These aren't 'stunt words' or 'sniglets,' but new words and phrases that have appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, press releases, and Web sites." My favorite so far is donorcycle.

Absolute cleanliness is godliness!

Remember Dr. Bronner's Pure Castile Soap/Shampoo? We used to buy this stuff to take camping because it is biodegradable and can be used for anything, from washing dishes to brushing your teeth. Also, after sitting around the campfire for a while, we got a big kick out of reading the bizarre label, which is a cross between an ad on speed and the book of Ecclesiastes. Read it here.

by the way

Oh yeah -- After over twenty hours of driving, I have two new favorite albums: Short Trip Home, by Edgar Meyer and others, and Dance Lesson #2, by Karl Denson. Anyone who listens to music who doesn't own these is living a woeful and tragic life.

Off the road

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1. Scout peruses the campus for squirrels. 2. Veteran memorial in town near Ada. 3. Corner on Main Street, downtown Ada. 4. This is Ohio 5. On the way into Ada. 6. Corn. Lots of it. 7. More crops. 8. Ada is brimming over with history. 9. Sunset, Indian Lake. 10. What?! (Also note misspelling) 11. Random bridge shot, Cincinatti. Mission accomplished. I made it as far as suburban Cleveland Sunday night (or early Monday morning) before I had to pull over and sleep, but I was up a few hours later and rolling through the cornfields into Ada, Ohio by noon. Rolling through the cornfields? you may be asking yourself, wondering if your author may be engaging in a little terminological inexactitude for effect. That would not be the case. Ada is in the middle of nowhere. The pictures do not lie.
   I almost drove right through the village, when I realized the stoplight I was sitting at was on Main Street. Ada is literally a collection of houses gathered around a crossroads in the middle of a huge expanse of farmland, population 3,000 max. Without students. Once school is in, my law school tour guide told me, the town's population doubles. Aside from a few fast food joints and a pizza place, a Mexican bar/restaurant and a Chinese place, there are no restaurants. Aside from a mom-and-pop grocery with few goods and all of them overpriced, the nearest Kroger is in Lima, fifteen minutes away. There is one movie theatre, showing one movie. A train track goes through the center of town. From most any point on any street you can actually see the crops growing at the edge of town. We're talking seriously rural.
   However, the town does have a sort of classic American midwest small-town charm. Everyone waves at each other as they drive around. Kids on bikes populate the sidewalks and streets. All the houses are old, wooden, and nice. Plus, I reminded myself often, I won't be here for the culture. So I called up and met with one landlord, a quirky fellow who had been described to me as the "slumlord" of Ada. And his apartments were exactly that. After a very brief tour through his properties I headed over to the law school and got a tour, met a couple of professors and chatted with the secretaries. Small, but nice. I'm really hoping to do well my first year and transfer, but if that doesn't happen it won't be all bad. Tha campus is nice, with huge sprawling lawns separating everything and punctuated frequently by small ponds. Scout was in squirrel heaven.
   It was drawing late by this point and my other landlords hadn't called me back, so I decided to go set up camp for the evening on Indian Lake a few miles to the south of Ada. Again, a nice drive through literally miles of unbroken croplands. Well I arrived at the large lake to find it surrounded by homes, with only a small beach for swimming. (See photo - "flotation devices prohibited" ? Why in hell would you prohibit flotation devices at a public beach!?) The official campsites were all expensive and I discovered after only a few minutes parked beside the water that the mosquitos were taking over Ohio with a deep vengeance. The sunset was nice, and Scout and I took a dip to cool off before heading back to Ada to camp in the truck again. I wanted to be up early to see as many houses in the morning as possible. As I drove through the dark fields the full moon rose like it was on fire, huge and blood-red, slowly cooling off and paling into the sky. It got so bright I drove for a while without lights, hurtling through a blue landscape.
   Next morning I got lucky. As soon as I woke one Mr. Music called and said to come on over to the house he was working on, just a few hundred yards away. A nice fellow, he'd been living in Ada for twenty years and had property all over the place. He showed me around a couple of houses and I told him I'd take the first place he showed me, a nice two-story, two bedroom house with a huge backyard. Most everything else had been rented, but the girls who had been in this one had up and left, leaving behind a lot of furniture. Score. I signed the lease on the spot and headed back out of town.
   Ada is no cultural mecca, but it is interesting. I'll have to trade my mountain bike for a road bike, but I've been wanting to do that for a year now. There's no kayaking water to speak of either, but I'll be studying anyhow. Onward and upward.

On the road

What's your favorite driving music? I'll know what mine is in a few days, once I've returned from driving to Ohio and back. I'm heading out this afternoon after Kelly's Bastille Day party and driving straight through to Ada, where I'm meeting with several landlords to look at houses and apartments. I think it's a 14 hour drive. Scout is going with me as one lady requested that she "meet Scout" to see if she would allow me to have pets. ?

Anyway, I'm taking my kayak and will probably stop through a few side states for some boating on the way home, so I'm not sure when I'll actually return to Birmingham. See you on the flipside.

Town Creek report

Well last week’s boating extravaganza, which consisted of 4+ days of immersion, had a nice twist at the end. I’d been on the Ocoee for two days and then the Locust, so on Sunday Rachael and her boyfriend Tony picked me up (way too) early and we headed up to kayak Town Creek, picking up Todd, whom I’d just met the day before, on the way. Now Town Creek is nice because for me it is new, and running any new river is a complete blast, total adventure. There is nothing quite like submitting oneself to an unknown current, especially one that appears to be heading rapidly and loudly into a chasm filled with house-sized boulders. To make it safely, you must trust the water.

So with my little playboat on the roof (as opposed to the large creek-type boats everyone else had), we cruised up I-59 to the Collinsville exit slamming coffee and talking excitedly. We met Todd, wolfed down some egg McMuffins and drove through the placid countryside of central Alabama, passing chickenfarms and churches filled with cars, managing to run over only one pea hen on the way.
Finally we arrived. The first thing I did was hop down to High Falls, the impressive waterfall right above where we were to put in. Quite impressive. On the river right side of the falls is a sluice through which the water is forced, creating a nasty chamber of violent whitewater I would not want to end up in. The cool thing is that the water has eaten its way through a thin wall of rock right beside it, creating a natural bridge over part of the base of the falls. When we got in our boats and paddled close to it the spray coming through the hole wrapped us in thin beads of mist, and the wind churned the water. After some meditation and speculation as to the best way to run the falls were the water high enough, we decided to head on down the river.

Now I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about paddling a new river. But I would also be lying if I said I didn't act as if I did it every day. The river is about 5 miles or so of class III-III+ rapids, with one class V on it called "blockage" or something to that effect, so I knew it wouldn't be too bad, but you never know. The water was low so there were a lot more rocks, which can make tipping over disagreeable, especially to your head and face. Anyway, we cruised on down, staying in order so each person could follow the other's line without getting too bunched up or far apart.

Everything went beautifully. As we approached a rapid Todd would edge ahead and scout it out, then drop down into it below our view. Rachael would follow, then me, then Tony. You never really know what you are heading into until you are right in it, so it's important to watch where the guy before you went (and whether he appears downriver again). Most of the rapids were fairly easy but a few were more technical, with required eddies. (FYI: that means pulling into the calm water behind a rock in order to get positioned for the next section of rapid.) So far so good.

We approached one rapid that looked odd, and Tony asked "Is that fallen tree in the way?" Um, yes it was. We didn't realize it until we were right above it and we had to scurry to the bank before getting swept into the branches. To quote an old pun, strainers suck. We portaged around it and headed down, making a few more runs until Todd told us to get out: the class V was ahead.

As you can see, this is not something you want to go down. Well, not in a boat. I might run it in a large inflatable padded sphere, but that's it. The little pourover you can just see to the upper right actually claimed a boater some years back. He fell out, ended up in that hole and never came up. So we were happy to lug our boats through the forest and hang on the rocks below, in awe at the combined power of gravity and liquid. When people sit watching a frothy mass of moving water like this, everyone at some point gets quiet and simply stares. I like watching it happen; it's like sitting around a fire. Those present are drawn into a sort of primal contemplation of the mystery of the world. It's good stuff.

Most of us had been paddling for the past several days, so as we finally loaded up and headed downstream through the final set of rapids some complaining about aches, pains, and whatnot could be heard. For the record, I did not participate in such embarassing, unmanly behavior. I merely noted the fact that my feet were about to fall off. They did manage to stay intact despite my observation, and we made it down the rest of the run with no problems, finally emerging onto a remote arm of Lake Guntersville. Unfortunately we had a two-mile flatwater paddle to get to the trail, where we then had a half-mile hike uphill to get to our car. It was a bitch but we made it (I was reminded of a phrase my Dad said once: "Camping (or boating) is like hitting yourself over the head with a hammer: It feels good to stop.").

As we drove back over the country roads in the back of Todd's pickup, waving to the locals who looked at us in our strange wet garb suspiciously, I was tired but couldn't wipe the grin off my grizzled, sunburned face. We had gone to Town. Once I get feeling back in my feet, I'll do it again, too.

Update

Well, for those who don't yet know I will be heading to Ohio Northern University in Ada, OH in about a month. Why Ohio, you ask? Good question. The reality is, that's the only program I have gotten into with any assurance at this point, so I'm going for it. Plus they gave me a scholarship. I'm actually looking forward to moving to a new place and getting to know a new part of the country, even if it is pretty much near the edge of nowhere. I'll be in Birmingham until around the 5th of August, so if you owe me any money or anything be sure and fork it up before I leave.. I hate to go, but my destiny calleth.

This is why I paddle

"The wave was 16 on the gauge and going big was the order of the day. Either you surf and get the snot beat out of you or you just huck your body into the air and eat it anyway. At more than one instance I have had my nose plugs my earplugs and my helmet removed. Tiffer was huckin huge donkey flips into the best monster Butt whoopins I have seen in a long time…... I loved it………. We call it a perfect 4 if you have all head gear ripped off at once. Now the helmet never came off me, but the nose plugs and earplugs have been blasted off on a number of occasions. The unthinkable happened, I can hear the folks at Werner cursing me for this but. For years I have said that the best paddle ever made is a 191 Werner Bent Shaft with Player Blades Carbon/Carbon shaft and blade combo with a 30 degree offset. I have paddled with Werner paddles since I could roll about 12 years. I tried unsuccessfully to backdeck roll as I was tossed off the lip, but the bow of the boat got caught. (take some time to imagine this) picture yourself Facing upstream and slightly right, my back was pinned to the backdeck, I am in the air about 4 feet up and upsidedown, hands on the paddle just above my head. I freeze (great timing hungh). I didn’t quite let out a screem as my face touched down first. It was like the screeching wheels on a jumbo Jet on landing. The same time the paddles above my head stopped on contact with the green water. The back of the boat slightly tweeked to the right, the edge of the boat slammed into the shaft to the right of my head. The experience was a lot like when I was a little 60lb runt with big hair. I was running like a mad man from my brother and I hit moms freshly windexed sliding glass door. Stopped dead, No give, no idea nothing but stars. It’s the only time in my life I have ever felt like that. Well Talk about have’in you Bell rung. Huge cheer erupted from my so-called friends on shore. Including my girlfriend who was clapping with glee…. I might add. They were elated with my miss fortune. The only reason was I am always teasing them about not having a “Rhino Club”. I am always saying you could beat a Rhino to death with my Werner”. I guess under the right circumstances even my Rhino club can break."
From boatertalk.