January 22 - 28, 2001
about hyperspace, crutches, Mt. Hamilton, Mt. Diablo, connecting to internet, and "energy crisis"
|
|
|
Crutched... January 22 - 28, 2001 about hyperspace, crutches, Mt. Hamilton, Mt. Diablo, connecting to internet, and "energy crisis" |
|
|
 |
||
| Just announcing that we added otter pictures to our previous journal |
Crutches became a reality of our household thanks to Sid's fall at Arches.
Unfortunately, insurance may pay for them, but does not want them back, so they stay in our way inside our apartment,
although it tends to reach into hyperspace. I consider a subspace tunnel at Arastradero a proven thing.
Multiple odd socks must have left through somewhere (Sid claims that they get snatched by UFOs, but I'm deeply convinced
that nobody would VOLUNTARILY accept our dirty laundry), plus the place has been shrinking since I arrived (except for
times it needs vacuuming - then it pops into its original dimensions 
).
And now imagine keeping solid, non-downsizing crutches inside a shrinking apartment.
It should be no surprise to you that I quite rejoiced at the news that George
has had a knee surgery and asked if we could donate our crutches? I briskly arranged with Martina
that I would drive them over and "it would definitely be no problem for me"
.
So Thursday was the Day We Give Away The Crutches. Martina told me that Madlenka was staying at home with a flu and she herself did not feel well, therefore Šmudla did not get his share of running around and I should prepare for the worst. I put my old jeans on and my most threadbare T-shirt, took the crutches and went.
Šmudla was truly terribly happy that I came to visit him again (he believes his charms to
be the only reason for my visits, he really loves me, only if I did not waste so much of my time
with his boring masters) and he amused me for several hours. He has got his dog flap in the door and
a two acre yard to run around in, but it's just not as fun as jumping on somebody's head
.
He still cannot jump that high (unless I sit down), but it's not that far. He grew up from a puppy
into a "big, strong" dog, rolling him on the carpet for an hour does not wear him down anymore,
and he figured out most of my "dirty" tricks how to outwrestle him. Fortunately it's still just
a game, he bites me quite often, but he never did it "for real".
Madeleine was home as well, did not even look so sick. She did not ask for anything
to eat for the whole afternoon (which is alarming with an adolescent of her age
), but she managed to completely re-set the length of the crutches
twice, and to practice with them a few impressive jumps on from furniture or a step in front of a fireplace.
As I mentioned, Šmudla does not tire that easy, although I "meditated" for a while on a sofa after returning home. Sid woke me up asking if we were going to the gym, but any idea of climbing was for this moment so remote, we postponed our working out till Friday.
On Friday, things got somehow "out of hand" and at the time I was supposed to drive to the gym, I was still pulling laundry out of a dryer. I did not want to let Sid wait for a long time (I had all mine and his clothes to change into) and so I rushed from my Cecilia parked next to a curb at Twisters - boom bang. Suddenly I was flat on wet pavement, drizzle sprayed my face and I was wondering if I should call for help or try to crawl to the gym entrance or die a miserable death right on the spot. I also thought about Saturday competition going bye bye and that tonight's climbing was probably over and that giving those beautiful crutches away to George was childishly premature.
When I circled through those thoughts for the third time, I started noticing
that my ankle was just "in state of shock", that all my bones and tendons returned to
their places, and that they were only unwilling to walk (it prickled). Out of nowhere, Sid appeared
over me, asking what I was doing (he later admitted thinking that I was either looking under my car,
doing some strange stretching, or changing clothes ).
Eventually he expressed some level of compassion and picked up my stuff that had scattered all over
the parking lot.
Fortunately my ankle hurt, but did not swell up, so after all I climbed a couple of easier routes.
The sun shone on Saturday, two days of rain cleared the air beautifully, and we decided to drive up a hill and enjoy some view. We picked Mt. Hamilton, acknowledged a total jam on 101, opted for a suitable detour and ended at a sign "road closed after 4 miles". It had rained in the Valley, so it snowed on the mountain. Why bother removing the snow if the road can be closed while it melts away, right? We got pretty annoyed, but not enough to just return home - so we went to try our luck on Mt. Diablo, which is only 14 or so feet smaller than Hamilton.
 |
||
| Sun is setting into the Pacific, the little hill on the horizon in Faralon Island, water surface with ships is San Francisco Bay. You can spot the City in the middle, and the channel on the right is famous Golden Gate - if you look carefully, you can see the bridge. |
Mt. Diablo is a state park, they did not accept our National
Park card, but entrance fee was $2, no sweat. Unfortunately the story of Mt. Hamilton
repeated itself here - rangers closed the top of the last parking lot before summit and
did not let cars any higher. They said there was ice there. We put on our boots and
went hiking. We ought to look kind of strange. Sid gimping on his left ankle, I on my right
.
It had one positive effect though. We hobbled all the way up so slowly we just made it
by the time the sun was setting -- we enjoyed a romantic moment. By the way - throughout
our way up we did not find any trace of ice. The only thing on the pavement was a little kid,
who sat down and refused to walk, refused to be carried, and refused to be left
behind by his parents. He just insisted to be sitting on the ground and whatever the
folks did was wrong .
We also have to sort out our internet cable connection by January 31.
Our original provider, ISPChannel, was run out of business by AT&T, which will become
our new provider. That does not sound so horrible, but if there is someone who knows how to
behave like a monopoly, almost like an older brother
of Czech Telekom that we both loathe, it definitely is AT&T. Can you imagine our enthusiasm
now? 
We tried to order a competing product, DSL by Earthlink (one extra box that would send signal from the computer through a phone line), which arrived with a problem though - it only works with Windows 98 (so we may "upgrade" our Windows 2000) and installation procedure asks for a network card that they did not deliver at all.
AT&T intends to support our TV cable connection, but we may only have one computer connected at a time and we may fill that one up with their disk-hogging software -- which we are not quite sure of what purpose it would serve (we tried to install only one component - and look - it ignored our selection and installed everything ... very interesting). Well I won't inconvenience you with technical details, as I don't understand them myself. I just wanted to illustrate that even if you sit in the heart of the computer world, your internet connection is no stroll through a rose garden. And should hroch.net fail after January 31, it is not because of rolling blackouts, nor it is caused by an earthquake, for it would probably be an uncooperative provider.
As for the rolling blackouts - power outages ... thanks to the wonderful Nova TV station in Czech, an idea had spread that we all huddle together here, wearing heavy coats, munching rotten potato peels (so much I read in your alarmed e-mails). I would like to set the record straight:
|
|
|
Copyright © 2001-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved. | |
|