My Daze in Neverland

The Adventures of Darren in Neverland and the surrounding territories

My Photo
Name:
Location: Sacramento, California, United States

I am a 27 years old, 6'3" tall, little kid. I am a full time student and Part time wandering adventurer.In august I finally went on my big hundred mile hike. I share an apartment with one of my brothers. (I have seven of them [brothers, that is, not apartments] and one sister) This year I intend to expand my adventuring repertoire to include Sailing and Canyoneering. backpacking trip this summer.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

writing letters and a misplaced thought

I am working the night shift tonight and the hotel is sold out so I have a minute to put some thoughts down.

Earlier this week I wrote a pair of letters. One was a regularly scheduled letter to Devon letting him know what is going on in my life. I used an old template that I haven't used in a few months that goes breifly over each day of the week, then includes something I found amuzing that week (generally comic strips) and some questions at the bottom. This format is easy for me to write and Devon can't complain to loud about the format because at least there is something in his mail box. then after I had writen Devon I thought about an old friend I had not been able to get a hold of in a while, and I decide to write her a letter. I typed out a note asking how she was and giving an update about my life. I got both of them stamped and in the mail and it felt pretty good.

Then when I got home there was a letter for me from Devon. It feels really good to get a letter in the mail. Somehow they are differant then phone calls and emails and all those other convienant forms of communication that we generally use, and really it is worth the little bit more time and money it cost, so write a letter to somebody.

On a differant topic I now Know my family is reading this page and some how that makes it differant. This is a webpage and I never thought of it as private but for some reason it is differant writing things down knowing your mother may decide to read it. I don't know why I would worry about my mother reading it when I publish it so that millions of perfect strangers can, oh well it's is not like I do anything I could tell mom about anyway.

I had another thought but it seems that it has wandered off into the dark corner of my mind where misplace thoughts live.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Why?

Why? Oh Why, are They Might Be Giants playing their free northern California show of this tour on Easter Sunday?

Life truely is unfair!

Fun in the Sun

Thursday was just about perfect. The sun was shining, it was just shy of 80 degrees out and I got to play with my new toy.

A month ago I bought a kayak, but life has been busy and the couple of opportunities I have had, time wise, to head out to the lake have not worked out. But Thursday I was determined, the boss lady had given me the day off work and I had made arrangement to borrow a truck from my parents (I have not yet worked out transporting a ten foot kayak by bike) and I had cancelled my meeting that day (For various reasons not just because I wanted to go play).

Class got out at 11:00 and it took me an hour and a half to take care of all my on campus business (a lot of people needed to talk to me for some reason, and I had to get next weeks ICC agenda taken care of). Then it took some more time to get the boat loaded and the paddle put together. Then I needed to go and buy a life vest, but by 2:00 I was unloading out at Negro Bar on Lake Natomas.

Negro Bar was recommended to me by a friend who kayaks and it is where Sport Chalet puts on their kayaking workshops. It is the point where the river broaden to become the lake, and there are three bridges right there. When I got in the water my original plan was to cut straight across the lake, but after spending a few minute acclimating myself I changed my mind. I headed upstream under the three bridges figuring that once I got tired I would want to be going down stream to get back to the car.

I spent over an hour in the water and only went a mile or less upstream, but I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Next time I need to take some one with some experience who can help me learn and push me a bit, but it was nice having just me, my kayak and the water.

Monday, March 07, 2005

Split Second

It is amazing how much thinking you can do in a split second.

Today I did what cyclists fondly refer to as an ENDO on my brothers mountain bike. I was zipping along on my way to work and I looked up in time to see a curb rushing at my front tire. I demonstrated my superior handling skills by riding into the curb as fast as I could...
...Then something interesting happened. As my momentum lifted my body from the saddle of the bike I realized that Jordans bike does not have clipless peddles but rather toe straps so if I didn't won't to seriously damage my ankles I needed to get my foot free from the peddles. At this point the ground was rushing up at me in much the same fashion as ground rushes up at the whale in Hitchhikers Guild to the galaxy.

In the following fraction of a second I managed to extricate my right foot, let go of the handlebars, angrily strike the earth with my open left hand, and jam my knee into the ground with enough force to make the both of us rather uncomfortable I assure you.

The amazing part is how clearly I saw all of this, how many individual thought I had between seeing the the curb and kissing the dirt.

The speed of the human mind and how much we can observe in a split second will never cease to amaze me