Is it worth it?

Today, I'm a virgin talking about sex because I've never climbed a mountain.
That isn't entirely true, since I've hiked up a few in the Smokies in Tennessee or in the Wasatch range in Utah.  But I've never had crampons on my feet, never been in the "death zone" and never held bottled oxygen in my hands outside of a laboratory environment.

Mount Everest is in the news since May is typically "climbing season" on the mountain, with brief windows of good weather before the monsoon season starts.  There is also a short window in the fall, but this is much less active with unique risks.
Like a lot of people, I was introduced to Mount Everest, beyond the romantic knowledge of it being the highest point on earth, by Jon Krakauer's excellent book Into Thin Air.  Jon's writing is engaging, making a reader vicariously experience things that will never be participated in.  His books take a lot of flak from purists, many claim he writes more fiction than non.  To those people, I point to a different sort of purist who proudly proclaims that Everest isn't even the tallest point on earth due to a technicality of physics.

The purists of any pastime do their best to denigrate anyone outside of their personal narrow window:  You aren't a REAL Alpinist unless you {insert sanctimonious requirement here}.
I've read several other books by Krakauer, and his tale of Chris McCandless is also riviting; it was really this book which allows Chris immortality.  Sean Penn is an asshole, but PBS's documentary is worth watching.  Both idealism and degeneracy seem fun when young, but they are hard to keep up as a life time occupation.  If McCandless hadn't died in a bus, he'd most likely be driving a minivan full of kids around the suburbs somewhere.

I do sometimes wonder if Krakauer's Into Thin Air would have been as monumental if it didn't end up being a very tragic year on Mount Everest.  If hundreds of people climbed with minimal deaths, the book may have had to stretch the truth to be as engrossing.  The many interpretations of the events from that year demonstrate that there are several realities to almost every situation, and a lack of oxygen creates even more.
Two parts of the story seem permanently stuck in my memory.  There is the visual of Sandy Pittman (now Hill) being short-roped up the mountain by a Lopsang Sherpa, meaning she paid a fantastic amount of money to be dragged up the mountain, as much as she climbed it.  The second was when Rob Hall was asked about the condition of climber Doug Hansen, he simply responded, "Hansen is gone."  Such a short, tragic euphemism.
I admire people with the determination to pursue the pinnacle of a hobby such as mountaineering, but the images of crowds of people at base camp or heading up make it exceedingly unattractive - the National Parks of mountain climbing.  Unquestionably this increases the risk which should come primarily from the feat itself, not from other two-legged animals.  The unfathomable ability for the Sherpa to do what they do with little in the way of compensation or recognition is commendable - far more so than even the soul-crushing destructive power of office work.

The cost of Everest is also frightening, where a permit may be the equivalent of ten thousand dollars, with total costs for some approaching $100k.  I am probably more envious of people who take on the lesser-knowns, but in a more contemplative environment.  There have been some 7000 people who have climbed Everest, which is low by people who have stood on one small spot on earth, but it is still a crowded mountain top.  It has since been removed, but an enlightening video previously on YouTube showed a French dude on the summit, talking absolute gibberish.  His post-commentary suggests he thought he was being completely coherent when the video was shot and it was only after reviewing the video at a later time and lower altitude that he realized how close to death he probably was.  Many write that the trip down claims more lives than up.
And Everest has had its share of death, with approximately 286 taking their final frigid breaths.

The four most recent deaths (as of 2016-5-23) occurred this year with a Sherpa, a Dutch Climber, an Australian and an Indian.  The fate of a few more are still in question (since confirmed dead).

Jon Krakauer writes extensively about the risk of death on Mount Everest and that "there is no morality on the mountain" - lots of armchair climbers criticize this, but rescuing bodies always has lower priority over the living.  Witness the cancelling of a search for a person who fell off a cruise ship in the comparatively placid Gulf of Mexico.

The dead on Everest can achieve some level of immortality, maybe even more so than if they become one of the 7000+ who summit.  The dead on Everest have their own Wikipedia page.  Green Boots, became a landmark, before he vanished.  The Rainbow Valley is so named for all of the brightly colored remnants in one particularly treacherous spot.

I only partially comprehend the allure of Everest over the quest of mountaineering in general, but understand the more philosophical personal journey.  The motivation toward a new personal experience shouldn't be diminished.  I've read that George Mallory's "Because it's there." quote wasn't a proud chest thumping attempt at being profound, which is how it is interpreted today, but was more a paternalistic response to an annoying member of the press.  I hope that is true.
Whether life becomes more real after a solo climb up K2 without supplemental oxygen, or after being short-roped up Denali shouldn't be for a virgin talking about sex to deliberate.  With 7000 summits, climbing Mount Everest won't be anyone's ticket to fame and glory.  If that is the hope, failure is predetermined.  But if any quest is taken to further live the reality that much of what makes life worth living involves risk, then maybe mortality becomes ever so slightly more palatable.

The Terminator Is Talking on the Phone

I'm in a job transition right now, working 50% of the time in two separate locations.  Nobody bothered to get me a phone at my new location, and I hope nobody notices so that I don't have to get one.

I HATE THE TELEPHONE!

I know I'm not alone in this.  It is a characteristic of many people on the introverted side of the bell curve.  When I see people sauntering down the sidewalk yakking on the phone, or driving down the interstate doing the same, I'm almost baffled by this.  I would actually find it more understandable to see a person lick road kill off of the road, as that has about on the same level of revulsion as chit-chat on the phone.
Maybe that is a slight exaggeration; there are times at work where a 5 minute conversation can take the place of awful email chains or long-winded instant messages.  But that is often just making up for incompetence.  The only thing that is worse than a phone call is a conference call as it amplifies the negatives of telephone conversation.  The awkward pauses.  The repeated attempts for multiple people to start talking at once.  The reality of the best interrupter being the most prominent, sometimes only, voice on the phone.

Part of my distaste for phone conversations is that it does not allow for thinking before speaking, and the world already has entirely too much talking without thinking.  The phone takes away facial and body cues that are so important to real communication.  Video telephony somehow makes this worse, not better.  I think this is because there is still latency in the speech, and the video and audio are always slightly asynchronous.

Even worse than the phone conversation is talking to a fucking computer on the phone.  I understand the automated call menus.  Humans are expensive and automating the route to (hopefully) the right place makes sense.  I'm not sure why I have to answer the same questions if I do finally end up with a human on the other end of the phone, yet I'll accept that.  But ... and this is a big But ... while I'm perfectly happy to interact with the computer on the other end by pressing touch-tone buttons, my skin crawls when I must speak to the computer on the other end.  It is creepy.  It is dehumanizing in an Orwellian way.  It is A Brave New World's baby in a jar.  If I could find a way, I would get these automated systems to talk to each other in an endless loop so as not to be subjected to them.  One of the reasons I was exceedingly happy to dump DirecTV was that the only way to get help that was not available online was by starting the phone call talking to a DirecTV computer; there was no button pushing option.  Please, just give me the road kill to lick.
If the promise of artificial intelligence is heading in the direction of more speaking to computers, sign me up for a shack in the middle of nowhere in Montana.  Some time ago I was in a casino and saw one of those automated and full-body animated blackjack systems.  I watched it for a few minutes as the Barbie-esque cartoon character stood there forlornly with no one to deal to.  Her come-hither look and repetitive animated gestures promised the dystopian future that was imagined by every 1980s action movie.  We have arrived and the Terminator is a here - she is conquering the world, apparently gamblers first.

I recognize some people hate email, but at least it allows for thought before communicating.  Once I de-emoticonned my life, I realized the few extra minutes it takes to write clearly and succinctly is time well spent.
Text messages and Instant Messaging are great for informal conversations or short information.

But at some point the reality will have to be addressed, when did all these supposed advances in communication technology begin to take away what they tried to deliver?

What Started It All

The company I work for makes me use any of the previous year's leftover vacation by the end of April.  This normally means I have some time off at the end of April.  In  addition to getting things done around the house for spring, I often use this time for a quick motorcycle trip somewhere.  This year is one of the first in a long time where I don't have that "forced" time off, and I kind of miss it.  But I'm happier still that this means I've used (at least) more of my 2015 vacation.

The leftover vacation from 2015 was used going to Hawaii.  Of the many things done while there, I rented a motorcycle, completing a goal to ride through all 50 states.
It may be wrong, but I see riding a motorcycle through all 50 states as an accomplishment.  I won't look down on anyone who trailers their bike, but trailers are for broken bikes; tugging a bike to a location to ride is a vacation with bike.  "To and Through" is a motorcycle tour.  This does, of course, mean Hawaii will always have an asterisk after it since I chose the practical route of renting a bike there.
I sometimes look back and laugh at my first year of motorcycle touring now.  My first trip was short and very wet, and I really didn't know what I was in for.

I sold my Harley Davidson 1200 Sportster and bought a Superglide T-Sport specifically because I wanted to start touring.  I promptly hit a deer with it, but this didn't change any of my resolve to try touring.  That next spring the planning started to take the T-Sport to a rafting trip to West Virginia's New River.  Compared to today, there was a copious amount of planning for such a short bike trip, all of 300 miles.  And I was nervous; maybe nervous isn't the right word - anxious, aware, apprehensive excited...

As the weekend of the trip approached, the weather forecast looked bleak, and continued to deteriorate.  A cold front was coming through bringing rain and rain with some rain.  On the morning to depart, the weather radar painted a wide swath of green over much of the area.  Knowing I was deluding myself, I decided it looked like it wasn't too bad and would probably clear up sooner than meteorologists were predicting.
The T-Sport was a great bike, but the bags were only slightly weather resistant, and the T-Bag I used on the luggage rack didn't even pretend to keep water out.  While we had motorcycle rain gear, our overall preparedness for heavy weather was lacking.
Still, reality be damned, off we went.

We left in light rain and got around the first big city.  Exiting the interstate, the rain picked up quickly.  After an hour or so of riding in heavy rain, I was tense; I had the death grip on the motorcycle's grips and my back muscles ached.
The rain continued.
By this point we were in rural Ohio, but every small town seemed like an obstacle course.  For all my planning, I didn't have clear-lens glasses and I couldn't see well with the dark clouds and obscuring water.  Cars and trucks threw huge volumes of water all over everything.  My boots were not waterproof and my feet were freezing.
The rain continued.
Water was ponding in the low lying areas and I wasn't sure how much was too much for my bike's tires.  I pulled over a few times to let cars pass, knowing I was going slower than many car drivers wanted to.  It was too wet to pull out my photocopied maps (this was pre-GPS), so I was unsure if I was even on the right road some of the time.
The rain continued.

Somewhere around the half way point, I pulled into a parking area at the Shawnee State Forest.  This was a largely unimproved area, but there was a very small shelter there - with several inches of water covering the paved floor.  I felt absolutely defeated; I wondered if I was not cut out for the adventure of touring on two wheels.  We were too far to turn around and go home, but I just couldn't imagine continuing on through the relentless rain to the destination.
I noticed something under the water and pulled a large plug of leaves from a drain in the paved floor, water quickly started running down the drain, at least freeing us from standing in water.  If ever so slightly, our situation had improved.  Walking back to the bike and pulling out the damp maps, I made a plan:  Continue on across the Ohio River into West Virginia, find a hotel and get up early the next morning to get to the rafting camp.
Getting back on the bike was not an enticing option, but it was the only choice.
I didn't realize it at the time, but lessons were being learned about touring by motorcycle.
Be flexible.
Every piece of gear matters.
Be prepared to ride in ANY weather.

We continued on through the rain, and crossed the state line into West Virginia.  As we did so, something unexpectedly amazing happened.  The skies dramatically cleared to big puffy clouds and blue sky and it was much warmer.  Rather than stopping or staying on 2-lane roads, I took advantage of the break in the weather and jumped on the interstate, high-tailing it to the campground.
The weather remained blessedly good for the remainder of the day.  There were friends and beer waiting at the campground.  I think it rained again that night, but by that point I was drunk and in a relatively dry tent.

Rafting the next day was fun, although more fun in retrospect than it was at the time.  Our rafting guide nearly flipped us at the first big rapids and I got thrown from the boat.  I wasn't worried about drowning, but after getting back into the raft, I was terrified of something happening that would prevent a safe return home on two wheels.  If I had gotten twisted up on a rock and suffered even a mild sprained ankle, getting both myself and the bike home could become a near impossibility.

Leaving early the next morning, it was cold.  It was cold, cold.  And SO didn't have cold weather gloves.  We ended up stopping at a gas station convenience store and purchasing leather work gloves, which worked for the trip home ... sort of.  We occasionally look back and laugh about those grey work gloves.
Despite the cold, the trip home was wonderful and began to cement my love of motorcycle touring.  Clear skies and riding through some of the most wonderful early summer scenery on little-traveled rural roads was amazing.  At some point I realized that the trip home was all the more extraordinary because of the difficult trip into West Virginia two days previous.

Later that summer, we took another motorcycle trip - this one a multi-day trip through several states.  It was also during a very wet period, but we were slightly better prepared, thanks to lessons during our first trip to West Virginia.

I didn't realize it at the time, but that much rain has actually been rare in the many tens of thousands of miles traveled by motorcycle since.  There have been all-day rains and periods of torrentially bad weather, but a steady improvement in gear and abilities makes inclement weather more tolerable, sometimes even a fun interlude during a trip.

That first trip will always be special.  A trip of that length now would be done with very little planning.  But I miss the anxious excitement and nervous anticipation, paradoxically enjoying motorcycle touring more than ever.
I would never have believed during that first summer that a very wet one-day trip would eventually lead to adventures traveling through all 50 states.