Blog

I haven’t posted out here in a while, so I figured this was as good a place as any to fill in my internet followers as to the happenings in my life…Most of the last few months have been occupied with backpacking, job hunting, playing with cute dogs, and trying to live life to the fullest. Some photos below to fill you in on my activities…

People in Washington love their pets…It’s rare to go on a hike and not find several people who’ve brought their furry friends along for the hike. The Australian Shepard on the left is named Nila and possesses the same level of energy you might find within a medium sized nuclear power plant. She is quite an entertaining dog to be around. The Shiba Inu on the right is named Maggie. As evident in the photo, she is basically a cat. Maggie is an experienced hiker and pulls at her lead to go up any new trail. Very pleasant beast to be be around. Nila and Maggie’s owners are very kind to let me monopolize their dog’s attention while I’m around.

My most recent adventure was a jaunt up to the city of Vancouver, BC. (Canada) After an extraordinarily thorough search and questioning process at the border by two (I suspect) bored Canadian border agents I stayed at the Samesun Hostel in downtown Vancouver. I visited Stanley Park, Lynn Creek, the Granville Neighborhood, and even took the “Sea-Bus” across Vancouver Harbor. Vancouver is a lovely city, I would absolutely go there again…I’d just dress a little differently at the border; apparently long hair, flannel, and minimal luggage gets you “special treatment” by Canadian customs. I’m not bitter, I promise I’m not bitter, definitely not bitter…..Fuckers. Some photos of the weekend below…More to come on the gram once I get Adobe sorted. (Adobe has now resorted to threatening me about licensing. I will not be cowed by their popups!)

I think the most important news is that as of today I’ve been an employee of Expedia Group for one week so far. I’m the Information Technology Real Estate Team’s newest Project Manager. It has definitely been a transition, going from 6 months of fun-employment to going to an office everyday. While I’ll miss the unscheduled brewery visits, midday runs, random photography sessions, and mid-week hikes; I’m glad to finally have found gainful employment. It was a long haul, and while I was never worried about finding work. It is nice to finally have something under the belt. Looking forward to digging in at this new job, finding new challenges, and all of the “growth opportunities” to come.

Cheers,

M

Am I getting better at these click-baity titles? If you agree…Close this page and open it again. Your web-traffic excites me…

After 10 years of working for the same employer back in MD it should come as no surprise to the reader that I’m having some re-entry issues. Not necessarily BAD issues, but certainly a continued series of learning experiences.

The origin of today’s click-bait was the result of a series of interactions at a job-fair hiring event in downtown Seattle, specifically in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. (The  location isn’t particularly relevant, I just want you to think I’m cool for namedropping neighborhood names.) This area is riddled with incubators, startups, and co-working spaces. The result of this is two-fold; One, there are lots of semi-employed/unemployed people wandering around. Two, the aforementioned startup/incubator/co-working spaces have a huge incentive for hosting after-hours events to capture customers, clients, and connections. The event in question is called “Tech Jobs Tour – Seattle”; it was essentially a giant networking even with a ring of recruiters for various companies around the far edges of the room. After getting off the bus I had wandered around a little aimlessly trying to find the building which wasn’t superbly well marked when I found it. (That was a test right?) Upon walking through the door, through some joking pleasantries with the security guard; I strode confidently into the room in my best “PNW Tech Worker” uniform (read: plaid) and was met immediately by something that could only illicit one possible (fully) vocalized response….”Jesus Fucking Christ”….

While  nothing truly disastrous lay before me, the room was packed beyond belief and the cacophony/din that I was met with at the door was almost overwhelming. Never the less I pressed on and wove my way through the crowd and found a comfortable spot to “hide” against one of the support columns in the room so I could do my initial assessment of how I was going  work the room. Time to activate extrovert mode…There was Shivam, the recent graduate with a BS in CS looking for software jobs/internships; Scott who just spent 5 years in school (Portland?) working on his PHd in engineering, but had recently decided he just wanted to do data-science; Will, who works at an incubator and was at this event doing “mentoring”; Julia (?) who moved from Russia a few years ago, has been to 48 of the 50 states, and is “so fucking tired of the bro-fest” at her visual arts job within a Redmond incubator.

At this point the noise in the room had risen to the point where the only effective method of communication was yelling at each other’s faces after moving into 2-3 feet of each other. After attempting to yell at an Amazon recruiter from across a table, I decided that I had had enough of that and wandered in search of a bourbon based elixir to sooth my overly exerted patience and extrovert muscles. Extricating myself from the noisy cave that was the room I wandered down the street inspecting the various intoxicant distribution facilities in the Pioneer Square neighborhood and eventually settled up to one called Damn the Weather. After being served an exorbitantly expensive and unsatisfactory manhattan I prepared myself to close my tab and find a way back to my home. Upon turning to get the waitress’s attention I noticed that the two people next to me had been in the Tech Tour space with me, I thought it interesting that they had bailed early too. While waiting for a convenient time to introduce myself, I ordered another drink.  Moments after the glass of Maker’s Mark had arrived I saw my opportunity and interjected myself in the conversation. They had also gotten tired of the noise levels; the conversation strayed to the raft of candidates/job seekers in the room. The overarching theme being that no one in that room had any or enough experience to fill any of the positions at the companies that were hiring. (Cue the silent alarm bells). “Oh really, that’s very unfortunate. Do you know what (X-Company) was looking for?” After some lighter topics filtered through the conversation I started to wind down and indicated that I was going to wander back over to the job fair and see if the crowd was better after some time had passed. One of the people I was talking to offered me a card on the way out and suggested I contact a specific individual at their consulting company. (Score!). Thanking them for the card I made my way out of the distilled elixir distribution establishment and headed back towards the job fair venue…Which was mostly unproductive otherwise for the remainder of the evening. The business card in my pocket was burning a hole into my attention span; I sent an email to the person on the card that night…

Today I have been connected with one of their recruiters with an internal referral. Good news for me, but is this how jobs are gotten in the real world? Drinking cocktails in sub-par-bars  in less than reputable neighborhoods and finding ways to interject yourself into the conversations of strangers? Ugh. I think the lesson from this is that unconventional methods often yield the best results. While applying for jobs directly is important, the value of networking/relationships is not to be forgotten or neglected.

A few days later I got another offer for a connection/job for the less glamorous, but much more immediately available job as a landscaper over in East-Side through the bartender at one of the local breweries. She was more enthusiastic about getting me the job than I was about doing it; but hey, take what you can get right?

Today (If I’m being real, this was a week ago) was a culmination of a multi-week search for the the ultimate sleeping platform. Everyone knows that you should spend good money on shoes and mattresses. You spend 8-10 hours a day in your shoes and (hopefully) 8 hours a day in a bed. Don’t cheap out, you’ll regret it.

Today’s yelderly (Yelling Elderly Person) rant brought to you by another yet another miraculous mattress purchasing experience. After five weeks on the road sleeping on hotel mattresses, thin sleeping pads, and even the ground itself. I was ready for a nice mattress again (and so was my yelderly back), unfortunately the only thing available to me when I arrived was a self-deflating (read: leakly). After a week or two of that I decided that it was time to go out and find a new mattress for myself. Where might you look for such a thing you ask? At the first place I visited (Mattress Discounter?) I managed to pick out literally (yes I’m using literally appropriately) the most expensive mattress in the building. Typical Mike. At the next place (Mattress Depot?) I had an older gentleman explain to me why my wife (…news to me…) would need a softer bed. Apparently women need to sleep on their sides because they need the soft bed to support their pregnant bellies, because apparently all women are pregnant; all the time. Charming fellow! The next mattress shop I visited was a fine location in the hipsteriest/yuppiest/hippie-dippiest neighborhood of all of Seattle. The majority of their products are organic, have ridiculous warranties, and are harvested from special latex trees in South East Asia. The cheapest tolerable mattress in the joint was just over TWO thousand dollars. Not that I’m a cheapskate…, but perhaps a little rich for my blood. I enjoyed having the salesman give me the full head-to-toe razzle-dazzle routine about how their mattresses were superior to the rest of the world. If I’m completely honest, none of their mattresses were all that comfortable. Oh well…

At this point I decided to revert to my tried and true method of mattress shopping. My recipe for success? Fire up Craigslist.org. Find the top five sketchiest looking ads for cheap mattresses. Email or text them all. I got several responses, but the one that tickled my fancy the most was the ad that texted me back that I’d have to “set up an appointment” to come to their warehouse. The plot thickens…We set up a time for me to come down the following day. This reminds me of the last time I bought a mattress where I ended up in the middle of the Pennsylvanian forest at a strange man’s house in the woods well outside cell phone coverage…Rolling down to the warehouse I sent a message to a friend letting them know where I was going and for how long I was going to be there for. The connotation being that if they didn’t hear from me in an hour or two, they should send the police after me and question the mattress salesman with the bloody hands first. The address led me to a run down 90’s vintage  office/warehouse park. Upon arriving and walking through a door unmarked other than an address number; I wandered through an abandoned office and into a warehouse stacked floor to ceiling with mattresses. Hark! Moment later I was greeted by a swarthy looking gentleman wearing a purple tracksuit. After a few minutes of back and forth, digging through piles of mattresses, lying on mattresses out in the middle of the street behind the warehouse; I selected a model that seemed to be cushy enough for my delicate sensitivities. The man in the tracksuit said he could have it delivered in an hour. (Instead of days or weeks from one of the storefront places). We shook on it, and I emerged from the warehouse unscathed.  Absent from this transaction was the anxious feeling I was left with after the Pennsylvanian forest nightmare mattresses deal. That (dealer?) salesman required cash up front before they would deliver the mattress which was another saga in itself. The purple track suited man in the bowels of Seattle assured me that I could give my money to the delivery man upon successful delivery of the mattress….I was written a receipt in chicken-scratch language on a slip of paper and sent on my way. The very-same mattress was delivered as promised a couple hours later. Another notch in the book for Craigslist…I do wonder though…Just how high did the mattresses bounce when they “fell” off the back of the truck…

Till Next Time…

The Scribner….Eagle….Person has landed… I arrived unscathed for the most part; there was a casualty en route, but I’ll get to that later. Settling into a comfortable leather chair with my feet up for a few days in Kitsap Count(r)y is the current plan for at least a few days. My view includes the Hood Canal, the Olympic mountain range, and plenty of tall, pointy, and  green pine/cedar trees…

While am still glad that I undertook this trip; I am glad that it’s over. 5 weeks of living of your car, sitting still for hours on end, sleeping in a different place almost every night, and endless hours of monotonous driving takes a toll on your patience.

Some Observations…

• Pace: I realized in the last week that throughout the duration of the trip I had felt pressured to not stay in one place to long. I’m not sure if this pressure came from a a perceived schedule, budget, or (most likely) my general restlessness. Overall I think it was instructive for me to see that happening and realize that it’s important to be mindful about when my need to move is forcing a decision or if I actually have a schedule to meet.
• Interactions: I realistically talked to dozens of people, but feel like I still didn’t talk to enough. Between people on trails, the occupants of campsites, hostels, hotels, restaurants, diners, bars, and breweries. I’m currently working on another post about this with more specifics.

The Casualty….Was my poor car. Somewhere in the middle of Kansas there was a large piece of aluminum scrap metal in the road. I attempted to swerve, but there was no missing it. I was honestly lucky that it didn’t take out a tire or electrics. Unfortunately it did take out a piece of my facia/bumper. I stopped at a local hardware store and applied a liberal amount of Gorilla glue, which seemed to hold until I reached Northern California. I’ll have to figure out what to do next…

Over the next week I’m going to spend as much time as possible writing down the stories and experiences from this trip while they’re still fresh in my memory. I honestly and truly wanted to write about them every day, but after hours of driving, or hiking, or just in general being run down….The last thing you feel like doing is spending hours editing photos and writing about them. This was my trip, my experience, my adventure; I wanted to do it my way and that included a reasonable amount of sleep.

Today….Yesterday? Whenever The 2nd….Started just like any day; waking up at 4AM thinking that you’re about to be mauled by a cougar, sprayed by a skunk, or attacked by a giant elk….The night before I’d taken refuge in a Marriot-esque hotel in Flagstaff, AZ..Seriously don’t remember the hotel, it was super modern and nice though. Unfortunately I needed to be back at the Grand Canyon’s Backcountry Office before 8AM to see if my lottery number (for backcountry camping) would be called. Fast-forwarding….It was. While waiting for the building to open there were a bunch of people hanging out outside waiting for lottery numbers, I mentioned to them that being in line didn’t matter, and that if they wanted camping spots for that night…They should have come the day before…They didn’t like that. Oops.

After I got my slot assigned for Angel’s Landing campground for the following evening, I went about being a tourist. I took the bus out to Hermit’s Point and hiked all 7-ish miles back go the main tourist area of the Grand Canyon Park. Realistically I got all of the pictures I could have ever needed of the Grand Canyon from this portion of the visit to the park, but fortunately for the reader, I’m a bit of a masochist…

The following morning  I hiked down into the Grand Canyon and through one of the more harrowing experiences on this trip and honestly of my life. It started on the evening of the 1st….After spend all afternoon and evening reorganizing and packing my hiking pack, I went to be with the expectation that the “rain” that was supposed to arrive early that afternoon that never arrived…..Wouldn’t show it’s ugly face.  This was a foolish assumption. Around 4AM I woke up to rustling noises outside the tent I was sleeping in on BLM Land…(I couldn’t hear or see anyone else in the vicinity) I thought it was a skunk, cougar, elk, antelope, alligator, griffin, or cerebus. You know…Normal forest creatures. Eventually I was woken around 4AM when the noises became un-ignorable….Moderately freaking out at this point because there was something brushing up against the tent, I considered my options. I could blip my car’s alarm…..Attempt to yell loudly enough to scare whatever it was off….Or lunge at it with the forest axe I had with me in the tent. Reasonable right? I thought so…After 20 minutes of mental jockeying…I decided to make my move….

I opened the tent door and discovered that mother nature had deposited two inches of snow on the surrounding earth in the wee hours of the morning…The noises I’d been hearing was the snow sliding off the tent periodically through the night….Jeez.

MOVING ON…..Woke up in the snow and packed up a soaking wet tent and slightly wet sleeping bag into my pack and made the 30 minute run into the park…All of the guides said to be on the trail by 6AM to be off by 10AM because of the potential for heat stroke, but I made a reasonably justified decision that in the middle of a blizzard I wouldn’t have to worry about heat stroke from the sun…I ended up making it to the parking lot by 9:30(ish) after doing some work online from the nearest town’s Starbucks. In the midst of the blizzard/white-out….We arrived on the park bus at the top of the South Kaibab Trail Head. It was snowing heavily…to the point that visibility may have only been  70 feet infront of me. Regardless…I, and the group who was coincidently with me from the backcountry center set out down the trail…

For the first hour and a half the visibility remained the same…Moderate-White-out conditions. I was grateful for my over preparation on snow gear and new Merrell boots…Eventually the snow conditions broke for about 30 to 45 minutes and the views were spectacular, you can see the transition in the photo series I should hopefully be posting soon. Unfortunately the calm didn’t last long, the sky opened up and began pouring rain and hail upon my head. I truly can’t think of a more unpleasant experience in my life.  This continued for a good while, eventually the hail let up, but the rain came and went as it sadistically pleased…Four and a half hours later….I arrived at the Canyon’s bottom still under the bridle of a heavy rain…Four and a half hours later…

After a few hours of on and off again rain…The skies opened up to a blue expanse that allowed me to dry my belongings on the camp table and backpack rack…This wasn’t a bad way to spend the evening, but good lord I wish I had brought a book.  By about 6PM I was bored out of my mind and as soon as it got dark I went to went to bed.

The immediate effect of going to bed that early; is that you’re up early….I woke around 4:30AM and began repacking my (now) dried out belongings. After a very humble breakfast of dried fruit and painstakingly prepared coffee. I set off for the South Rim at 6AM sharp, on the way down and on the way up there are numerous warnings about hiking to your ability, eating plenty of salty foods, and drinking lots of water. They are not kidding around….Atleast the views are worth it for the most part. My ascent time was 6 hours and 4 minutes which is moderately fast for most backpackers; certainly didn’t feel fast to me…It’s two days later and my legs still ache. Ooofa.

Total Distance Traveled: 16.5 Miles….Total Elevation Change: 9,040ft

Massive update!

So on the 19th (Day 10) I left Austin, TX, westward bound; I headed up over the hills and through the scrublands of west Texas. It’s an absolutely desolate place. Not aided by the fact that the endless barren fields and desert meant huge clouds of dust and sudden powerful gusts of wind. The objective for the day was San Angelo State Park in San Angelo, TX. After a paltry 200 miles and three and a half hours I arrived in town and not wanting to set up camp yet at the park I found the only open bar town, “The Penny Taphouse”. Does this blog have a theme yet…? At 3 in the afternoon the place a was empty except for one gentleman at the bar and the bartender. As it turns out the bartender was born and raised in Baltimore and had ended up in San Angelo for school. She liked the town enough that she decided to stay and co-owns this bar and another in town….What a small world. The other person in the bar was an Army Captain who was an EOD Training Specialist, he was waiting to catch his flight out of town to begin a year long deployment in Honduras. Very interesting guy, grew up in a small town in west-texas; his wife and children are going to live in Philadelphia with his wife’s parents while he’s on deployment. I think the starkest thing he said to me is how his perspective on the world has changed and how much Texas has changed since he grew up there. His over-arching comment was that he is continually surprised at how his higher education degree(s) have liberalized him AND the fact that whenever he visits home in Texas; just how much political ideologies have changed. “It seems like every time I come home, people are more and more accepting of change”. As I work backwards through these blogs, there are some other very interesting observations about Texas politics. After this gentleman left for his flight I ended up talking to four guys who came in after their respective shifts at the local hospital as HVAC mechanics. They had all worked construction jobs before their jobs at the hospital. Most of them had been there their entire lives, and had rarely left town. I asked them why they had decided to stay here and what their favorite thing about San Angelo. Two of them contemplated the question seriously and came back with essentially the same answer of; “Well….You’re born here and you just sort of wake up one day and realize you’re an old man.” Certainly food for thought. eventually checked out of the bar after a few hours. Camped in a lovely spot at San Angelo State Park for the night.

 

I’m writing this morning from Solid Grounds Coffee shop in Littleton, CO. Staying with an old college friend up the street in Englewood. Nothing super remarkable about the area, only that you can see the mountains from pretty much everywhere. Today is a major recovery day after 660 miles of driving from Alamogordo, NM, through Albuquerque, with a stop in Colorado Springs, on the way to Denver, CO on Saturday. I would have been a victim of road-daze had it not been for the endless parade of beautiful vistas on this drive. Took me roughly 10 hours to complete, and that didn’t include the stop outside of Albuquerque to see the Pueblo Petroglyphs. (Photos to come)

I had also elected to go snowboarding for the first time in roughly two years at LoveLand Ski Park about an hour outside of Denver proper. I think I’ve finally killed my desire to snowboard, I haven’t felt this beat-up since…I can’t remember when. They had several runs closed that would have been appropriate for my skill level, ended up going down blues (medium difficulty) and getting my butt kicked. Knees, hip, and legs are disappointed in my decisions today. Ooof…Today’s plans include; complaining about sore muscles, catching up on writing, editing photos, lunch with an old friend, a trip to REI, and maybe a hike later with my host.

Wish me luck…

Today was a moderate speed-run from Kansas City, MO down to Oklahoma City, OK.

The day started with a run at 7:30AM with snow coming down, the wind gusting so hard I was getting blown around, and without windchill…It was 28 degrees. A little bit of a rough start to the morning because of the cold, but I managed to pack in 3 miles before I started losing feeling in various extremities…Made it out to a WWI memorial (cold), took a selfie, and made it home as fast as I possibly could. 

On my departure from the city I was struck with how beaten down and desolate the city looked. Even after living in Baltimore for nearly 10 years, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a city that looked so broken and abandoned. It was a little sad, but there do appear to be efforts to revive Kansas city. They just haven’t gotten around to the “knocking everything down” phase that Baltimore is now engaging in. There also appear to be a number of the “Seattle” style apartment buildings going up in other parts of down, but the picture below don’t do justice to the endless blocks of abandoned homes/structures. Very eye opening; not sure you could have found a better example of a rust-belt  town crumbling to bits as a result of changing economic times. Very sad.

I also stopped at the Truman Presidential Library before leaving Kansas City. He was an interesting man and an effective leader who was thrust into inconceivable circumstances by history. His Presidency was defined by the decisions of his predecessor (FDR) and the beginning of the Cold War. I made it to Oklahoma City around 7:30 PM, stayed in a “Best Western Plus”

The night ended a small taphouse downtown in the “Bricktown” neighborhood. Enjoyable dinner, some good local beers. Boy-oh-boy was I tired, slept well that night.

Well over a week behind now….Oops…Onto the next one!

I promise I’m trying to get this blog back up to speed. Just having too much fun I guess….I left family in St. Louis on Saturday morning, it was really a good experience connecting with family I hadn’t seen in years and getting to know them better. There is value in having others to commiserate about family dynamics with; positive or negative.

I wound up downtown at the City Museum, perhaps one of the most fantastical places I’ve been in years. It was wildly crowded with overly exuberant children, and I honestly can’t blame them. Even at 28 the place put a huge smile on my face. I haven’t encountered many places that make your imagination soar in the same way. From a five story tall spiral slide,  multiple jet airplanes suspended in the air, and metal tunnels to crawl through….It’s hard to describe, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. The basic premise of City Museum was to preserve some of the architectural landmarks of St. Louis for posterity and over the years it’s evolved into a playground for adults and children alike.

This was followed up by an obligatory visit to the Annheuser-Busch plant in St. Louis. Excellent visit, only had to drink a small glass of Bud Light. They had Goose Island on tap in the tasting room. I survived…Had a quick lunch at an excellent BBQ place across the street. Little joint across the street from the brewery house in an old police station really hit the spot. Staff was friendly and food was good. If you’re ever in St. Louis, check out the Capitalist Pig.

 

 

 

 

 

After the brewery it was time to hit the road. I made it to Kansas City, M.O. by about 7 PM. I was lucky enough to procure the last bed in the only hostel in KC. Honeycomb Hostel. This is where it gets interesting. While reading the reviews of this place online (on the way there) there was a review that accused the place of being a human trafficking depot, at this point in the evening it was my only option. So onwards we go. Short version of the story, I asked the owner Elsa about the review and she freaked out. Apparently she’s been hosting some students from the Philippines for a couple months now and this person(online reviewer) was annoyed that there were young people present in the hostel.  I’d only been there an hour at this point.

One of the other guests (Dave?) was extraordinarily friendly, which is fine. He was apparently in town for “business” which turned into him launching into a full blooded sales pitch about how his business makes people feel, and how great his company is, and how it helps people! Notice he hasn’t said what it is yet…Eventually this discussion moves to the dining room where the hostel’s owner is and he launches in on the same sales pitch to her and she calls him out hard and he starts showing her the “product”. Oh if you could only feel the awkward tension in the room…There were seven people in that room and I’m certain he was the only one who didn’t know that he was  at the very least part of a poorly designed MLM company and at the worst a Ponzi Scheme style “travel deals club” organization. (worldventures.com, dreamtrips.com)  It was a little depressing. He was showing us videos of the “Quarterly Marketing Event” he was attending in KC, it wreaked of every MLM organizations “pump-up” event I’ve ever seen. Eventually he grew tired of the hostel owner telling him to “Stop trying to sell me this obvious shit“; proceeded to have a massive meltdown in the living room of the hostel. It was beautifully awkward. I felt a little sorry for him, but not enough to defuse the situation.

Later in the evening I made good friends with another guest at the hostel who was visiting the owner. She was a long distance runner (100 miler trail races), skydiver, triathlete, electrical engineer, and Phd candidate. I asked her when she slept and she very seriously said that she doesn’t sleep. I made it until about 12:30 in the evening with the remaining hostelers before I crashed. Overall a very enjoyable crowd, glad I stopped in.

 

Day 6: 259.4 Miles

Trip Total: 1430.8 Miles,

Unfortunately this is being posted a few days behind. I suspect there will be a time delay on most of these post. Oooops..

Today’s run was 289.8 miles. Roughly 7.5% of my journey…Ooof. I am reminded by my body that I have had numerous back problems and they’re always happyto come back if I let them. Time will have to be made to get out and stretch on this journey.

 

 

 

My driving today ended in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at the home of my Great Aunt Suz. (Pictured Below) In my 28 years I’m not sure that I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet her.

(Edit: We actually met 10 years ago.) We had much to discuss and to no surprise most of it centered around the Scribner Family and the history thereof. We are definitely related. Unfortunately I’m writing this three days after the fact, so I’m going to try and cut it short this time and catch up on the last two days before I get too behind on this thing.