Olympic panorama videos

Knowing that Google Assistant is fickle about making panoramas, I took videos as a backup plan.

Olympic National Park

Thursday, April 28th
Olympic National Park

Top of Hurricane Hill

This place is sweet. I'm too tired to write much, so I'm gonna throw a bunch of pictures and embedded audios at ya.

Hurricane Ridge was closed today.

View from Hurricane Hill

Travel journals

Wednesday, April 27th
Ellensberg,WA to Sequim, WA

sunset in Shelton, WA north of Olympia

Drove all day today. I'm so excited to be outside Olympic National Park. I'm just tired. Been sleeping at 3 am and waking around 9 am for the past four days. I'm cranky and hangry and tiredgry. At least the morning is cloudy so I didn't wake up in a steam box.

Woke up in some Walmart in Covington, WA outside Tacoma - closest one I could find after traveling through Snoqualmie Pass through the mountains the night before. But I parked too close to the store and every fucking deadbeat who parked next to me in the morning had to rev his engine to 500000 rpm before backing out of the lot.

Washington state is kinduva pain in the ass. High sales and restaurant tax (~ 9%). Congested roads and population. Stuff seems planned to in a crappy way that makes your life inconvenient.

Travel journals

Tuesday, April 26th.
Ellensberg, WA

Scenic overlook of the Columbia River
Grant County, WA

Some aspiring censor from middle school didn't want you to find out how long ago geology existed.

0 million years ago
[in] an area of 00,000 square miles [there was an]
outpouring of lava about _ million years ago

A sweet-looking Doge
In a parked car outside a restaurant.

I have a hunch that the dog's owner looks EXACTLY like his dog.

Travel journals

Sunday to Monday, April 24th to 25th.
Spokane, WA.

Pedestrian bridge connecting universities in Spokane

Bone shark

Shark Ride On
$8.88

I would totally ride on that thing.

Whitworth University

Small religious school north of the Spokane River. I snuck into the gym lockers for a free shower.

Happy faces

The Road

A comparison of coast-to-coast cycling routes

Friends for Phinney

Parkinson's Disease fundraiser.

http://friendsforphinney.org/bike-route/

This looks do-able. From a purely athletic perspective it is very ideal. Not too far south where it's deadly hot, not too many mountains or deserts.

It just feels boring though. 42 days going 90 miles per day over the flat terrain of the Midwest. Not really the journey I'm looking for.

How to put pictures side by side in Blogger

The Easy Way

0. a) Switch to HTML mode on the top toolbar.

b) then add pictures by clicking that 'insert picture' icon on the top toolbar.

c) select multiple pictures then 'Add Selected'.

 Blogger will put them side by side by default.



If you want the pictures to show up centered on the page, add a <div align="center"> ... </div> tag around that section of code.

Like this:

<div align="center">
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDtTRIJ8VVPtc3TOAx2i-kuM2NDt7Mextj0TInfpoNiS94O74h7Nz03CO5l_JfhiimBaQN12xxd-5qTp_hNpFEHGRHAUfurbYh-BZP4B14943aeoOhTNSku4PsU3YmFNNpGoOZxll2vTA/s320/20160421_194546.jpg" /></a>
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBuhu4NbdcQY3jyuvJECMIY6SwjV4CHp6sdPLdsFGloCCJq4BexiG-OfQTSbMXzl7oN4GSUneE9xAqkI6wZZhUwJwIrbPLW-aqA9KF20K1Yjmpaj9KBjVTulrq90JFm0QXG_zILquXcAI/s320/20160421_193830.jpg" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp3tTTNrBBVTWv4PHT-noqb-89TzWbZNEzJ8-aNqRWRtXySvqS1kgBNnVEsi3LDuD55zBR-4yJ82wo1PHWkLcvZzw7MFVBqAOCnCttrySNNBPjBC9QDVPGieIZk-1utG20eT9wnmw4JVU/s1600/20160421_193622.jpg">
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp3tTTNrBBVTWv4PHT-noqb-89TzWbZNEzJ8-aNqRWRtXySvqS1kgBNnVEsi3LDuD55zBR-4yJ82wo1PHWkLcvZzw7MFVBqAOCnCttrySNNBPjBC9QDVPGieIZk-1utG20eT9wnmw4JVU/s320/20160421_193622.jpg" /></a>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg05MnLUr7doO9ptv2G_77wD8uOdZsdtJu1slkKcVASjzFphASJf3XXJmxMABKeL2PMcmXUUy9YISYF4MJt9V4In-3EKlF-liTK_jO4sLtgRmJBlTedlutwFY1N3flLk-Ye4xXymTCJbMM/s1600/20160421_193441.jpg">
<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg05MnLUr7doO9ptv2G_77wD8uOdZsdtJu1slkKcVASjzFphASJf3XXJmxMABKeL2PMcmXUUy9YISYF4MJt9V4In-3EKlF-liTK_jO4sLtgRmJBlTedlutwFY1N3flLk-Ye4xXymTCJbMM/s320/20160421_193441.jpg" /></a>
</div>

Travel journals

Saturday, April 23rd
Coeur d'Alene, ID

North Idaho College
Lake Coeur d'Alene

Reading Notes

"The Cook and a Hole in the Sky"

Norman Maclean

"Being acquitted of killing a sheepherder in Montana isn't the same as being innocent."

"Life every now and then becomes literature - not for long, of course, but long enough to be what we best remember, and often enough so that what we eventually come to mean by life are those moments when life, instead of going sideways, backwards, forward, or nowhere at all, lines out straight, tense and inevitable, with a complication, climax, and, given some luck, a purgation, as if life had been made and not happened."

Non sequiturs

High standards for food hygiene

It's disconcerting to see that a buffet needed to tell customers not to grab food with their hands. And they needed to emphasize NOT to do it.

Please
Do NOT use
fingers!

LOL. "But I washed my hands after using the bathroom!! Aww, man... next time I'm not going to even bother."

National Poetry Month Winner

The public library in Missoula has poem dispenser in honor of National Poetry Month (the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land.) I love the concept!

But the poem it gave me was a dud. Gawd, I hate praise for contemporary writing that has nothing to say. All tacky bells and whistles disguised as literary culture. SAT analogy solution: This poem is to literature as  Taylor Swift  is to  music .

I coulda wrote this poem better in two lines:

I thought he loved me, but I was an idjit.
Sorry for wasting your time.

Here's my reaction to the Pulitzer Prize representative.

Travel journals

Thursday, April 20th.
Missoula, Montana

 University of Montana

'M' trail overlooking University of Montana

Itinerary:
 
Left Bozeman, MT heading toward Seattle, WA. Stopped over in Missoula, MT.

I passed by Butte, MT. I kept pronouncing it 'butt' in my head and giggling stupidly. It's correctly pronounced 'bewt', like 'beautiful'. For example, you can say, "That Butte is a beaut!"

Shaved my head in a rest area bathroom off the I-90 highway and washed my bust. Felt so good afterwards.

Impromptu hike

View of Missoula
from the summit of Mount Sentinel.
Such straight and planned streets!

Parked my car at UM, headed off to the library per usual. I looked up, there's a big mountainous hill buttressing the campus with skittles-clothed joggers and hikers ant-marching up a snaking trail.

'I'm so running up that thing,' I decided aloud. Re-boarded my vehicle, tossed all my clothes and bags in the back and changed equipment for a hike!

Reading Notes

The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence

China in the mid 1700s. Mid to Late Qing. Western trade pressure before the Opium War. (around page 120)

"Coolie laborers also began to take opium, either by smoking it or by licking tiny pellets of the drug, to overcome the drudgery and pain of hauling huge loads day after day. (Shrewd yet ruthless employers, observing that the coolies could carry heavier loads if they were under the influence of opium, even made the drug available to their workers.)"

Greed at its finest. Everyone else can go to hell if I stand to profit. Narrow sight. It was like the American slave owners feeding cocaine to the African slaves, then reversing their position when hey became fearful of slave violence.

"Why did the Chinese of the mid- and late Qing begin to smoke so much opium? Since there is no contemporary Chinese literature on this, we can only speculate; but we know that the taking of opium derivatives has the effect of slowing down and blurring the world around one, of making time stretch and fade, of shifting complex or painful realities to an apparently infinite distance. Chinese documents of the time suggest that opium appealed initially to groups confronting boredom or stress. Eunuchs caught in the ritualized web of court protocol smoked opium, as did some of the Manchu court officials, who often had sinecures of virtually pointless jobs in the palace bureaucracy. Women in wealthy households, deprived of the opportunities for education and forbidden to travel outside the walls of their homes, smoked opium. Secretaries in the harried magistrates' offices smoked, as did merchants preparing for business deals and students preparing for - and even taking - the state examinations. Soldiers on their way into combat against groups of rural rebels smoked."

Nothing has changed. The same niches in society still exist, and drugs still fill that void.

"In 1754, when an English sailor was killed by a Frenchman in Canton, Qing officials showed their determination to intervene in cases occurring within their jurisdiction even when no Chinese were involved. All trade with France was stopped until the French officers yielded up the killer. Ironically, the killer was shortly thereafter released because the emperor Qianlong, to celebrate the twentieth year of his reign and the Qing victories in the Zunghar wars, had ordered a general amnesty for all convicted criminals."

LOL. Squabbling over who makes the decisions, without caring about the outcome. You only want the ball because I have it. Oh yeah? Prove it. Here. Hey man, I don't want your stupid ball.

Quotable

"I think if we lose our imagination, the world becomes a dull and pointless place."

Tuesday, April 19th
Bozeman, MT

Imagination turns an existential calamity into a nonsensical wonderland. 

Cooper Park near Montana State University
Bozeman, Montana

Take this tree wart for example:

Cures hiccups

Or this magic fountain on the third floor of the library:

Recycled out of pennies thrown into other fountains

Or Ulix:

'Hewwo Jonathan'

*drools*

Yellowstone day 3 wildlife

Monday, April 18th

Itinerary: From Gardiner at north entrance east to Cooke city and back. Wildlife along the road.

buffaloooooooo (non-extinct version)

Yellowstone day 2 panoramas

Sunday, April 17th

Itinerary: West Yellowstone entrance east to Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, back to Steamboat Geyser, north to Mammoth Hot Springs.

Mammoth Hot Springs.

 

Yellowstone be rockrimmon'

Driving into Yellowstone National Park on Saturday, April 16th.

Hype.

Yellowstone - Hot Springs Dance

WARNING: Animated gifs ahead.
Prepare for slow downloads, high bandwidth/data usage
to be and making the dance.

Saturday, April 16th.
Yellowstone National Park

List of Yellowstone Geothermal Features, Wikipedia

I can't remember what/where these dancers are called. So, meh.

Upper Geyser Basin

Yellow dreams

One of his school classmates knew him - chum would be too strong a characterization of their relationship. This boy was not one to have friends.

The favorable acquaintance led me to him.

"you don't know my name, it's - the soccer boy who ..." he ran off, thoroughly abashed. He didn't say a name; he started a self-description.

His peer said, "aww, don't think less bout him. he is shy, but he really is a fine swimmer."

Monday morning, April 18th
Gardiner, Montana


Prelude

Had a rough night sleeping Saturday night in the town of West Yellowstone. Except for a gas station, and a few pubs the town was closed after 9 pm when I returned from the park.

Difficult to park somewhere and blend in. Harder still to get food, use the bathroom, and hook up to WiFi. I alternated between the Visitor Information parking lot and the McDonald's through the night. Sleeping three hour snatches here and there.

Nobody came to bother me, but I didn't want to give anyone reason to. I didn't pull into the McDonald's as the employees were driving home. And I didn't stick around in the morning when they arrived.

It was cold that night. 27 F. The hotels are all $100 a piece. I might've tried sitting in their lobby for a while, but... who walks into a hotel near Yellowstone at 2 am to work on their laptop?

Preparation

The next night, I resolved to use the bathrooms early and do nothing but sleep once I got into town. Sunday night, April 17th, north of the park in the town of Gardner. Found an inconspicuous spot on the street behind a line of parked cars.

I took Ulix down from his rear window perch to sleep on my armpit, but the street lamp glared at my face, so I put him back to block the light. Seems he was being useful up there after all. I was vigilant of every headlight that passed, but Ulix told me he'd keep lookout and not to worry, have a good rest. I listened to his advice and sure enough, the world outside passed the night by uneventfully. Slept 9 pm to 11 am.

Dreams

It was strange. I was tired but I didn't drowse. My body was heavy, but I didn't feel beat. Each moment of sleep passed by with neither gratification or discomfort. I felt detached from my condition, but not in an enlightened Daoist way.

It was just disinterest. Wanting the whole experience to pass. I think it was an overload of sensation and emotion over the past two days that hadn't been properly slept on, and it was too much unsorted data to feel one way or another about.

I did have several interesting and novel dreams over my 14 hour snooze. Here are the notes I remembered when I woke up.

Yellowstone - Day 1

Yellowstone National Park
Wyoming, Murica
Saturday, April 17th

Midway Geyser Basin

Dedication:

"I came along. I wrote a song for you. And all the things you do. And it was called yellow."
- Lyrical Genius.

When singing Coldplay, it's okay if you forget the words and make up your own. You might as well.

Itinerary

South on Grand Loop road from the west entrance to Old Faithful, with stops at geysers and hot springs areas along the way. The side road to Firehole was closed.

Nontravelling journal

Wednesday, April 13th
Rexburg, ID.

Brigham Young University - Idaho

Crossroads cafeteria at the Manwaring Center
Students here know how to play a good pian'er

I'm stopping in the town of Rexburg for a day at the BYU-I student center. Between here and the west entrance of Yellowstone is about an hour and a half drive. There's not much civilization in between, so I'm making camp here until Friday, the 15th when the park opens its west gate.

I was planning to see the Targhee national forest on Thursday, but they don't open up its roads for the spring until the 15th either. And It's set to rain on the 14th and 15th. We'll see. Maybe the weather won't clear up, but maybe a few extra days of rest will clear up my six-day throat cold.

A new concept of study?

There are rooms off a corridor labeled "Practice Room". I dungettit. At first I thought they might be for musicians, but they're just rooms with three chairs and a square table. I don't see how it could be used for anything other than studying.

Maybe they re-purposed the music building and didn't change the signs? Or perhaps is it some devotional buzzword to revolutionize the concept of studying?

Practice, for
Life
Liberty
Love of Country

Mixing work with play

Right next to the Practice corridor is the recreation lounge, with ping-pong, billiards, and table hockey. The loudest of the three, table hockey, is also the most popular. LOL. Hardly a cease in the action when I was practicing, from noon to 11 p.m. They also have a bowling alley on the same floor, but they restrained themselves from putting that next to the study rooms as well.

Travel journals

Tuesday, April 12th.
Rexburg, ID.

Brigham Young University - Idaho

This place is a religious private university. Kids are on semester break this week, so the library hours are atrociously short.

(Was supposed to be a swanky l'il panorama of the campus amphitheater
but Google Assistant was on vacation.)

The university uses students as janitors to clean glass along the stairwells and railings. Lots of regulations are posted - I think more to keep fermenting young men and women in a proper obedient mindset, than for sake of the rules themselves.

Bike parking needs a permit?
       No running for exercise on auditorium stairs? Who does that anyways?
             Gym shorts must be approved by the university store?