Jan 23, 2005

she loves me, but doesn't know why

my wife had a concerned look on her face..

"you're doing what?"

"I'm going out to get bagels!!"

I was donning my gore-tex, assembling my gaitors and yaktrax onto my winter boots, velcroing this shut, velcroing that shut. Outside there was more than a foot of snow on the ground and 30mph winds with gusts to 50. it was 6:45am. And I had a huge smile on my face.

I was dissapointed, then, when the bagel shop that we love was closed. Bagel shops. closed on a sunday morning. there oughta be a law. unfazed, I walked in the other direction to see if the more-mediocre bagel shop was open. nope. longing for an excuse to be out in the storm, I started down main street towards the mexican food store so I could get tortillas. they were closed too.

i ended up getting bagels and coffee at dunkin donuts. oh well. it was fun, anyway.

last night at about 9pm I walked a mile to the suffern library, sat on the bench for ten minutes and then walked home. God I'm weird. But I manage to enjoy myself.

Jan 22, 2005

snowstorm update!!

the snow started here in suffern at about noon. 5 minutes after it started, it already covered the paved surfaces..

that was time for everyone to scurry inside.. me and my hakkapellittas went to the soon-to-be deserted stores. its nice to take care of some errands on the weekend without crowds.

babies r us was light. Campmor was about as busy as a weekday. CVS was a ghost town. a&p was a pretty empty, except for the lady in the mink coat who I had the unfortunate experience of being behind while in the checkout. she took 5 minutes to load her groceries from the counter to the cart- after they were bagged!! meanwhile, we couldn't start my groceries until she cleared the counter so 4 of us between others in line and the cashier watched her slowly and methodically taking one bag at a time, placing it in her cart, tying off the handles - all while talking on her cell phone. at one point she looked up, saw the cashier looking at her, and said, "is there something you need?" unbelievable.

by the way, why would you wear a mink coat to the supermarket? isn't that like wearing dress socks while mowing your lawn? is a mink coat even suitable for blizzard conditions? you have money; leave the dead animal at home and don your gore-tex, for pete's sake.

then i went to 7-11 and had a tasty beverage. its now 6pm, and there's probably about 6 inches of snow on the ground. I'm going to go for a walk later when the wind picks up - looking forward to some blizzard conditions.

snowstorm!

got a nice note yesterday:

Hi Steven,

This is Gene & Lillian Elliott, caretakers for the HP of MD. We have truly enjoyed reading your visit to this highpoint and the pictures that were posted to look at. What an incredible day you had with the rain and it looked like you had a wonderful time as you said inspite of it all. It has about 16 inches of snow now. We will be out tomorrow after another snowfall hopefully to check our certificates and all and see the cairn. Keep on having fun... tell your friend hello from us.


People sometimes give me funny looks when I tell them about this sill goal to get to the highest point in all 50 states. I can deal with funny looks.. others who share my goal are some of the friendliest people out there.

And just in case you haven't been keeping up, I'm now up to 17 highpoints! I should have 18. Damn Georgia took too much time.. project status here: http://www.turzman.com/projects/highpoints

I woke up this morning, opened the shades, and saw the beginnings of a bright orange sunrise. The sun was just below the horizon, and it was such a stunning sight. 5 minute later, the brilliant contrasts of orange had turned to flat gray - cuz starting in a couple of hours here, we're going to get our first true snowstorm of the winter! they're talkign about a foot or so of snow.. should be sweet. Only problem is that my gear is up at Killington, so I won't get to ski in it. No worries, I'm just glad the 60ยบ days are over.

Jan 3, 2005

someone dared me to post this

q. what has 300,000 legs and can't swim?
a. tsunami victims!