Occupation of Independence

It was a rough night. Once again I fell asleep to a DVD movie, Roman Polanski's MacBeth . No director understands cold rain, mud, and peasant agriculture as well as Polanski, perhaps because of his early life in Poland. Watching this movie is a great thing to do when you want to glory in the misery of unpleasant weather. Around 1 in the morning I awoke to find the electricity off in the RV. I was curious, so I walked out to the edge of the rocky shelf that serves as a driveway here and saw -- not just another hateful night of cold, stygian rain and gloom -- but the entire town of Ouray CO pitch black. Another Colorado summer: Out, out, brief candle. Against this visual emptiness, the noise from the Uncompahgre River stood out alarmingly, enraged as it was by a night's rain. The movie overwhelms the viewer with oppressive rain, mud, and cold. Remember that special efforts were required in that pre-CGI era to make rain register on a movie screen. Just before MacBeth had his

My circa 2004 Toshiba laptop doesn't like to boot up on cold mornings, and I thought that was the problem today. But instead, it gave a message about a hard drive crash being imminent. I wonder if it meant it. I have mixed feelings about this. It's nice being the Second Chance Store for the surplus gadgets of an RV friend, and this laptop has been a winner. But I've been impatient waiting for the oldie to die so I could get something modern. Unless somebody knows of a stupendous deal, I will probably go with a 12 inch Asus mini-laptop, with an AMD E350 processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, 2 GB of RAM, $440. I couldn't care less about how big the hard drive is; in fact, I wish it didn't have one. The 12 inch size should be just perfect for easy reading plus portability; after all, I will need to cart it into a wi-fi spot on occasion, and I hate dragging in a larger laptop since they're like a patio flagstone. I wish that the gadget write-ups mentioned how man

This driveway in Ouray CO is crawling with milkweed tussock caterpillars. Earlier I tried to photograph how "punk" they look. Today I followed it around for a couple minutes and photographed it showing off its technical climbing skills. And this little bugger was fast! He seemed so intelligent: he'd look (?) at one angle of attack, feint towards it, and then change his mind to an alternative route. I won't be here in winter when the ice climbers show off their death-defying skills in the Uncompahgre gorge, so this caterpillar will have to serve as substitute.

In their heart's heart, don't most professional travelers know they are spoiled brats? The idea used to gnaw away at me, quietly and in the background. In the real world there are many things about the job, family, weather, etc., that people wish were better; but they're not , and an individual is usually powerless to change them, at least in the short term. All he can do is try to keep them from bothering him by using some mental discipline and creativity. Most adults accept platitudes like this, but practicing them isn't so easy. For instance I currently enjoy a rare driveway-sitting gig in a uniquely beautiful area, Ouray CO, while enjoying house amenities. Most travelers would consider themselves extremely lucky to have an opportunity like this. But the weather has turned against Ouray, for about ten days now. Remember that most people yearn all year for September and October, since autumn is usually the best time of the year. But this year, I'm missing it

There is supposed to be at least a grain of truth in old adages and proverbs. Take, as an example, 'Invent a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.' Sigh. I'm still waiting for Nike or some other big shoe company to beat a path to my door and offer a six-figure buy-out for my invention of the ultimate bicycle footwear . Cycling footwear is better at its job than hiking footwear. You'd think it would be just the opposite, since feet are far more likely to be problems for hikers than for cyclists. (A certain blogger claims that the weak link is about halfway down the body, for cyclists.) But since the situation is upside down, perhaps the hiking footwear industry could learn something from the cycling footwear industry. For instance look at these upscale cycling shoes carefully: We can laugh off the toeless innovation as being inappropriate to hiking. But look at the ratchet-strap. What a marvelous device for footwear: you could build shoes