25 Miles by Foot

Tomorrow, is the big day, the day the East Coast Gang is going to hike 25 miles along the canal, from New Brunswick to Princeton. That will be the longest hike I have ever taken in my life up to date. Challenges? Who knows. Weather will be good, trail is close to major roads, there'll be 9 of us; so nothing is really scary, unless some of the heaviest collapse and need somebody to haul them out. Let's see!

Disappointing Pictures

After getting back the pictures of our California trip, I got disappointed. There are numerous pictures displaying a weird drab color. Just when I wanted to blame the printing, some well-balanced-colored ones jumped out; that was humiliating. After some close examination, it turned out that the bad ones were all taken with a polarizer, and this becomes even more confusing.

I used the polarizer to cut down the bright sky, in the hope that the contrast between forground and distant snow peaks could also be reduced. That seemed a futile effort; the contrast was still so strong, while the whole picture showed a shift of color towards blue. Well, this is a perfect lesson showing the importance of testing out the equipment thoroughly while at home. To be fair to myself, I have used this filter while I was in Las Vegas, and didn't observe any color shift; but maybe that was because of the good weather? I have no idea.

In contrast, pictures from my tiny point and shoot digital camera turned out pretty good. That proves another lesson: the better equipment, the easier to get full control, and the easier to screw up.

Weekends

Just as I decided to try to restart journaling my life, I would as well start babbling about my weekends, which tend to be more eventful than weekdays; and as I spent most of my weekends with friends, the nature of those is much less private.

I believe weekends until 3/18 have been pretty well documented. From 3/18 till today, there are 5 weekends not counting the 3/18 one. How am I able to account for all these 5 weekends is anybody's guess ---- I can't. I can only say I had a haircut on some day, and a party on 4/15 for my assumed birthday, and probably last weekend.

Last weekend was a little bit hectic, but not too eventful. Good Buddy Yavi was finally convinced to change his Friday meeting into a phone conference, so that he could delay his trip to the rural area till Sunday night. On Saturday, when we got bored with the card game, we set off to the office to enjoy the snacks, drinks, and all sorts of gaming facilities. After a VERY HEAVY hot pot meal, the card games ran into late night.

On Sunday wife and I went to Bathlehem, PA for a farewell party to Idaho Zhao, who would leave for Boise, Idaho late this month to start her job at Micron. The barbecue was especially good, and other dishes did the same good job of stuffing me up to the neck; I was happy then.

Well as I drag on, another two weekends are accounted for. My visit to California was from 3/31 to 4/9, which pretty much covered 2 weekends. On 4/1 weekend we just spent some time in San Francisco, and met with Weird Name Guy, who this time claimed he was living on the Mars. Food there was pretty good, and the waiter was great fun. On 4/8 we took the day trip to Yosemite, and that was when I got the chance to drive on roads without speed limit.

As nice and easy as typing in here, I might need a private journal for some other stuff. Wife said she needed a access-restricted blog space, while I recommended pen and paper; that would never fail on me.

Diary

When wife was in China, I went through my old journal book, and wrote several posts about that. Last week, when wife wanted to know some details about an event, I just said "Check my journal yourself"; and that was the start.

Over these days, she has been studying it extensively, plucking out every details to prove that I am not treating her as affectionately as before. Whereas I never sensed that myself, it probably is true. After all, 7 years is a long long time.

Along the way, some tidbits of long lost memory have been picked up; that is the magic of Rotten Pen Tip. From between the lines, a happy aimless content soul was the one who wrote those text. As aimless as I was, it was a fine young life, which I don't have the luxury of claiming so any more. Although can't remember the details without the help of the jounal, I could still remember vividly the worriless years, like the faint remaining taste of wine on the back of my tongue.

Now that life is becoming a routine, in these 5 years there is much less to remember than the couple of years documented in my journal. Maybe, just maybe, I should pick up the pen and ink down whatever mundane life that is going on; and make that part of the routine itself. After all, it seems all famous people kept a journal, which sometimes made its way into a memoir.