morvasaaty/AppalachianTrail-LD-Hikers-Blogs-and-Weather-20-years huggingface dataset:
Date: 2010-02-01
To: So much for my plans...
Miles today: 0.0

All of my great plans for staying in shape over the winter have pretty much turned to crap. I don¢t know how much of that has been due to the weather, how much to the pressures of work, and how much to my inherent laziness, but I am basically going nowhere fast. Instead of losing more weight, I¢m putting back on what I¢d managed to take off in the fall. Not good!Yesterday, despite the snow on the ground ¢ and in some ways because of it! ¢ I decided to put on my hiking boots and go far a walk. Normally, I¢d have put on my running shoes and gone for a ¢¦ well¢¦ a kind of a fast shuffle shall we say. But I figured wearing my boots would tell me how my feet are doing, especially that sort-of-missing toe on my left foot. So off I went about 4 pm, with the sun beginning to set in the western sky and the temperatures dropping towards 20 degrees. At first, I was glad I had on my new down jacket. It is REALLY nice when it comes to keeping me warm. The only other thing I had on was a single base layer. Before my first mile was up, however, I had to unzip the jacket. It stayed that way to the end, too. I¢m pretty sure now that it will keep me nice and toasty warm ¢ whatever the temperatures may be while I¢m in camp. I just can¢t plan to wear it at all when I¢m hiking.   I didn¢t try to go fast, and I wasn¢t carrying any weight, but it was actually pretty good exercise. I did my usual five miles, and felt great afterwards. What really pleased me was how comfortable my feet felt the whole time I was out there. Snug as a bug in a rug ¢ or in liner socks and wool hiker socks, as the case may be. So that was encouraging.I couldn¢t help but think about Second Stage while I walked. She was planning to be hiking through the same stuff, only down near Springer Mountain. Originally, she was going to do the approach trail, but then she changed her mind. She was also going to start last Thursday, but changed her mind on that due to the same storm that dropped 8 inches of snow on me. This morning I checked to see if her journal had been updated. It wasn¢t, but then I checked her Guest Page and found the following entry:¢Tracking and data relay telemetry puts Second Stage docked at Hawk Mountain Shelter, 1630 hours. Second stage logistics. ¢ For those of you who may not be familiar with the AT in Georgia, Hawk Mountain Shelter is more than 7 miles north of the starting point on Springer Mountain. What that tells me is that she is off to a great start!   The first of the Tenners is on her way ¢ Go SS!
Date: 2010-02-03
To: Now where did I put my sunscreen? 
Miles today: 0.0

Last night I set my alarm for 4:00 am so that I would have time to shovel the driveway before I left for work this morning. Actually, make that SO THAT I COULD leave for work this morning. Last night¢s snowfall wasn¢t actually as bad as they were predicting, and once again it was pretty convenient ¢ waiting until the evening rush hour was mostly over. We got about three inches around my house, but it was a wet snow and it coated everything it touched.   The trees were gorgeous this morning when the sun came up: a real "winter wonderland" sort of look. I don¢t know if it has something to do with El Nino or global warming, or what, but this has been the snowiest winter we¢ve had in these parts in a lot of years.   And we are far from done ¢ especially if you believe in that stupid ground hog up in Pennsylvania, who allegedly saw his shadow yesterday. In fact, the weather channel says they are now tracking another storm system that is heading our way out of Texas, and due to start dumping MORE snow on us sometime Friday afternoon. It¢s too early for them to be precise, but indications are that it could be another big one. Traffic was light this morning, since most of the area schools are closed today, so that was good. I made it into the office earlier than usual. That was helpful, because this is my last day before I head off to the Middle East tomorrow evening. There are always so many loose ends to tie up before I go anywhere, so that¢s what I¢m doing today. When I¢m not thinking about the trail, and wondering how ol¢ SS is doing. It¢s now been a whole day, and she hasn¢t posted a thing. Not a thing! Hope she¢s OK¢¦Tonight I¢ll have to start thinking about what to pack for my trip. I just checked the weather in Sana¢a, and guess what! It¢s 75 degrees and sunny there!!! Oh, sure, there is that slight breeze blowing so, with the wind-chill and all it actually feels like only 73. Sniff.   Soooooo, Bermuda shorts (check), Swim suit (check), sun glasses (check) ¢¦ has anyone seen my sun-screen? Oh, right. Does this flak jacket make my butt look big?
Date: 2010-02-04
To: Some Mamby Pamby Excuses
Miles today: 0.0

Some days it¢s really hard to come up with a decent journal entry. Other days, it¢s impossible. Sorry about that!As I¢ve said before, I do these entries primarily for my own amusement. Sometimes I¢m able to come up with something that just strikes me as funny ¢ but not always. Other times, I may come up with an idea that seems to me to have real potential, but I just can¢t find the time develop it. Or, with the pressures of work (and life), I¢m not always sufficiently ¢inspired¢. And if that¢s the case, I¢d rather not produce crap just in order to be able to post something. That¢s going to get worse once I hit the trail. It¢s surprising how many things interfere with doing a decent journal entry once I start hiking. Sometimes it¢s the cold. It¢s not easy typing on my Pocketmail device with only the fingers of one hand, simply because it¢s too friggin¢ cold to have BOTH hands outside my sleeping bag at the same time. Other times, I¢m just too pooped to care. There are definitey going to be those kinds of days, and not just in the early parts of the journey, either, although they are more likely then. Or it may just be that I¢m having too good a time sitting around the campfire with my comrades, and by the time I crawl into my tent it¢s already way past my bedtime. I always promise myself I¢ll do better the next day, or that I¢ll catch up when I get to the next town where it will be more convenient for me to sit and write. Sure. Like that¢ll happen! Last year, I even lost about five journal entries when I somehow must have hit the delete button at the wrong time on my pocketmail device, and then had to try to reconstruct those journal entries from memory. You can imagine how well THAT went. And boy, did I ever hear about THAT from my editor. She wasn¢t at all sympathetic to my mamby pamby excuses. Not that I expected her to be, of course. I mean, if I didn¢t provide her with a certain number of cheap shot options, I don¢t know WHAT she¢d find to complain about. Anyway, I guess this is all just by way of forewarning you not to expect too much from me after I leave for Springer Mountain. In fact, you may not see all that many updates from me between now and then ¢ especially during the next two weeks while I¢m traveling. Unless, of course, things happen during my trip that strike me as funny. It could happen. Just don¢t count on it, OK?
Date: 2010-02-20
To: Giving up on a dream...
Miles today: 0.0

I¢ve been thinking ¢ rethinking, actually ¢ my interest in the Winter Olympics. In an earlier entry I discussed my chances for getting into the Games, possibly as a ¢luge¢ rider ¢ or ¢luger¢ as I guess they¢re called. Those plans are sort of on hold at the moment. You see, I had no idea of the actual speed those things reach on their way down the hill: over 90 miles an hour! Now that could be kind of exciting, I suppose, providing you manage to stay on the track. As we learned last week, however, LEAVING the track at that speed may have distinctly unfortunate consequences. Like, you could die, as the Georgian Luger regrettably discovered.It¢s not that I¢m a big chicken, you see. Ok, I guess I am, actually, but that¢s not my point. It¢s the inconsistency between my wanting to be in the Olympics and my desire to live to be 100 years old. I¢m just all over that consistency thing! It¢s the same reason I¢m not into sky-diving. My oldest son, Rich, used to do that. I admired his courage, and actually watched him do it once, but that was enough for me. I should perhaps note, just for the record, that I¢ve discovered another sport in the Winter Olympics to which I might reasonably aspire. At least it meets two of my criteria: ¢doable¢ for a shall-we-say ¢mature¢ athlete such as myself, and not too likely to get me killed. It¢s called ¢curling¢. Unfortunately, I find curling to be about as exciting as watching paint dry. Whenever it comes on, I immediately change the channel. Frankly, if that¢s my only remaining chance of getting into the Olympic Games, I¢m prepared to give up on that particular dream. I guess some things are just not meant to be. I¢m ok with that. Like I always say: ¢when one door closes, another one opens.¢ In fact, I¢ve already kind of got my eye on a more interesting sport ¢ this time one that I¢ve got some actual experience with.   Lots of experience, in fact. See, I¢ve been driving a car now for, oh, let¢s just say several years. And I¢m pretty good at it, if I do say so myself ¢ especially driving the ¢Capital Beltway¢ ¢ I-495 ¢ here in the Washington D.C. area. I¢d just have to learn to drive a bit faster, of course, and learn how to ¢draft¢. I have a fair amount of experience BEING drafted, thanks to drivers from the great state of Maryland, but I¢m not that good at it myself just yet. I¢d also need to find some sponsors, but I¢m thinking that shouldn¢t be too much of a problem. I figure my local medical community is the best place to start ¢ you know: Reston Dental Arts, Commonwealth Orthopedics, Lipitor, etc., etc., etc. NASCAR, here I come!
Date: 2010-02-22
To: Harbingers of Spring!
Miles today: 0.0

Yesterday was a bit of a milestone in these parts: we had 11 whole hours of daylight! We haven't seen the sun that long since last October 19. So that's one clear sign that spring must be on its way.Another is that it actually reached the 50 degree mark yesterday. The snow melt is continuing, and the I can actually see the ground in several places -- especially where it slopes toward the sun. I can also see more of the damage the heavy snow has done to some of the trees and shrubs in my yard, but that's just an inevitable part of nature. I won't have time to deal with those issues before I leave here -- in less than three weeks! -- but they'll keep. I figure I'll be back through these parts around Memorial Day weekend, and will take a few days off then to rest up and get things ready for the second half of the journey -- mail drops of maps and guide book pages, meds, etc. I'll tend to the landscaping then, and open up the pool if my wife hasn't gotten to it by then.Another sure sign of spring is that the local COSTCO has their spring and summer stuff out now. Lawn fertilizer, patio furniture and umbrellas -- that sort of stuff. Even better news comes from the hikers out on the trail at the moment -- Second Stage and Fahmah, for example. They are reporting that they can actually see the ground -- leaves and dirt -- on the southern slopes of the mountains. So its coming. Slowly but surely, its coming. And I'll be going. Soon. Soon. Not soon enought, but soon...
Date: 2010-02-23
To: Bugs!
Miles today: 0.0

Not bug bugs, computer bugs. Glitches. Glitches that affect my journaling. Harumph!It started last fall when I couldn't seem to log onto my pocketmail account. It said the service wasn't available. I emailed their service center and got this utterly stupid reply back from some clerk who advised me to continue using their service. I wrote back asking for a supervisor, as the clerk was blissfully ignorant of the fact that their North American service was not functioning. She informed me they'd had a problem with spammers jamming their site. After another exchange of emails in which I had to establish that I was who I said I was, I was provided access to a "secure site". That worked, so I figured I was good to go.Then last week, I tried to log onto my pocketmail account to respond to some of the really nice messages people have sent me in my guest book, but I couldn't seem to log on. "Page not available" was the error message. I tried again yesterday, several different ways, to get in, and again failed. I tried calling their North America phone number, got a recording which referred me to a voice mail account which informed me that the voice mail box was "full". So I sent another email to their service department. This morning I had a notice from MSN account that my email was not deliverable. They said they'd keep trying for another four days. Somehow I don't think that's going to solve the problem. So, what to do, what to do??? I need to see if their line that transmits email from the pockemail device still works, but I was dashing out of the house this morning and couldn't immediately put my hands on my device. Some of my gear is still a bit spread out in the basement, awaiting the time when I can get it all fully assembled, packed, and shipped of to my son in Atlanta. If pocketmail isn't available, I'm not sure what I'll do. I have a blackberry but I hate typing on it. Writing things out longhand won't work. If you think my spelling's bad, you should see my handwriting. I wouldn't subject ANYONE to having to decifer that, even Break-a-leg! Ok, so it's not exactly a major catastrophe.   Life as we know it in the Western World will probably go on. And I've got a couple of weeks to come up with a solution. 17 days to be exact! I just think they should either come up with a fix to their computer system, or at least do some kind of recorded message telling their customers what's up, and what the prospects are. I don't have a lot of use for stupid customer service departments. Harumph!
Date: 2010-02-26
To: ...combobulated
Miles today: 0.0

Believe it or not, I'm almost entirely ready to begin my hike. Last night I got essentially everything into my pack that needs to live there, in preparation for shipping it off to my son in Atlanta. The only thing not packed are my camera kit (I need to practice a bit more, and I want to take photos of my trip down), and my food bag -- which I'll pack a day or so before I leave and take with me on the plane. I've also organized a couple of mail drops, got all my various meds together (including some antibiotics -- just in case some small part of my anatomy like a toe decides to go and get hisself infected again this year), and set up the filing system for paying bills while I'm away. The only things left to do are to organize my maps and guidebook pages, and figure out what I'm going to be doing as a substitute for pocketmail in writing up my journal entries. I hope to get those things done this weekend. So, with all that preparation work done, I'm no longer feeling quite so discombobulated. In fact, things here in Washington are pretty much ready to go. Now if someone would just do something about all that weather they're having down there in the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina...
Date: 2010-03-01
To: Its a HIKE, Dear...
Miles today: 0.0

I read the Post every morning, and always in the same order -- The Front page and the first section, Murder and Mayhem (the "Metro" section), sports, and then style. I used to read the Business section last, just to get me psyched up to go to work, but then they went and changed that and included it in the first section -- which sort of pissed me off, but then newspapers are clearly a dying business, so I kind of figure it serves them right. I am a creature of habit. Don't mess with my way of doing things. But I digress...So anyway, now I read the style section last, and end up with the comics. There are still a few that tickle my fancy in the morning, and occasionally I get to laugh out loud at one of them. Often, it's one of the animal cartoons, like those involving cats, and I'll clip those and leave them on the counter for my wife to chuckle over. Our cat, Katie, doesn't seem to care, but then she doesn't seem to care about much anyway, except getting fed and getting petted, but that's another story.   This morning I laughed out loud at the Dennis the Menace cartoon. It's a two panel cartoon, with the first showing Mr. Wilson riding an exercise bike. The caption has Mr. Wilson saying: "Soon I'll look like I did when we got married!" The next panel shows Mrs. Wilson, and the caption reads: "It's a BIKE, Dear... Not a TIME MACHINE! HA!   HA! I gotta clip that one for the wife. So now, to relate that to my HIKE, I actually think of my journey as a kind of time machine. At a minimum, I figure that every day I spend hiking up and over mountains with a full pack adds AT LEAST another day to my life. Maybe more. In that sense, the hike doesn't COST me any time at all, and probably actually gains me some. More to the point, I figure that every 100 miles makes me FEEL at least a year younger than my chronological age, so I expect to finish at Katahdin feeling a good two decades younger than I feel now. That's how it was in '05, and I had a start on that feeling again last year. It doesn't necessarily last, of course, but the main problem is when I go back to work full time and get sucked into all those pressures, and don't get much exercise and don't eat like I should. After one of these hikes, I'm going to be actually fully retired, and THEN I won't do all that regressing. The AT Time Machine. Yep. Works for me! Oh, and it's now March 1, which means only 12 more days!
Date: 2010-03-05
To: Pocketmail is back up!
Miles today: 0.0

You'll never guess what I'm typing this entry on. My pocketmail composer! That's right, sports fans, pocketmail is back up. They CLAIM their unavailability was a server problem that their IT people were able to fix. Ok, how many of you believe THAT story? Anyone? Anyone? Ferris? No? Ok, that makes two of us. But Let's say I DID buy that story, ditch the new keyboard for my Blackberry, reconfigure my antique cel phone for data transfer, and set out for Springer with my composer. What's the worse that can happen? On day two, pocketmail goes down again, this time for good, right? Then I'd just record my entries on my composer and retype them when I get to town and find a computer, that's all. I was thinking of doing that anyway, especially if I couldn't find a way to download onto my Blackberry the software needed to get the keyboard to work. Those of you who have suffered through some of my previous rants against technology can probably guess why I am sceptical about my ability to get THAT to happen without a glitch. Also, if I go with my blackberry, there are some towns, like Hot Springs, where you can't get a cell phone signal. I can always get a landline for pocketmail, if it's working, or get to a computer to re-type from my composer, if not, so there's that. I also remember sending my cell phone home because I couldn't get a signal for much of the middle section of the trail, though I wonder if that may have improved since '05, or would be better if I switched from ATT to Verison. Decisions, decisions... For now, the plan is to go with my old cell phone and the pocketmail, and just see what happens. Now let's see if I can get this particular entry to go out. If you're reading it on this Friday morning, 8 days before I leave for the trail, it worked! Oh,yeah, one more thing. To recoup the costs of producing this thing from the trail, including the exorbitant salary of my corn-field-bound transcriber/ editor,I'm afraid I WILL need to begin charging a subscription fee. As soon as I can figure out how to link Paypal to my journal...   Anyone know how to do that? Anyone? Anyone? Ferris?
Date: 2010-03-06
To: About those paid subscriptions...
Miles today: 0.0

Ok, well, I don¢t seem to be able to link Paypall with my journal. (Bummer!)   But that¢s ok. I¢m a very trusting soul, you see, so we¢re gonna ¢ try this on the HONOR SYSTEM. It will be like those newsstands where the Operator is this blind guy. (Allegedly blind. I always wonder, you know?) And anyone who comes alone can take their newspaper from the shelf and then just drop the money in a cup, and go on their merry way. Of course, it¢s always a metal cup so the guy can hear the coins hit, and he probably knows from the sound which coins someone tossed in ¢ like if they were just pennies, rather than dimes and nickels, for example, he could probably tell that. Now, since I can¢t very well attach a real cup to my journal, tin or otherwise, we¢re going to need a different kind of system ¢ but the principle will be the same.   And we have Heartfire (or Fireheart, as I prefer to call her, especially if I¢m typing faster than my brain can keep up, which is most of the time), to thank for the idea behind this payment scheme. It¢s called ¢Payments-in-kind¢. It could also be called ¢Reciprocal Trail Magic¢. Here¢s how it will work:In exchange for the unmitigated joy, the sheer ecstasy, of reading my journal, each of you will find some way to do something nice ¢ for me OR, better yet, FOR ONE OF THE OTHER TENNERS. It could be to provide actual trail magic, like setting up a big tent in some desolate area where the AT crosses a mountain road, and serving freshly cooked cheeseburgers (or broiled lobsters if you¢re doing it in, like, Maine), along with hot pizza, cold beer and ice cream. That would be nice. REAL nice. OR, you could send a care package to one of the Tenners who has listed their mail drops, and include things like chocolate chip cookies, and fudge, and Easter Candy if it were in early April -- like a bunch of the Mom¢s did last year for the kids I was hiking with, especially those little marshmallow ¢peeps¢, and jelly beans and chocolate Easter Bunnies with the big ears that I like to eat first, but don¢t ask me why, I just do, etc. OR, you could go to one of our Trail Journal Guest Books and send us a message ¢ of hope, encouragement, good cheer, humor, prayers and other good thoughts, etc. Some days, those can mean more to us than cheeseburgers, pizza and beer. Well maybe not more than chocolate chip cookies, but close! Those messages remind us that we are not all alone out there. That people are traveling with us, even if only vicariously. And that they care about whether we make it all the way or not. (Of course, for some of them, that¢s mostly just so their morning ritual is not interfered with, but as long as they come through with the cheeseburgers or cookies, then I can live with that!)You see, the operative part of this Payment-in-kind scheme is not the ¢payment¢ part, or the ¢in¢ part, but the ¢kind¢ part. It will be like that sign-off slogan that a friend of mine has at the end of her emails and journal entries: ¢Human kind ¢ be both!¢   I always liked that. So ¢ deal?