Travels and Thoughts

Dave and I are still planning on the hike. Roger was coming, but after thinking it over has decided to participate in a quality family vacation down in San Diego - can't say as I blame him.

I stopped by the sporting goods store this evening and picked up a little day pack - I can't find my old one. The new one has a built in water bladder, pretty spiffy, with a little tube for drinking out of while it's on the back. Mt. Whitney is eleven miles from Whitney Portal, so three liters seems about right. It also has room for a light, a poncho, a jacket, an emergency sleeping bag (in case of sudden storms or injuries), food, a camera, etc. My old fanny pack was nice, but too small for this long a trip, and my backpack was too big.

The downside is that the pack is too small to have a usable hip belt, so my shoulders will have to take most of the load. Impetus to keep the load light!

I need to pack tonight. We'll head north sometime tomorrow.

NASA choose Lockheed Martin to design the CEV. Let's hope it doesn't turn out as bad a choice as the X-33 decision.

Wednesday 30 August 2006

Wednesday - back to work. Mowed the lawn when I got home, using the last of the light for the front yard, then talked to my friend about the upcoming Mt. Whitney hike this Labor Day weekend.

Tuesday 29 August 2006

Tuesday - on the road, back to Lancaster. About 95F in the Central Valley on the way down. There was a slow down going over the Altamont pass - judging by the emergency vehicle traffic someone had gone over the cliff/edge of the freeway a while earlier.

It was a slow trip, over seven hours - lots of trucks and cars, but not as many idiots as usual. I took my time, listened to another book on tape, and arrived in the evening, after 9:00.

I stopped at the In 'N Out Burger on the I-5, and made a point of feeding the sparrows as many french fries as they could stand. I can remember doing that in Pomona, at a different INOB back in 1981. How time goes past.

Monday 28 August 2006

Monday - went for a nice long walk with the dog, tired her out a bit.

I note that a lot of my book numberings in the blog are wrong, after Harry Potter, #25. They are correct below.

#1 The Italian Secretary #2 Gravity Dreams #3 Master and Commander #4 I've Been Around #5 Homeward Bound	#6 Post Captain #7 The Battle of Brooklyn #8 Napoleon: A Penguin Life #9 Wildtrack #10 Fastnet, Force 10
#11 Shadow of the Giant #12 Old Soldiers #13 The Pirate Coast #14 Black Bodies & Quantum Cats #15 H.M.S. Surprise,	#16 Sailing the Wine Dark Sea #17 The Secret Life of Lobsters #18 A Princess of Roumania #19 StormChild #20 Washington's Crossing,
#21 Alector's Choice #22 The Mauritius Comma #23 The Lobster Chronicles #24, His Excellency: George Washington #25 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince	#26 John Quincy Adams #27 The Golden Rendezvous #28 In The Last Analysis #29 The Best Western Stories of Loren D. Estelman #30 The Radioactive Redhead
#31 Holmes on the Range #32 The Martian War #33 Sea of Glory #34 A Rose Red City #35 The Know-It-All	#36 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer #37 Andrew Jackson

Sunday 27 August 2006

Sunday - not a lot to say, taking it easy up in Martinez.

I finished Book #37, Andrew Jackson, by Robert Remini, on audio tape during the trip up north. It was interesting, though not a page turner like 1776 or Washington's Crossing. It's interesting to see different viewpoints of the same events - JQA and Jackson were once reasonably close, and yet later became enemies and contenders for the presidency.

Jackson is known to me mostly for the Battle of New Orleans and the Trail of Tears, yet he wasn't really a professional soldier and there was little he could have done for the Cherokee - South Carolina and Georgia were openly defying the federal government and threatening secession when it tried to block those state's seizure of Indian lands. Philbrick much covers the same period in his Sea of Glory, but the American Exploring Expedition is not even mentioned here.

Jackson did a lot to give the presidency the strength and power that we know today - he was the first to use a presidential veto simply because he didn't agree with a congressional bill - before that it was used only when something seemed unconstituitional. There was a lot in the book about Jacksons' breaking The Second Bank of the US. This was a big deal - it was a vicious battle, cost him popularity, and eventually cast the USA into a recession.

I've now 'done' President Washington, (multiple times), John Adams, skipped Jefferson, Monroe and Madison, and done John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.

Picture of the Week

Photo Notes: Kayak on Morro Bay.

Last Week- Sun- Mon- Tue- Wed- Thur- Fri- Sat- Next Week