Tuckered Out

God's Thumbprint

Turn right at the post office (pictured here) and meander down the road towards the AT trailhead at Burkes Garden. Roughly 3.5 mi and one Garden Mountain later you'll arrive at Chestnut Ridge Shelter (pictured). Grassy meadows grace the ridge line on top of Garden Mt. and this weekend it displayed its true beauty - blooming wildflowers and dancing butterflies swayed in the summer breeze. It was hard to leave, but the path lead onward to Lick Creek and up and over Lynn Camp Mountain (9 mi). A hardy thunder storm rolled in and created a lullaby for sleep, and in the morning the rain lingered up and over Brushy Mountain to signify 12.2 miles complete.

My car gauge read 64º F as I emerged from the woods and back out into the center of "God's Thumbprint," surrounded by gleaming green pastures and happy cows. It read 94º F as I pulled into Edmund St. and back to reality. An escape awaits just 250 miles northwest of Raleighwood.

Christmas in July

My mom is the best. I'd been drooling over two Timbuk2 bags: XS messenger|Nightbird and another stowaway for airplane travel|Checkpoint. yay!

Today I quit Facebook

Why? The same reason I quit MySpace, I have no self control. When it comes to tooling around in other people's lives from the safety of my personal computer and unfortunately to my employer's demise work computer, it's just too much fun for me to ignore. So I have to give it up, no once a day doses or even a weekly status update. After some contemplation I don't think that social networking is enriching my life. The internet - yes, access to people's vacation photos and wedding albums - no. Because if that's a vacation spot that I want to be at or a wedding I wasn't invited to, then the emotion that erupts is envy because of that damn photo album on facebook and I could honestly do without any unprovoked envy in my life. I've started to notice that I'm not actively listening to friends anymore either. Because they're telling me about a trip they've been on and I've already seen the photos on facebook and I'm too ashamed to say I saw the photos on facebook and I'm thinking about my shame and how they never reference the fact that they just posted 100 photos on facebook that they know I probably saw because I post on facebook everyday. Facebook is just weird and its presence in my life is really not adding any value except perhaps making me feel less alone because I can peer into the lives of others and benchmark my life against theirs - again, also not healthy for me.

I'm going to use my old facebook time to research postgraduate programs, trip travel deals around the globe, civic services, community events, landscape architecture so I can help my friend with his garden, border collies because I have one, register for races because I want to kick some ass in a triathlon. Maybe I'll even spend some of that extra time reading a book instead of scrolling through the past hour of status udpates so I can see who is eating a corndog and who is at the gym. Oh, and that's the other thing - I want to be more productive at work and facebook fucking distracts me too much (see lack of self-control top). Hopefully it will also force me to take my own pictures instead of being tagged by friends and foster more creativity b/c facebook kind of thinks for me when it come to publishing my thoughts/preferences/ideas.

I think I want a simpler life, a smaller group of people knowing my status, and want more of my day back then the numerous hours logged on the facebook. So I'll update this blog for those that care and I'll create a google profile so if any old friends from my past google my name they can contact me, but I'm going to give up facebook, it's just not good for me.