Last night I finished reading Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America by Dennis McNally (perhaps better known for his biography of the Grateful Dead), a book which I picked up for a few dollars this year at Bumbershoot. I never knew Kerouac had such a depressing life. In fact, it was pretty much over by about 1960. He sure was one strange antisemitic, christian-buddhist, hippie hating, drunk.
I’m home for the rest of the year.
The City of Lost Children is a cyberpunk film about a mad scientist who kidnaps children to steal their dreams, in hopes of slowing his aging. It’s French, and it’s excellent. In fact, if it wasn’t for the drugs, strippers, and murder, it would be a good children’s film. Go watch it.
Tomorrow morning is my snowshoeing trip.
From what people have been telling me, it’s a whole lot of work – should be interesting.
I packed by bag tonight and I have a feeling it’s going to get really heavy after the first hour or so, but most of the weight is water, so there’s not much I can do about it, save drink.
What I’m wearing: 1. Wigwam INgenius hiker socks 2. ECWCS polypropylene long underwear 3. UnderArmour ColdGear mock-t 4. Acrylic watch cap 5. Polarmax zip mock-t 6. Normal cargo pants 7. 5.11 HRT Waterproof boots 8. Best Defense ECWCS GORE-TEX Pants 9. Normal snow jacket 10. Patagonia Lightweight Capilene Glove Liner 11. Blackhawk Hellstorm ECW gloves 12. Patagonia Neck Gator
Everything in layers. Everything but the pants are moisture-wicking, synthetic fibers.
About a week ago I went back to using Electric Sheep, a screensaver which uses your idle CPU cycles to generate animated fractals – the collective dream of sleeping computers.
http://www.al.com/redstone/index.ssf?/base/news/1132827506165260.xml&coll=1
As a government employee, you've heard it all before * lock your computer screen, protect your computer password, shred unwanted government documents, be careful about what is discussed in unclassified phone calls and e-mails, and practice vigilance in all matters related to workplace security.
Government employee? These are the bare essentials that any one who’s in contact with technology for more than 10 minutes a month should practice. Of course, you’d replace “shred unwanted government documents” with “shred everything but the newspaper”, “unclassified phone calls and e-mails” with “anything that isn’t encrypted with a 2048 bit key”, and “workplace security” with “personal security”.