Idea Man

First, I'd like to note that yesterday I had a great krokay game with Matt, Aaron, Keith, and BJ. Rosie and Tara came, but they couldn't stay, so it was just us guys. The game could've been better if I'd realized ahead of time that a 12-wicket game would take too long with 5 people. Note to self: only use the 12-wicket course for games with three people or under. Or with determined players. Even so, we all trekked into the woods and I set up the course just the way I always set it up on the hillside in Winton Woods. We played and talked, and let our various personalities resonate off each other like the ripples from five rocks dropped into a krokay pond. Keith kept the woods alive with BUP!!!s. He says he's going to get a third bunny, and name it Chester, or Mister Mellenkamp. Matt has been working diligently at the theater or at college. Aaron's parents keep him busy, but this summer he's making money from that too. BJ says he plans to stick around in Boston when he graduates from college there, because so much more happens there. Remember, by the way, that Matt took Aaron and me to see The Dark Knight on the day it opened. I think I've got myself pretty well situated as friends go, you know?
-Aaron, Keith, and I had some Skyline afterwards. Keith said: "Oh, so I guess you want to go to college and make something of yourself. Loser." It was funnier then, and we decided I should write it somewhere. I'm going to hang out with both of them more this summer. Especially because Aaron owes me $21.50.

-On a different note, Micah today got a treatment reminiscent of Rachael's treatment of Dave. He had a girlfriend, Chi-Chi (her real name is Ernestina, so who can blame her for going by a nickname?), who dumped him a few days ago. She also threw away about $75 worth of gifts he bought her, for no identified reason. That was bad enough, but today he found out that now she's decided to go out with Victor, his second-best friend. So Micah walked around steaming and cussing for a while earlier. I told him she's not the kind of person to get bent out of shape over, and that if she tries to get back together with him (as she frequently does, apparently), to tell her to forget it.

-Quick note, too: I went to the playground by the railroad today, and met a teen girl who had no idea what "wholesome" or "tension" meant. She accused me of being too smart.

-Now, on to my main topic, here. Since I got back from camp, I've been more interested in honing my primitive skills. I think camp acted as a catalyst in that respect. It got me to think, "I could live outside." So now my next step is figuring out the skills I need in order to do that. To that end, I'm going to seriously start beefing up my outdoor knowledge. I'll be reading books about edible plants and shelter and trapping and such, possibly finding back episodes of Survivorman, and trying to find someone more skilled who can mentor me on these things. Of course, all of this is just book learning if I don't put it into practice, so I'll also be spending a lot of time outside, finding these plants that I read about, constructing lean-tos, trying to train information out of animal tracks, and whatever else I need to do. I expect I'll spend many nights outside, especially once it gets a little cooler out. (However, on several occasions, the house has been hotter than the outdoors, so I don't really need to wait much.) Presumably, with the practice I put in and the learning I find, I'll be pretty proficient within not too long. I'm going to set goals for myself; the first one is to have killed and eaten my own small game by the end of the school year next year. I hope to have that one completed well ahead of schedule, so I can keep going pretty quick. After a long time of talking primitivist talk, I'm starting to put my words into action.
-What will this lead to? My hope is that I'll be good enough within a year, or at most two, to start living outside full-time. I don't pretend I'll have mastered everything within that timespan, but I should be able to survive. Once I accomplish that, I'll see what the college thinks about it if I live outside instead of in a dorm. You laugh, but I have to get good somehow, and it's not going to be through thinking about the outdoors while sitting on a dorm bed. I have no idea what Housing's reaction would be to such a proposal, though I was chatting with Ilan (memory jog) and he said that they would "definitely" let me do it senior year. I want to start junior year, and hone everything down. Then, for senior year, I'll see if I can get a group of other people who'd like to come out and try it too. That would make the experience at least twice as awesome, assuming some people actually decided to do it. If I name this endeavor, I'm thinking of GO, for Grinnell Outside. I have yet to come up with a location to stay, but there are a few parks. I'd have to get the permission of the park board.
-To you, I probably sound a bit crazy. That's all right with me, because I know I'm going to seem crazy to a lot of people when I embark on this plan. But, if I become knowledgeable and experienced enough, why not? If I don't, my skills will either never develop, or atrophy. Now here comes the fun part of this entry where I look even crazier. If I get a GO contingent with me, they would make great people to band together with if this Jason Godesky happens to be right.
-Yeah, I'm bringing back that old name. Now, I've gotten a little more discerning since I first read his Theses, and I've gotten more well-read. In fact, I read one of his major sources that he often cut and pasted from, Jared Diamond's Collapse. So, until I read his ideas again with a more critical eye than my reckless primito-optimism allowed me last time, I don't really know what I think are the odds of civilization collapsing. Jared Diamond thinks we'll probably pull through. But if the opposite is true, the handwriting certainly does seem to be on the wall. Our economy, basically, is slowing down. The sub-prime mortgage bubble already burst; now major banking corporations are starting to run into definite trouble, viz. Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. The government's response seems to be much as Godesky predicted. The price of food has started to rise in an attention-getting way, and so has the price of gas. Parallel to that, the American dollar has been getting slowly more and more worthless. This happened once before at the beginning of the Depression, but at that point there was still plenty of oil left, all of it easy for the taking. We're now very much getting into Peak Oil. The Depression era also didn't have to contend with climate change wiping out the occasional city and making crops harder to grow. These things already happening are another contributor to my determination to learn soon and quickly. Civilization may figure out a way to keep going, though it'll have to collaborate better with the planet in order to stay in business much longer (one of the central findings of Collapse). Or, it might implode. Whatever happens, I plan to be ready for it. And maybe even have a group of friends ready with me.

Let's pick up where I left off

It was like 3:30, and I needed to go to bed. But anyhow.
The boys' session ended on July 13th. I subbed in for a guy who was going to take a "convoy" (they call their buses that) down to Madison to drop off a bunch of kids. To get back to camp, I got a ride with a girl who was sent to tail the bus in a car. As we talked, we first learned that we're both from Cincinnati. Then we learned that she actually lives just down the street. Then we learned that she had a friend at Finneytown. And then I learned that her friend is Erin, which is freaky, because there's another girl working at camp who also knows Erin for completely different reasons (same Ultimate Frisbee team at college). The trip went smoothly, because we were practically old friends then. That night, we had the Staff Banquet. Good food. And then I had a day of downtime, off the clock, before I left.
-I got a minivan with some other Milwaukee-bound staffers (actually, they were headed farther via Milwaukee), to the Amtrak station. We sure cut the timing close. The train was scheduled to leave at 15:00, and we got there at... 15:06. And for some reason this one was on time. Damn it!
-Instead I took a series of Greyhounds that left at 20:10 and arrived at 10:00 the next day. That was much less fun than an Amtrak. I had transfers at several different unreasonable times of night.
-But I got home! Mom picked me up, and I told her all about camp. Then I got ready for the other half of my summer. I've got so many fun things I'm going to do. One is starting on Solvejg, my next font. I started that pretty quick after I got home, scanning it in that night. I started pushing pixels two nights ago, and I'm already done with ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST. Haven't worked on anything today yet. I'm also going to be working on my snake cage, and getting my driver's license. Dad took me out to a parking lot yesterday with his Mustang and I started working on my stick-shifting. With some advice from Ben (a fun and fascinating guy I walked to town with), I'm several times better than the last time I tried it. I can now get the car started pretty much every time I try, and my average keeps improving. I can get it moving and shifted while going uphill, and I can start the engine while rolling downhill by popping the clutch. I still have some practicing to do, but I have until August 8th, when my learner's permit expires.
-Furthermore, I'm getting in touch with friends. Keith came over yesterday, the first time I've seen him since graduation, and we swapped stories about our respective years. I showed him all the animals we've accumulated. (We have no bunny, unfortunately; while I was gone, someone left the basement door open and he left.) DUTCHESS! MOCHA! Those are Keith's bunnies. Dutchess is getting old, with cataracts and arthritis, but she's still hopping at age 8½. Mocha is about 5, and still cute too. I showed him our folder of notes that we passed all through senior year, and we just generally had fun.
-Last night, Matt, who works in a cinema, offered me a free ticket to see The Dark Knight. He actually gets four for each release, so we invited Aaron too. And we went to see it today. Micah tagged along to make a fourth. Firstly, it was a spectacular movie. Also, a Manito-wish girl was an extra in it, a cop, but I don't remember her name and I forgot to watch for her. I just enjoyed the movie. Afterwards, Matt had to work, but Aaron, Micah, and I had some Chick-fil-A and then some ice cream. That brings me to now. I intend to finish Solvejg's capitals today, and maybe buy some CDs online. Ta-da, you're all up to speed!

Feds: "Masterson Blog Left in Lurch"

I've been busy, what can I say? I was on trail a lot more after that last post. I ended up with a total of six trips in this whole season: my training trip, two 5-day trips, a 3-day, a 4-day, and another 5-day. That totaled 25 days (the last two overlapped - it was a turn-and-burn). And I had tons of fun. There were just a few things that could make it more fun. One is of course if there weren't a "shoes every waking hour" policy. I mean, they could requires shoes in specific conditions, but instead they just go for zero tolerance. Shoes on even on the softest ground. Yes, I will stop grinding this ax for you guys, but it still did detract from my experience. Another thing is one that they couldn't really do. It's that I'd have liked some time just camping, not having to paddle several miles every day. I'm not too worried about it, though; I got a lot of upper-body exercise. Toward the last trips, I had carried so many canoes that they started to feel light. It was weird. I like being in good shape. The kids were mostly no trouble; they all seemed pretty happy to be on trail, and liked helping out for the most part. One kid talked about sex all the time, and that's about the most trouble we had. The counselors were mostly plenty of fun too. My favorite trip was my last one, with Tim as a counselor; we went swimming all the time, and one day a kid speared a crawdad with a stick, then another kid caught a bass with his fishing pole.
I'm interrupting myself here: I'm going to have to finish this blog post later because it's late and I'm getting tired, but I'll post what I've got here, since I've promised a few people I'd blog tonight.