Shorn Sheep Look Ridiculous

It's true-- but I wonder if they're ok with it because they're not as hot as their un-sheared flockmates? I didn't get pictures, unfortunately. The sheep which inspired the above observation were seen from the car, driving on a trip post-hike, so we were in a hurry and didn't want to stop for pictures.






The sheep field was also located next to a poppy field, which are pretty common here (I'm told Tasmania produces about 90% of the medical use opium/morphine for the Eastern Hemisphere). So not too excited to stop the care and approach the fences (the pictures give an inkling as to why...).




Besides, it'd be a little dicey to go out of your way to spend extra time w/ sheep out in the field anyway. As I said to my friend Dale, “Cloning? I don't know-- I'm kind of leary of any scientific advancement that results from the Scotts doing strange things to sheep.”

Can you imagine if the fences broke down? A bunch of naked sheep, wandering around the countryside, high? Wobbly, naked sheep. We refer to the ability of high-addicts back home to just sort of stand there, swaying slowly side to side, eyes closed but never falling down as the “Heroin Tai-Chi." This could be a potentially difficult to deal with but at the same time hysterical agricultural disaster if these particular fences failed..

A few posts back, I mentioned the group Tripod and a performance of theirs on the TV program “The Sideshow.” Well, I didn't get my shift switched to see them in Lonnie, but I was able to find the song I was talking about online. Sorry for the earlier mis-quotes-- these guys are great. All scrawny, pale technophiles take note! It reminds me of the Onion online video commentary “Are video games doing enough to prepare our children for the coming apocalypse?” Also, watch for the appropriate use of the term “rooted.” “Bush-tucker” is a term for wild game. Sorry for the video/audio dysynchrony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xetsxpKjmQo&feature=PlayList&p=7F014126BB46D8FA&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=14
For those interested, here is there homage to adult-aged males who still play Dungeons and Dragons on the weekends...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IgVPnhmVNE&feature=related

Similarly, Tim Minchin is another Aussie musical act that I've enjoyed since being down here...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78XrI_2bPVA&feature=PlayList&p=E2C04E96920A17A5&index=3&playnext=3&playnext_from=PL



And I thought I'd add the following text from an email I received from a patient down here. It contrasts sharply w/ the experience a friend of mine (an OB) related of a patient opening up the initial conversation with the threat of a lawsuit. Yup, it's a different world...

"Dear [AWS], This is just the briefest note to express our appreciation of your advice and help when [E] presented at your emergency department with a Lt. basal pneumonia on 26-12 09. I am pleased to say she is responding well and almost apyrexial now. I hope to meet you sometime while you are here and will be in touch again. Yours sincerely, many thanks and best wishes, [...]"



Anyway, about to head in for another weekend of "babysit the drunk head traumas and hope no one herniates until the morning." Not to stereotype, but people love beating the hell out of each other out here. I mean, for a relatively moderately sized town, there are quite a few "bashings" a night (I heard "bashing" referred to as the cause of death of an off-duty cop on the news the other night. I guess in the States we'd say "beating death"?). So no guns, one stabbing, but plenty of blunt trauma on the weekends, which is a little unsettling. Makes me wonder if I've got post-traummatic stress disorder from my mugging... :)

A good friend of mine said, you know you're getting into a little bit of a self-pity mode about your relationships when pop songs start speaking directly to you (you know what? He was just pushing my love over the borderline..."). I think this relates to High Fidelity's point of "Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

While not miserable or self-pitying, I thought I'd throw out these lyrics to a few of my favorite songs I was listening to again (gotta love the "shuffle") for good measure. 10-points for identifying the first, 20 for the second. Cheers, --aws

"Some say life / will beat you down / break your heart / steal your crown /
So I started out / for God knows where /
I guess I'll know / when I get there..."

we break and train our children just like animals
we fill 'em up with parasites of poison dreams and fear
We hand 'em false gods on a golden platter
then we remind them to wash behind their ears

We gave up our own dreams so the kid could go to college
then they grow up and resent us; accuse us of impossible psychological crimes
the normal relationship in Hell is about getting even
but you won't find that in your Sunday New York Times

Anger Sadness Hatred Envy--
these are just Fear wearing the same old cheap masks
You're doomed if you don't learn forgiveness, Sister
we're all driving around lost, we don't know who to ask

We're all stopping at abandoned gas stations to ask directions
there's no more road maps to tell us who the hell we are
raised on TV commercials, organized religion
following corrupt wisemen who've been navigating by
the wrong star...

We've reached the end of the road and find out no one else can make us happy
we've waged all the wars of drama and control
we've sacrificed it all for wives husbands money children false religion-- that old line about gaining the world but losing your soul.

Hiking: Western Tiers Region- Quamby Bluff and Meander Falls to Split Rock Trails

So, was able to get out and around the island some these past weeks. It is actually very nice country, with an interesting range. Getting transportation arranged has been a bit, but now at the point of getting to see some of the island, which is great. My friend Young has been up for coming out to some of these spots, which has been good. Of course, the whole “hiking” (here, “bushwalking”) concept has taken some getting used to for her (“Yes, there will be insects and worms. Yes, we have to carry our food and filter our water. Yes, there will be mud” [ala Daniel Day Lewis...]).

Anyway, we first tried out Quamby Bluff, which was just a bit of a day hike a few minutes south of... the hamlet?... of Deloraine. Quamby was fun, but certainly after years of New York living my wood-walking legs needed to get used to things again. And yes, I really am that pale..

Later on, headed out to Meander Falls. The first bit was fun, and though the falls themselves weren't the most impressive things in the world, the terrain felt a bit more varied than that of Quamby. Because of a late start, once at the falls we had the option of returning via the same route or taking the Split Rock trail back to Meander Road. It was reported to be a tougher track, but faster. Yeah, not so much w/ the faster part. I think the only time I was ever really worried that I would die out in the woods was during a trip to Puerto Rico w/ my girlfriend at the time when we went off-trail for a bit, got lost, and a few hours day hike ended up as an almost overnight. Luckily captain Boy Scout had brought along some food and flashlights. Oh, and another important safety tip: if you're going to rural Puerto Rico, it's important to tell your travel companion that you have an anaphylactic allergy to banana before you go. Also, it might not be a bad idea to bring along an epinephrine injector. Just a thought.

Anyway, the least amusing part of the Split Rock trail was when there was an impromptu conference on the dolerite boulder scramble (marked by questionably maintained carins only for its length) that began with “This is terrifying. I don't want to do this anymore,” was punctuated with glucose repletion, and ended with “I know this is tough going, and I'm sorry and would like to let you rest more, but we really need to get off these rocks before the sun goes down.”

The most amusing part was how many times after that I said “Not far now..” (about 15 min intervals). I felt a bit like Papa Smurf ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi0tje6xfWs

Still, some good pictures :)

And, 35 points if you get the reference made in this video (I couldn't even find a link to the scene in You Tube!). Yes, I recognize I said "underwater" river as opposed to "underground" river.

Cheers,

Uncle Traveling aws

“I cannot be held responsible for what my giggling little hind-brain may kick up”

I found myself in a large performance space, with tiered risers and chairs and music stands arranged for the orchestra that was present. The amphitheater was filled with teen and pre-teen wunderkinds all playing violin. Along with myself, also holding a violin and bow, but not able to keep up with what was most likely Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K525, Allegro. So I just sat there looking at them. This is likely related to my college-age attempt to learn to fiddle, my current attempts to teach myself guitar, and the 15 year-old guitar playing psychiatric patient I'd seen the day before. After the session, I left the building and found myself walking up the slope from the Hill Theater at Kenyon College, still toying with the violin that I was carrying. I was asked if I played often by one of the early Harry Potter-esque younglings that was leaving with me. Nope, just learning.

I walked up spiral stairs that I recognized from the old Philip Mather Hall, entering a room reminiscent of one of the small-group seminar rooms of Kenyon College, perhaps Ascension?, complete with wood panels, large tables with high-backed chairs, and narrow neo-collegiate-Gothic-architecture leaded windows. You know, the kind that grace the pages of the Kenyon brochures (“Our student to teacher to cow to corn ratio is 3 to 1 to 2 to 17,000!”).

Myself, Junior Year, with Tim Shutt as Santa (Kenyon, 1997)

As I circled the table (“rectangled” the table?) to grab my seat, Mr. Campbell, my 9th grade Drama and English teacher at Jackson Junior High, looked up quizzically and asked, “Hunter transfer?” This was interesting because my only associations with Hunter College are a reference f om Terry Gilliam's “The Fisher King,” as a subway stop on the Upper East Side 6 train, and where my girlfriend completed a masters of Social Work-- the latter two being several years after Kenyon and at least a decade after junior high.
No, I was just attending as a “conditional” student-- meaning I signed up but could not be assured of a place in the class. I knew it would be good to take this apparently philosophy course for my personal education even though it wasn't my field and would be new for me. I might have to end up auditing, or taking it for no credit. Especially, Mr. Campbell pointed out to me, as I hadn't taken the required seminar the semester prior. He slid over to me a brochure of the same, which had former Kenyon President Rob Oden's picture on the cover.

The class continued with the student to my left, who turned out to be Wes Overby, a kid I knew from elementary school, but who looked like he did in high school (long hair, earring, I think a Metallica t-shirt) reading from a small booklet of what sounded like Austrian German philosophy. In Austrian German. All I know is that he seemed to be reading from the middle of the page up, to “heighten the emotional impact” of the text, he said, when Mr. Campbell pointed this out to him. And that at one point he said the word “auerwuff,” which I don't think is a real word, but which I transcribed in my book as “Airwolf?!?”

It was then my turn to read. I struggled over a few of the words, affecting a thick movie accent (half of speaking a foreign language is a fake accent anyway), before Wes and Mr. Campbell started helping me by pronouncing the words along with me. I eventually asked if the required seminar was one in which you were taught Austrio-German. Across the table, a stern looking blond body-builder type who had no business being a college student-- in fact I'm pretty sure he was the Austrian hit-man from “Tomorrow Never Dies,” the Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie-- sneered and took over reading.

So, interpretations? I'm open to them-- fear of trying new things? Too many movies seen? Too many shifts in a row? Let me know what you think. Today, I have to do some left over dishes, go grocery shopping, practice some guitar, do some of the CORD tests online for Board Prep, and head to the hospital to do some left over charts. Then hopefully head to the West Coast for some beach time. Obedient to some strange spell,

--aws