November 24, 2013

           Band practice was cancelled, so today I did the laundry. Why did a clothes-washing activity make the blog? Because the oil leak ruined most of my clothes, not just the ones I was wearing. I carried the laundry in the same suitcase in a different compartment. It was not enough. Boo-hoo, maybe I’ll be smarter next time. But do you have any idea how hard it is to find trousers in my size and length?

           Welcome back to Florida, I wish I could say it is good to get home. But if I had the cash, I'd move to Texas in a wink. I repeat once again that there is no reason to go to Florida except for the nice winter weather. Here’s a picture of something I had never had before, though I can’t say if I’d ever seen them. A metal beer can shaped like the traditional bottle. It was the real thing inside.
           This picture was in California earlier this month. At the little bar with the concert-grade band doing an incredible show. The one where I bought the soundman a round for such an excellent job. They even sang “Bakersfield” in Spanish. This can was solid, it could not be crushed like a regular can. Why did that interest me? Because you are too young to remember this, but I was around when the first soda pop came out in cans. This was north of the arctic circle, where glass had a low survival rate. They were ordinary cans with a raised spout and a regular bottle cap.
           It is back to routine here already. Already I’ve got the Florida winter sniffles, some kind of mild allergy. And it will take a week for the numbness in my fingertips to wear off. That’s from gripping the Honda throttle for 8,000 miles ten hours on some days. In all, what a fantastic trip that was. I have only begun to review the 1,300 pictures taken. Keep coming back, for at least some of them should be pretty interesting.

           I’m afraid my authentic sidecar seat has been ruined. The tonneau cover, as I lamented, tore to shreds when it got cold, allowing moisture to get into the leather seams. The wood inside was not treated and it rotted or fell apart. Where will I ever find a replacement? The wood is so destroyed it cannot be used as a pattern to cut new pieces.
           Are you familiar with the term Bucket List? It is a list of things people make that they want to do before they die. Apparently climbing Mt. Everest is appearing on many of those lists.

ADDENDUM
           “High Crimes”, this is the book about the deaths and criminal activities that have replaced any solitude on Mt. Everest. While the author is trying to chronicle how the people died due to negligence of guides and faulty mountaineering equipment, I’m getting a different message from the book. I cited the $65,000 price tag for the climb, meaning I don’t personally know anyone who has done it. The next thing I notice is nobody famous does the climb. Not even Madonna, who desperately needs some clarified air. Not Oprah. The mountain will come to Oprah. So, who is dying up there?
           Ah, the sons of rich men. There are few things as useless and expendable to mankind as the offspring of wealthy parents. Suddenly I’m not blaming the guides as much. I know precisely what motivates these rich punks to show off. They are not learning mountaineering or how to check the oxygen valves themselves. Their attitude is that is somebody else’s job. And a few too many of them are dying of heart attacks after a successful descent. Can you spell C-O-C-A-I-N-E?
           The stories also include many transcripts of concerned relatives trying to reach climbers. It is clear from the questions asked that these callers know damn well there is a drug problem. The original ascents involved months of training. There are many accounts of porters and clients dropping and dying as other climbers walk past them. But the author fails to describe exactly what the walkers are expected to do at such altitudes, bogged down with gear and problems of their own.
           The photos (in the book) show the climb paths are roped and the routes are well marked. Steep areas have aluminum ladders. But the place is wild. It seems the expeditions must leave stashes of gear along the way for their own descent, and these become targets for thieves. The oxygen bottles cost $450 each. Who, you might ask, could steal bulky objects on a mountainside, where there are limited ways to hide it or take it down to the base? The Sherpas, that’s who. They resell it to the next group.
           In the end, I admit to looking at Everest and mountain climbing being same as bungee-jumping and sky-diving. It is more useless risk-taking by slow-witted jocks. There has no scientific purpose and it is disgusting to hear these bunglers pretend otherwise. My take is that these people put themselves in harm’s way and are suffering the consequences of their own stupidity. The Sherpas, who also die by the dozen on the slopes, are paid to guide the tourists, not to rescue them or form search parties. Until further notice, you grunts who get sick at the top of a mountain can quit trying to blame somebody else. You didn’t ask the world’s permission to get there.
           At the time of publishing, 2008, some 2,300 people have climbed to the summit. Thus, the accomplishment isn’t even unique any more. I wonder how many of those jocks will ever learn that Everest is not the tallest mountain from the Earth’s center. Worse, since it is not that much higher than the surrounding terrain, it doesn’t even look as big as most mountains. But try to tell these facts to a jock? You’d be smarter to go climb a mountain.