Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

Imagine all your money It's easy if you try No start line below me Above me, only mine Imagine all your entries Livin' for today Ah  Imagine there's no refunds It isn't hard to do Nothing give or try for And no excuses, too Imagine all your entries Livin' for today Ah You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll sign up And my world will be as one.  

Joshua Tree, April 2000. Dana and Andy getting solar-hammered while I was dragging ass behind.   This is sole remaining evidence of a Truly Lost Weekend.   Ominous Foreshadowing Intro Hanta ho, Truth Seekers. Mark the weekend of 7-9 April on your patriarchal, anthropocentric calendars as the time of this year's Millennial Visionkwest. Our Y2K theme, the brainchild of Mr. Trail Safety, is "Verlangen nach Dekonstruktion" [Appetite for Deconstruction]. Prepare accordingly. More information to follow, as the weekend looms closer. THE MAIN EVENT J-Tree VisionKwest 2: The Unfolding Kontinues [x l] Now is the time that opportunistic and eager scriveners set down for All Time the Truth of What Was, and the What Was Is and Remains... Joshua Tree: The Millenial VisionKwest 2. Searchers for their Krystal Visions®™ got exactly this, and no less. Casino Bingo was the Intellectual Author of the Kwest. Draw Poker was his single-degreed accomplice. And these two Intellectual Morons proce...

Sorry-oh! The  Spring Gel Awesome Sauce turd blew up big several weeks ago, and the howls are epic. Short weights and calorie counts? Fainting couches all across UltraLandia collapsed under the impact. Every ultra social-media franchise operator is elbowing to be the Great I Told You So, suddenly realizing that Lazy Stenography Has Consequences. All of them. A larger question is ‘re-examining your relationship to advertising and packaging’. Thirty years ago [1993] I was introduced to mixing CarboPlex/CarbPro into running bottles with Kern’s mango nectar or Gatorade to get the liquid calories. The caloric weight was bigger at a much smaller cost. Or into plain water if the gag-factor became a problem, with salt caps. I recall Hammer being touted then as well. Of course, some of the whining is podium-worthy. Others should be accompanied by the "Ashokan Farewell" , with the voice of Mary Chesnutt reading one of the mournful posts, as follows: "Dearest Darling: I write you...

Things are not, as they seem... Social Endorphine, or, The Lament of the Injured Influencer Here I lie, on my Instagram bed Tell me, Social Endorphine, when you liking me again Oh, and I don’t think I can’t post long Oh, you see, I’m not that strong The scream of the Whambulance is sounding in my ears Come on now, Social Endorphine, how long have I been lying here? What am I doing in this place? Why does the emoji have no face? Oh, I can't crawl across the floor Can't you see, Social Endorphine, I'm just trying to score Well, it just goes to show, things are not what they seem Please, Social Endorphine, turn my dropped logs into schemes Oh, can't you see my stats, fading fast Yeah, and that this bot will be my last? Come on Ah, yeah Please, please, Cousin PayPal, lay your cool, cool hand on my head Come on now, Social Endorphine, you better make up my bed 'Cause you know, and I know in the morning I'll zeros and ones, And you can sit around, and you can watch As...

Kilimanjaro at twilight, Shira 1. I started building my Kilimanjaro gear months before wheels-up Feb 28. It was a balance between realism and very real weight limits, hedging my bets at every turn; to the extent of buying a new digital scale. In the end, it's not your scale that counts. It's the airline's and then the tour group. Then add in that I was doing a post-Kilimanjaro trip, and needed to figure that out. I got expert advice from Dave Turner, who's forgotten more about mountain travel than I'll ever know. The Four Main Components 1/ The LARGE BLACK DUFFEL , the 1997 Eagle Creek Black Whale held all the trek gear. Inside it were [depending on trip phase] 2/ PORTER DUFFEL 3/ ARCTERYX DAY PACK 4/ GREEN BURRITO PACK: for off mountain travel [see below] The following list is what I dragged/carried to Kilimanjaro and further on. Black Whale, with Green Burrito visible. Porter Duffel obscured. 1/ LARGE BLACK DUFFEL 20L compression stuff sack [for sleeping bag] Sle...

Kilimanjaro, from a sunflower field outside JRO, 01 MAR 01 MAR Arr JRO. Little sleep. All gear arrives. Hello Africa eSIM not loaded properly. I'll ride wifi until out of country. Mbahe Farm. Hillary, driver Leonard, chef Lillian, maid 02 MAR Adjoining cabins at the Mbahe Farm. Utterly delightful. Mbahe Farm 6000' Hike around Mtuy farm. Met other group- Doug Marsh, Megan Woods. Scarecrow at Mbahe Farm field Scarecrow. Wild ganja plant from random field workers. Jet lag kicking my ass. Final gear weigh-in: 12kg Gear layout inspection. Add extra pad. Diamox discussed and not used. Doug opted for it, and was pissing like a fire hose the entire trip. I relied on my ultra experience: pounding Gatorade, and pissing clear.  2hr sleep at best Begin 2x daily stat checks with Oxymeter measuring oxygen intake [100 being best] and pulse. STATS: AM 6,100  Mbahe Farm 96 56 PM 6,100  Mbahe Farm 96 53 03 MAR DAY 1: Lemo...