The Logronomicon

entropy

2004-09-26T06:19:45Z

I never thought I'd find such a concise explanation for why I have so few friends. Too bad the author is dead.

"You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they're not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict- and they call it growth. At the end there's nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been any entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment?"

I befriend people who show some kind of genuine honesty and self value. It's a rare color that shines bright and fades easily. I've seen it fade many times.

Here I've found someone who actually undersands why I feel an agony when I see a carefully chosen friend kill everything about them I value. It's worse than death, for at least in death I may meet them again in an afterlife. No, this is absolute death. Their soul has collapsed into a maleable mass of goo- unrecognizeable and unknowable. Self betrayal is the purest form of suicide.

turgon76 @ 2004-05-28T13:12:00

2004-05-28T20:39:16Z

If there's one thing about a job that ruffles my feathers, it's the notion of "professionalism". I'm not talking about the word's true meaning, mind you, what pisses me off is the corollary baggage placed on the word- that professionalism is more a facade of serious, boring sternness than the capacity for skillful and timely accomplishments. Honestly, how serious I act about something has nothing to do with how serious I _am_, and I'm irritated by some people's inability to recognize that concept.

So, while I'm on the job, I take every opportunity to lighten the mood. This week, when it was pointed out to me that my project's error page was too dull and vague, I presented this, which will probably get me in less trouble than last week's tetris easter egg.

Beware the evil red eye

2004-04-24T22:29:43Z

There is a certain intersection within the town of Issaquah that I feel compelled to warn the general public about. It is not particularly dangerous, nor is it in a bad part of town. Gather 'round and listen to my tale of woe.

I decided this morning to make my way to Fry's Electronics to pick up a spindle of DVD-Rs that will absolutely not be used to pirate DVDs *stuffs his parrot in a sack*. Little did I know that between me and Fry's lay a cosmic vertex of the forces of inefficiency- the stoplight at Front and Sunset. I stopped behind an SUV and peered up at the candy red light. There was no other traffic, and no pedestrians. I drummed my fingers against the car door. Still red. I fiddled with the radio. Still red. Ok then, I thought I might as well think about something besides getting where I want to be, and settled into pondering the layout of my next photoshop painting.

There I sat for hours uncounted, long enough for my perception of time to slow. The paths of the sun and moon began to whirl about in the sky. Leaves changed color. I watched my fingernails grow. Turning to the side, I saw a young boy age into an old man and crumble to dust. The trees began to petrify, glaciers advanced and receded, and mountains were heaved to the sky and worn into sand. I was not at all surprised to see that the squirrels had by now left the trees and evolved into intelligent bipeds. Still red. I then fell into a deep state of hibernation.

When I awoke I nearly jumped clean through my windshield. Had the light just now turned green?! Dear god yes! But it did me no good. You see, while I was sleeping the sun had reached the end of its supply of fuseable elements and blown itself and the earth to bits, leaving me, the bling bling luxury SUV, and my arch-nemesis, the stoplight of Front and Sunset floating in deep space atop a huge boulder. Furthermore, the lady in the SUV was too busy BLABBING AWAY ON HER GODDAMN CELL PHONE to notice the signal change. The light turned red again.

In space, no one hears your screams.

In other news, I watched five minutes of 2 Fast 2 Furious at a friend's house. I then dry-heaved and left. The crappiness of this movie places it far outside the descriptive powers of english vocabulary. Neither "rancid" nor "putrid" carry enough negative stigma, so I must now blaze new linguistic frontiers. F&F2, I dub thee "putrancid". Spell check, to hell with you.

As for news that matters? The contracting agency I work for managed to find my web page. Now they want to interview me and show some of my work in their next company newsletter, even after I told them I will not go professional for any price they're prepared to pay. Honestly I am hesitant to accept, since I'm not really interested in personal exposure. I paint pictures so that others might see the stories as vividly as I imagined them, and because it's just fun to do. I seek feedback so that I'll know whether the picture accomplished its purpose. I'm nearly indifferent to praise, and outright irritated by jealousy. The worst is when someone gets depressed. Yes, that's exactly why I spent so much time on the picture - so that when you look at it you'd feel like shit. I'd rather someone hate it than get like that. Anyway, before my rant gets too off topic, I'm going to do this if only for the fact that pictures are created to be seen. Otherwise they're like a tree falling on a bear in the woods when no one's there. Which is an aweful shame, because then nobody knows what flat bear sounds like.

turgon76 @ 2004-04-20T22:39:00

2004-04-21T05:58:58Z

This weekend's adventure took place in Mount Rainier National Park, where my friends and I have fought many a weekend war. Kelsey and Louie were along for this tour of duty. We collected our gear into the truck, the usual stuff- backpacks, cameras, rations, gaiters, some poles. The previous evening I'd packed my camelback full of chocolate covered peanut butter granola bars, which have the advantages of being both tasty and too heavy for looting birds to snatch. They're also a good security measure, as I doubt there's a carnivore in existence that would prefer human over chocolatey peanut butter. Mmmm...peanut butter.

We approached the mountain from the northwest, passing through Wilkeson and Carbonado. Travel by internal combustion was a new concept to the locals, as was clothing, personal hygene, and their newly developed practice of speech. Ok, maybe Wilkeson wasn't that primitive, but I reserve the right to roll up my windows when driving through any town containing more area of cemetery than actual town. I noted the second largest feature of Wilkeson was its saloon.

A sneeze mercifully prevented me from noticing Carbonado.

Arrival at the national park cannot go unnoticed. After winding through countless miles of the lunar landscape of Weyerhauser's butchery, we found the road suddenly entombed in curtains of moss and trees of larger girth than mankind's mightiest burrito. A small ranger station of logs greeted us at the entrance, and from then on we bounced and rolled up a dirt road in varying states of disrepair. Green, green everywhere. I hadn't seen as much green since my parents renovated their '70s shag carpetry. The moss blankets tree, stump, and earth in mounds of vivid emerald fluff that might have looked inviting if I wasn't aware of its crawly inhabitants.

Kelsey's truck lurched to a stop. We'd arrived at the trailhead.

We trudged up a fairly steep incline, shivering in the morning cold until the climbing effort took effect. I didn't see anything remarkable about this trail until I noticed the number of large firs. While other trails might have a handful per mile, here there were dozens within sight, all of them around eight feet wide and 250+ feet tall. This had been a sheltered area for a very long time. The trail was mostly clear, though in one spot I took it upon myself to toss some wind fallen debris out of the way.

An offshoot of the trail led to Ranger Falls. Not the biggest waterfall I've seen but still impressive when you're up close. The picture doesn't do it justice. Here I wrestled with my collapseable tripod a while, gave up, and steadied my camera against a much friendlier tree instead. Two granola bars were eaten.

Clouds were brewing when we arrived at the lake, an undisturbed sheet of blue green glass bordered by criscrossing snags. The lure of a blank canvas was too much for all of us to resist, and it was only a matter of seconds before a rock was thrown, followed by circular waves slowly radiating out to the shores. Here the trail ended in a clearing of mud and sand, the kind of place where frequent hikers of this easy trail ate frequent lunches. Bluejays and several camp robbers kept what appeared to be permanent begging posts.

Itching to go further, we left the clearing and walked westward near the lake edge. We inched carefully across some slippery logs over a slow moving creek, and afterward found ourselves battling brush, soft snow pack, and the dreaded devil's club (try to imagine a plant designed solely for inflicting human misery). A half hour later we returned to the trailhead defeated, soaking, and filthy. Adding insult to injury, we found that a relatively easy eastern route had already been blazed where no devil's club grew.

This eastern path around the lake was not without its share of problems. The hillside rose steeply out of the water such that any fallen trees blocking the small trail sloped sharply into the lake, and sat at a height that was as awkward to climb over as under. As I scrambled over these slippery logs I imagined more than once my taking a quick ride into a 33 degree lake, hindered only by a few nad pulverizing knots.

The valley above the lake held very little worth mentioning, aside from a noble fir that must be close to the world's largest. It was at least as large as the Ipsut Creek Colossus (don't blame me, I didn't name it) and looked much healthier. We paused atop a boulder for lunch, munching and glancing here and there at the scenery. Five more granola bars were eaten. Louie ate his typical PB&J and Kelsey chugged Mentos and rice cakes before finally revealing his mystery food item of the day- Pixie Stix, the true breakfast of champions. Perhaps modern science will someday discover the health benefits of the mento/rice cake/pixie stick lunch, or perhaps the bad candy particles annihilate the good healthfood particles in an energy releasing stomach reaction. He certainly seemed no worse for wear the rest of the day.

The hike back to the truck was not eventful, but if you insist the details they can be had by speaking the entire contents of this journal entry backwards. Any hidden satanic messages are purely coinsidental.

All in all, this hike was a satisfying trek, if pathetically easy at a mere five miles round trip. Whenever I see several of Pierce County's portlier residents waddling along a trail I can't help but feel like I'm aiming low. I didn't even get any blisters. Take it from me, if you can't handle this trail you need to put down the remote. And then lift it. And then put it down. And then lift it again...

And then put it down.

Next weekend I have absolutely no idea what I'll be doing. But this I am sure of- I will not be at work, I will NOT be in Wilkeson, and I will have a new box of chocolate peanut butter granola bars. Maybe two.