Redwoods @ MindSay

These are a few (lighting = poor) pictures from last Thursday. The other two guys are my training mates Tommy Schmitz & Steve Sherer (with shirt on). It was an awesome run through there, even if they only did 10 and 30 mins of it with me!

Some of these are funny, and some of them are beautiful. This first one is kind of a picture of my smoking spot, or at least part of it. I usually sit next to that piece of stump right there. I thought it would make a good picture.

 

 

A view of the hill I now had to climb down.

 

 

See the Sand People? (It'll help if you've seen the Star Wars movies. I forget what they're actually called. Not the Jawas, but the ones with gimpy faces that grunt and stuff and kill people.)

 

 

How about now? It looks like they have grim reaper hoods on.

 

 

Another view down that hill.

 

 

...and another one...

 

 

Another view across the creek. So many ferns!

 

 

Another view down the trail just past the Hollowed-Out Tree looking at another bend.

 

 

um...

 

 

Another try.

 

 

Recognize the telephone pole? This is just farther back on the trail. Look at all the trees!

 

 

I hate how these next three turned out. I swear that you can see Camelot in them. I'd be able to point it out if the pictures were any good. Basically there's one big stump that looks kind of like a castle, there are a couple of small logs laying down and a little trail that goes up that makes it look like there's a small surounding village, and there's all the white flowers leading up to it, kind of like little lights from the village or fairies or something.

 

 

 

 

Sunset through the trees.

 

 

More of the sunset.

 

 

Not sure what this one is about.

 

 

I walked around that bend, then turned around and took another picture of the sun on the trees.

 

 

This was supposed to be some other really cool thing I saw, too, but I don't remember what now.

 

 

oooo, spookey...

 

 

omg, ivy wall!

 

 

Almost out of the forest.

 

 

Looking back up at a couple of the faeux apartment buildings.

 

 

Look at the sky! The building on the right is my dorm building. The one on the left is the career center, a bunch of conference rooms, and some other stuff. that piece of roof in the front is from a different building altogether.

 

 

The sky with a plane. The building is part of the piece of roof in the above picture.

 

 

That's all for now. I took a couple of pictures going into the forest last night, but not nearly as many. I may post those later. It's still another hour and a half before it's J-Box's and his room mate's gf's birthday party. :(

So these are the pictures I took from when I got really stoned three- maybe four Fridays ago, the 24th. I took a lot of pictures both before and after I was stoned, but a lot of the before ones weren't that good. well, neither are the after ones, but they're pretty funny so I kept all of those. I'm also posting the before and after pictures seperately to create more of an effect. Anyway, this is a picture of the road and a couple of the on campus apartment style housing from the trail into the forest. They aren't really apartments, just kind of similar to them.

 

 

So now I'm in the forest. Look at how tall the trees are!

 

 

I went around the bend, then turned around and took another picture. You can see the telephone pole.

 

 

It just keeps going and going and going...

 

 

Pretty flower! There's actually a lot of them coming up and I've never seen them in the forests like this before.

 

 

A view of the hill that I've climbed up when I've gotten stoned the last couple of times. The next time I go out there will probably be the last time I go up that hill, though, and I'll take a picture of it then so you can see why. Also last night I noticed that there are a bunch of spider webs underneith it that I never had before. See the trail?

 

 

I turned from that point and took another picture looking back at the trail. The Hollowed Out Tree is on the right where the trail bends.

 

 

This is a picture at that same point across the creek that's on the left.

 

 

That's it for the sober pictures. I'll post the stoned ones as soon as I can. Don't forget to check out my doodles!

Since some of you still don't believe me that there's a forest on the back of our campus, it's picture time! These first ones I took on Friday, 01/28/06 on my way to my last class that day. Many are views of Humboldt Bay, but this first one is from a trail that leads to the building my class was in and overlooks some of the dorms. The stairs infront are part of Cypress, the building on the left behind the stairs is the Jolly Giant Commons (not a "resident hall"), and the red buildings in the back are part of the Canyon. You can see their little gazebo, too.

 

 

gasp! the beginning of one trail to the infamous forest!

 

 

Now here we have some views of the bay. The buildings/hills on the other side are part of Eureka.

 

 

Another one.

 

 

A view of what was in front of me. You can just see Arcata in this picture.

 

 

Back to the other view.

 

 

 

Down a trail

 

 

Another little piece of campus.

 

 

Ok, now these pictures I took on 02/01/06. I can't believe it was that long ago! But anyway, this is the infamous forest where people go to hike, jog, bike, and smoke pot. This first picture is of the hill that i had to climb down while i was stoned off my ass with Kim. Try to find it. There's two people going up it in this picture.

 

 

Going down the main trail. (Yes, that is a stoner in front of me. No, I didn't smoke with him, or that day at all.)

 

 

This is a front view of the Hollowed-Out Tree. I've smoked there before, and i started smoking there last night, but i thought i heard voices and started getting really paranoid. lol, good times. it looks kind of like a skull, huh?

 

 

Looking back the way I'd just came. I love it so much, hehe.

 

 

A slightly different view of that same part of trial.

 

 

Another angle of the Hollowed-Out Tree. You can see how it got it's name a little better in this photograph.

 

 

Lastly I have this picture from a couple of days ago. It's a crow in a tree in the rain watching people below it, taken from inside my room through the window. That's more of Cypress and then the forest in the background.

 

 

Well I hope you like all of those pictures. I know it's a lot, but yeah...anyway, I think i'm gonna take more. later

Well, the guitar playing last night didn’t go any better than yesterday’s round of golf did. First of all, I’m woefully out of practice, which means my fingers have no calluses. So playing for more than fifteen minutes was out of the question. It just got too painful.

Yeah. “Painful” is the right word. The horrible noise that came out of that sweet instrument definitely hurt. It’s sad, really. I used to play all the time, all through high school and college. At one point, I had about an hour’s worth of original compositions. Today, I can’t remember any one of them in full. This, too, is sad. I mean, it’s not that they were fantastic pieces or anything, but they were mine. I liked them, and others seemed to, also.

My friend David and I used to play in his basement. He was an awesome drummer. He worked out a fantastic percussion part to my first composition, an eight-minute piece I’d called “Phases.” I haven’t been able to remember that whole song in years.

My high school had this annual production called the Varsity B Show. It was a combination of comedy skits, musical numbers, and so on. Invariably, the cheerleaders or color guard would get out there and do their normal, idiotic routine, and expect that people would fawn all over them. (What the hell’s the point, y’know?) The “comedy” was routinely bad. But every once in a while, you’d get something good.

And during my senior year, I played “Phases” in front of a few hundred people. Scared the shit out of me, honestly. I stood up there, under that hot spotlight, unable to move. Not just because of fear, but because my electric cable was only so long. I wore big heavy glasses in those days. Between my nervousness and the hot spotlight, I was sweating. And the glasses kept sliding lower and lower on my nose. (I was looking down at the guitar neck… not because I needed to watch my fingers, but because I was too afraid to look out at all those people). I just knew the glasses were gonna fall off my face and clang across the strings.

They didn’t, though. They stopped right on the tip of my nose and just hung there for the remaining minutes of the piece. It was a nerve-wracking experience, but I got over it as soon as I heard the tremendous applause.

And that surprised me, honestly. I expected only a polite bit of clapping. Instead… well, I can’t even describe it. Suffice to say that I totally get why performers are addicted to performing. I was instantly high.

I wasn’t a popular kid in school, but I was one of the few who learned how to play guitar. Even though the song was in a raw version (I’d “perfect” it later), and without David on drums (that came much later), people loved it. And for the last few months of school, I was popular. At least, among the crowd that was into rock & roll.

Pity I hadn’t done that years before. I might have actually enjoyed school.

This morning, I went to Coffee Bazaar for breakfast. I just can’t seem to find decent food anywhere, here. The bagel was a lame excuse for one. But then, in college, I used to have bagels that were imported from NYC. Nothing like a real NY pumpernickel bagel with cream cheese! Mm-Mm!

My bad luck with food here this trip is especially ironic, because one of the best meals I’ve ever had in a restaurant was one I had here four years ago. But that restaurant seems to be gone. Figures.

And of course, there was another cute girl working at the coffee shop. Cute, despite the piercings… one in the nose and one through the lower lip. There’s no way in the world I will ever find such things attractive. But they’re so ubiquitous that I’m starting to become used to them. And of course, I’m sure the fact that one of my best friends has them has something to do with me getting used to them.

Anyway, I was there for probably two hours, then roamed around town for a bit before coming back to my room for lunch, to listen to some Eels, and to work on this entry.

After lunch, I drove out to Armstrong Reserve for a drive and walk through the redwoods. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned my passion for the redwoods elsewhere. Armstrong is a nice reserve, but it’s too regulated for my liking. Too touristy. When you walk through, you have to keep to certain paths. You can’t really get to any of the really good places.

For me, a walk through the big trees is what some people feel like when they go to church. It’s practically a spiritual experience. And just like in church, it’s rude for others to destroy the atmosphere with loud talking.

Problem is, that’s what you experience in Armstrong. Lots of people, some of whom don’t feel the same sort of reverential state of mind as I do, obviously. I wasn’t there long, today. Maybe I’ll stop by again on Sunday before I leave.

After that, I checked out Stumptown Brewery. I’m always seeking out quality microbrews, but this wasn’t even worth the one mile drive. They only had three of their own brews on tap: a wheat, a pale ale, and a double pale. None of these are the sorts of brews I care for. But I had a wheat and it wasn’t bad. I sampled the pale. Didn’t care for it. And keep the double pales away from me, thanks.

And now I’m back at Coffee Bazaar. Am I lame, or what? I guess I’m just not used to the relaxed life. I always feel like I need to be doing something. I need to get over that, I suppose.

Of course, the other thing is that for the past five years, I haven’t had any significant social life to speak of. Granted, this last year has been better than the previous four, thanks to D & T, but still… being able to just pick up and go out whenever I want to is something I’m not used to, either.

I’m not sure what I’ll do this evening. Surf the web while I’m here. Then probably have some dinner (frozen pizza and Ben & Jerry’s tonight) and maybe do some more writing.

Exciting, huh?

An interesting variety of music plays here. Earlier, “Words” by Missing Persons played. I really grooved on that; it took me back to my college days. Then one of the girls behind the counter said to the other one, “My mom used to really like this song.”

Super. Now I feel ancient.