Ryan's Journal

Six days until the start of the Galapagos trip. I was up until 1:30 AM the other night re-reading everything I wrote in Alaska, and I was reminded of how much beauty and peacefulness there was in that life. This trip to Ecuador is a chance to experience that feeling again, albeit briefly. I definitely can’t complain about the current way in which the days are going, but I must admit that the biggest sense of fulfillment after doing my job each day comes from knowing that I’ve earned several future days of that other life.

I just now made a discovery that has rocked many of the beliefs I’ve held since I was a child: it’s Dinty Moore Beef Stew. My joy at being MSN’s number two result for searches on this topic is shattered.

No real excitement lately — all of the TV shows have wrapped for the season so there are no more Gunther sightings to report, work moves along as always, and I’m counting down the remaining ten days until the trip to the Galapagos. The biggest event of the weekend probably occurred when I went through the site access logs and realized that my August journal is one of the top search results on MSN when searching for Ditty Moore Beef Stew.

At the gym tonight an insanely good-looking girl was on the treadmill next to me, but I didn’t make a move. My problem, as I realized after pondering Nat Friedman’s blog, is that I need a “Coalition of the Willing” to give these kinds of operations legitimacy. I’m already in discussions with Cameroon and Iceland — drop me a note if you want to become a member and I’ll be sure to list you among the allies should I see her again.

There isn’t much to write about at the moment, but the mind is sort of wandering… heard a song on the radio a while back with a chorus that struck me as being sound advice: “You’ve got to dance like nobody’s watching, sing like you don’t need the money, and love like you’ll never get hurt”… It’s an odd phenomenom that having advanced so much over the centuries, the idea of living in a cabin on a mountain is so appealing. I’ll read anything I can find about space, energy, engineering, and whatnot, but if I was completely cut off from the modern world I don’t think I’d really miss it… Sheryl Crow is probably not the most profound of songwriters, but the line “it’s not having what you want, but wanting what you’ve got” is one that’s worth giving some thought to… Creamer’s Refuge in Fairbanks should be filling up again with thousands upon thousands of geese and cranes. The thought of going for a run with the sound of cranes calling out before before spending the evening drinking hot chocolate and reading a book in the University Coffeehouse with some local musicians playing is a happy one — that was a good life to live, even if only briefly… Despite the somewhat down-tone of this entry, life is going very well right now. It may be human nature to focus on what could be better, but stepping back a bit to look at the bigger picture I can’t immediately think of anyone I’d want to trade places with.

Apologies for the site outage, someone decided to run a DOS attack that caused www.dyndns.org disappear, thereby making my site disappear as well.

About six months ago I was a few miles north of the Arctic Circle, camped off of the Dempster Highway with a view out over a huge valley, and with the Richardson Mountains as a backdrop. With temperatures dropping well below zero Fahrenheit I was at the mercy of the weather and while I did a ton of hiking, there were a lot of times where I was holed up in the Subaru trying very hard to keep warm. One of the songs that I listend to over and over again during that time was a folk song by Nancy Griffith. I added it to the playlist while I was running tonight, and suddenly I was back in the Arctic again — there wasn’t a war or a bad economy, there was just a valley spread out before me, filled with the meandering trails of wolves and foxes. Instead of running on a treadmill I was fighting the wind on those mountains, following the rolling hills and getting sidetracked by a flock of ptarmigan or the tracks of a caribou. I love the days now where I’m able to spend time with friends and family, but I also miss that other life tremendously.

At the risk of further annoying the Bush supporters who visit the site, I found the following comments from NPR’s “A Prarie Home Companion” amusing:

“The President was on television as well, reiterating the goals of the war, which is a good thing to do since they do keep changing…”

Another good one:

“You probably saw the videos of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down. Al Jazeera TV showed that as well, but they showed it backwards.”

[Ascend soap box]

The movie “Dave” was on TV tonight, and listening to Kevin Kline give a speech about creating jobs and instilling hope and pride in people provided quite a contrast to Bush’s speech today threatening Syria. Imagine the power for good you would have if you were President of this country — JFK decided to put a man on the moon, and because he was President the country followed him and less than ten years later Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Teddy Roosevelt believed in conservation, and before his term ended there were three new national parks, triple the amount of protected forests, fifty-one new wildlife refuges, and over a dozen new national monuments including the Grand Canyon. Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman believed that wars could be prevented by providing a forum for countries to discuss their differences, and the League of Nations and United Nations were created. The current President had an enormous opportunity after September 11th — even anti-American countries like Libya were suddenly sympathetic to the US, and the entire Arab world was for the first time asking us to sit down with them to discuss peace. The President chose to lead the country in a different direction, and I can’t help but feel that because of his decision we missed out on what could have been another great undertaking by one of America’s leaders.

[Descend soap box]

Stumbled on something while traveling memory lane tonight — some day my old co-worker, mentor, and cube-mate Steve Hood will visit this site, and he will be shocked to see the only known photographic proof of the existence of evil Steve. If only I could find a photo of Colonel Shandel on skis, a recording of Dave Baggeror talking about how his weekend was a “real wicked pissah” and a video of Brian Day peeling out in his twenty-five year old BMW then this site could be officially re-dubbed the Andersen Consulting Center for Strategic Technology Home Page.

If I owe you an e-mail or a phone call please be patient with me — I promise to sit down and catch up on correspondence by this weekend, but between working late and then hitting the gym I’m woefully short on free time. On a more positive note, if you haven’t written to me in a while and you can send something before this weekend then I can guarantee a fast reply 😉

There are probably some advantages to settling down and leading a stable life, but when considering the myriad options of things to do after Warner Brothers a “settled” life just doesn’t seem that appealing. I’ll let the wind blow me where it will, but the possible destinations as I see them are all good ones:

• Train for a marathon. Three months of training, focus and decent sleep would be sufficient to run a solid time for the twenty-six miles.
• Travel. Europe, Nepal, the Andes, Australia/New Zealand, and road trips in North America are places I’ve thought about, but anywhere is possible.
• Go back to work in technology. If the right job comes up I don’t think I’d have any qualms about taking it.
• Go to work in another field. A seasonal ranger job is looking mighty tempting.
• Do nothing but pursue hobbies. Take photos, work on some open-source projects, read, do some hiking. Can’t go wrong there.

The future is most definitely wide open and very promising.

Went home for the weekend and the usual shenanigans with my brother ensued. Today’s hangover wasn’t terrible, Jenn claims I wasn’t overly obnoxious last night, and I woke up without any tattoos, so all is well.

Other recent developments:

• Senior management has decreed that my position at Warner Brothers should be filled by a full-time employee rather than a contractor, and while I was tempted to take their offer I decided I like the free-wheeling life too much. As a result I’ll probably be embarking on a second retirement some time in July or August.
• I was up until 3:30 Friday night and spent another six or seven hours converting the server that runs this site from Windows 2000 to Linux. When I have time I’ll post my notes about this ordeal.
• I’ll be going to the Galapagos Islands in thirty-one days. After three years of trying to organize this trip my excitement level about it actually happening is reaching nearly unbearable levels.
• Jason pointed out a web log from Baghdad.
• And on a lighter note, Dave Barry pointed out an example of what a great tool the internet is for helping to simplify confusing subjects.

George Clooney was eating lunch a few tables down from me today, Clint Eastwood was supposedly roaming the other side of the lot, but sadly Gunther has disappeared.