Washington, there's a lot of shit there.

[grimsooth]

I'm just back from my week long trip to Washington, which I chose to drive. The 12-hr trip wasn't really that bad, despite it taking all day. The highlights of those journeys were things like my new calculation to determine the cost/benefit ratio of passing. It's complicated, basted on relative speed, and the efficiency of fuel consumption at various RPM with some special variables. I call it, "Conditions of acceptable passing", and it looks something like this:
      1) If the car in front of me is pissing me off, pass.

There are other rules, but none nearly as influential so I won't bother naming them. Just so you know "excessive" use of brakes and yo-yoing your speed are high on the list, and using your brakes when turning is definitely excessive. Not to mention a waste of fuel. 'Bye bye inertia and kinetic energy, I'd rather have you with me as heat so I can use more fuel to get you back.' Retards.

More interesting then were things that actually occurred in and around Washington:

1. Conversation gems like this one:
        Girl: . . . more than 4 women living together is legally considered a brothel.
        Liz: . . . Iowa has a law like that too. Sororities can't stay open during the summer because of it.
        Ryan: There are a lot of laws that just don't make sense that are still on the books.
        GS: Actually that sounds about right to me. I mean what did you think all those girls are doing during the summer?
        Girl: Summer courses?
        GS: Sure they are.
        Ryan: You may have a point there.
   
   I may be wrong there, I hear "Alcohol intoxication 122: The Bars" is an enlightening course work if you plan on taking "Whoring 201". And I do believe those are encouraged at most sororities, although a few of the science oriented sororities seem to offer "Alcohol intoxication 207: Box wine and whining, get used it you're going to be alone for a while". Some time's I'd swear that people get enough credit in those courses for a BA. I should see if I can transfer credit myself, I could probably get a Master's in "Bear Snobbery" and a BS in "Wine snobbery".


2. Walking 5 miles, just so you can go hiking, is kinda silly.
        My sister, her boyfriend, ?Ashley, and I went to hike some of the lower trails on Mt. Reiner. However there was a recent storm and the main road was washed out. While the trail we took up itself was only about 1.7 miles (and they turned back about 1 mile in) we had to walk about 5 miles to get there.


3. Apart from Dunkelweiss, Washington generally has better beers than Germany.
        Although Germany's worst beer is far and away better than most beer in the US. That said, there's a nice restaurant & brewery called the Elysian Brewery & Public House, well recommended by a friend. If you're in Seattle, and you like beer you should go there. There's also "Dad Watson's Brewery and Restaurant" which had good burgers and pleasant beer. Also, talking to a fellow beer snob, there's apparently a place called Brower's that has a killer IPA. I didn't make it there, because I went hiking instead.


4. There's a funny fake dating show on MTV
        It's called "parental control", and it obviously has writers. Untalented writers, but writers just the same. Although I suppose they could be so talented that they can make themselves appear untalented, it doesn't really matter because the show is about your parents setting you up with someone because they hate your significant other. This alone might be funny, but in a very "Whose line is it anyway?" approach everyone gets a comedic line they have to insert, albeit randomly, into the conversation.
   
   A popular one is: "I had sex with your [son/daughter] last night." Somehow this always manages to amuse. So hurry up and watch it, because I'm sure it'll be canceled before long... it's hilariously stupid.
   


5. 18 mi/day is my hiking limit
        It's not really limiting while I'm doing it, just that the next day I sleep REALLY long. And I wake up with differently shaped calf muscles. Admittedly, that's kinda cool, but expected when you're blessed with unfortunately high levels of testosterone. I mean I get all the Hypertrophy, but none of the anabolic side effects. Except the desire to crush people who suck, but I think everyone has that to a certain extent, and I've learned to deal with it.
   
   Back to the hiking, 9 mi each way is not far enough to get to the really good parts. Next time I go to Olympic, I'm backpacking. Anyone coming?
   


6. There is a difference between a national Park, a national forest, and a national monument, but if I held up a picture of each you wouldn't know the difference.


7. Mt. Saint Helen's has serious Fog issues.
        And it's not "cool fog" or "fog you can live with" like San Francisco or London, it's "Dangerous to drive fog" and "well, I can kinda walk ok" fog I took a picture of it for you, but there's really no point in posting it. It basically looks like someone poured skim milk into the forest. Which is to say, you can tell you're in a forest because of the ground, but trees outside of 10 feet are just white. And the trees at 10 feet, they're white and greenish with undiscernable form. Well, they're probably trees anyway, you are in a goddamn forest after all.
   
   This sounds much cooler than it is. Just go stand 6 to 8 inches in front of that blank wall in your living room and you'll get a pretty good idea of what it's like. Throw some dirt and pine needles on the ground if you're really into it. Maybe invite a friend to drive through wall at you, that's exciting.
   


8. If the measure of a man is how far he's willing to spelunk through a 1.5' crack with pools of water, constant dripping, an unknown battery life, unassisted, when no one knows were he is, then I am 50 meters.
   
   Carrying around 20lbs of camera equipment while doing a belly crawl through shallow pools of water under a dripping ceiling only 12 to 18 inches from the floor isn't fun. The fact that it was 40 degrees didn't help, but really, it was the lack of signage and the failure of the cave to open up. The brochure said I'd have to climb over caveins and scale an 8 foot wall, not a problem. I've been free climbing bolders, waterfalls, and various obsticals since I was about 8. "Dark" was a new variable, but I was sure I could handle it. I was unprepared for, confined, cold, wet, and crawling. Honestly it was really the crawling, I don't like it, and frankly, it's worse then programing.
   
   Now at some point, if someone in the general population knows where I am, I'm with a friend, and we have ample and dependable lighting, I may actually do it. I just thought that losing my light halfway through the cave and trying to get through with my cell phone just wouldn't cut it. Also, the cave wasn't that interesting. It was kinda cool, but it was no water fall, cliff face, or castle.
   


9. Waking up at 7am, hiking all day, and getting back to sleep around midnight, is a painful way to explore


10. Truckers are always on the job.
         I was sitting at a table with about 6 truckers, 2 of them got jobs while we were sitting there eating simply by answering their phones. The guy on my left, who literally forgot what he ordered 10 seconds after ordering it said: "See that's what cell phones are for. I love it when that phone rings, it always means I'm getting paid. Well it means work anyway."
         My first question was obvious, How many days a year do you guys work?
           A: ~360
    


11. Truckers like movies, but don't see that many of them.
         The next 30 minutes the trucker on my left launched into a detailed description of "Going south" by Jack Nickleson who, if you don't remember, "is that guy from the shining, and a couple other movies. One flew over the cuckoo's nest, that was a funny one too."

In the end, I decided Washington would be an OK place to live. The traffic is actually worse there than it is here in California. Very similar to Los Angeles or San Diego actually. Maybe worse. In SD, traffic regularly lets up. I'm unclear how this is possible, but it's probably the lack of lanes and abundance of trees. It's nice though, reminds me of Luxembourg or some portions of Bavaria. Except for the traffic, and the predictable lack of inordinately hot women. But they do speak English, so if you're too lazy to learn another language, don't mind heavy traffic, and aren't particularly fond of attractive women then Washington could be the place for you.

Hell of a drive though.