New Camera

Last week I purchased the last bit of gear for my trip- a new camera. My ex got custody of the old camera in the breakup so I purchased this little diddy as a replacement. Originally I was just going to use my iphone to take pictures. Then it occured to me that if I'm going to the trouble of writing this blog to document my trip, I might as well proffer some half-decent photographs. I mean, who likes writing with no pictures??

On that note, here is what she looks like:



From now on, all pictures posted on here should be from that sexy little aperture.

Suturing a Wound O_O

So... in preparation for the backpacking portion, one of the things I wanted to make sure I knew was how treat and/or suture an open wound. Thankfully the US Army provides this awesome old school video. The techniques are more or less what would be used today, except that I would obviously be using just a standard needle and thread and some clean water. Caution: it's a dummy but still not for the squeamish.

ETA: Oh my! This video is really annoying when you can't get the autoplay to stop running! So, I'm replacing the embedded video with the following link: BAM!

The first thing I noticed about this video is the badass intro music. Is that Whitesnake? The US Army was pretty awesome in 1991. So anyway, let's hope I don't need to use this information. I imagine that hurts quite a bit.

ETA: Two Weeks

As of this afternoon there are officially two weeks until my flight departs for Madrid.

It was late last night when the first wave of true nerves/fear crept into my mind about this whole thing. Leaving my job, friends, family, New York, favorite bars, and heading out on my own into this crazy no-holds-barred adventure all came crashing into the forefront of my thoughts, culminating in a resounding "wtf have I done?!?"

It was the first true panic/second thoughts/doubting myself moment I've had since I committed to the whole idea. The moment shortly passed as do all such moments in the similar vein of a buyer's remorse. Nonetheless, it brought into pointed clarity that this journey is really about to begin and it's about to begin very soon.

The question I have been getting the most over the past few weeks from friends, family, and even acquaintances is simple enough: why are you doing this? That's a great question. And it's a hard one because I can think of at least 100 reasons why I shouldn't be doing it: job, money, apartment, NY, friends, family, soon-to-be-nephew, danger of being robbed, injured, kidnapped, killed, just to name a handful.

But none of those things are to me GOOD reasons not to do something. I may not have many principles in life, but one that I have always believed in is that a vague fear of the unknown is no reason not to do something.

So the answer to the question "why are you doing this?" is that there is no good reason why I shouldn't; and because, most importantly, I can. Coming to that realization back when I first envisioned this temporary retirement was exceptionally liberating. It's so easy to become comfortable with familiar things, ideas, people and places that we sometimes forget what we could be capable of if we admit to ourselves that we are bigger than the fear of the uncertain. This seems to apply to anything from careers to relationships to simply improving our lives in whatever way makes us happy.

One of my best friends sent me an email about a note he wrote himself when he was in a period of great turmoil and changes in his life. It is a simple phrase that he tries to live by and I have come to embrace and think of it as a mantra of sorts:

"Many of the best things in life come when you embrace the unknown."

But inherent in embracing the unknown is of course the possibility of negative outcomes. I think maybe the essential part of embracing the unknown is then embracing the inevitable negatives that will come with the positives, whatever they may be. Many of the reasons why not to do something like this, especially by oneself, stand out as several of such obvious potential misfortunes.

So, then, the best one can do is to be as prepared as possible and then accept that the rest of the chips will fall as they may. So in seriousness (rare for this blog), I've had to come to accept the possibility that things could go horribly awry. And I've done my best to prepare for such things should they, despite all preparations, occur.

But with two weeks out, the nerves/fear I experience is transitioning to a nervous excitement and confidence because of the training/research/preparation I have put in. And during these last two weeks I will continue to push myself as hard as I can to be as best equipped for the unknown as I can possibly be. If things don't work in my favor, no one will be able to say I wasn't prepared.

Today when I got home from working out/training and told my dad I had played 18 holes of golf in the morning, then did a full lifting regimen, then ran 4.5 miles, and then hiked 6 miles with 55 pounds in the pack, he stood looking shocked and instead of asking the oft-heard why question, simply said: how are you doing all this? It reminded me of a great movie quote by Vincent Freeman in Gattica which I offered back to him:

You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton: I never saved anything for the swim back.

Erg-regious!

I have done a terrible job of putting any content, even boring, unfunny and trite content (which appears to constitute most of it), on this blog in quite a while. For that dear reader, I apologize.

That said, get used to it! Well, at least for the near future as tomorrow I'm heading to LAS VEGAS baby! It's my good buddy Ward's bachelor party and we'll be there attempting to survive for 5 nights (gasp- huge error in judgment right off the bat?) during the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament. It will be the 3rd time I've gone on this particular weekend and I've had an absolutely absurd time in both instances. I have no reason to think this weekend will be any different.

When I get back on Monday it will be two weeks and two days until my departure. It's really starting to set in now and naturally so are the nerves. Especially since I have decided to hike the Sierra de Guadarrama solo from Madrid to Segovia almost as soon as I step off the plane.

Since I'm planning a number of solo hikes on rugged and sparsely populated terrain, as well as planning to camp, couch crash, and otherwise finagle my way to cheap/free accommodations, I've decided to get all of my affairs in order prior to leaving. This, of course, means putting together a will, power of attorney, and an emergency health care directive and proxy. Yea, shit just got real.

But have no fear, I'm not planning to disappear on you dear reader! In fact, I plan to annoy you via these posts and otherwise occupy your day with my nonsense as much as possible for as long as I can. No need to thank me.

That said, getting back to the trip, I have been doing some research on Ergs (basically a dune sea), and I am most disappointed that none of my planned travels over the next year are taking me close to any. I've always wanted to ride a camel through one, or sand-board in one, or even just take some pictures. The closest I've ever come is dune-bashing in the dessert outside Dubai, but that wasn't technically an erg.

Anyway, the point of all this is that during my research I discovered that Erg Chebbi happens to be close to the town of Merzouga. Which means- I might just dip down in to Morocco and be able to hit an erg and wash up in Tangier all in one go! Well, maybe not... but a boy can dream.