Hail to the King, Baby

My sister is visiting. Also some girl just stood me up this weekend. I'm beginning to think Seattle is a great place to live if you already have a girlfriend. Also I read on the internet that Amazon is doing evil things with their Kindles. According to the internet someone thought remotely deleting 1984 off everyone's kindle would be a good idea.

Yesterday we hiked Mt Rainier. Apparently I suck at applying sunscreen, because I My face, neck, and little strips on my forearms are totally burnt. Also, it hurts to walk. Apparently when you are not in shape, and you try to hike to the top of a mountain all day, it destroys your muscles. Who knew? Anyway, it was pretty awesome. This time we took ski poles and I remembered extra socks. Much more snow had melted since I had been there last, and you have no idea how much easier it is to walk on a boring macadam path than it is to trudge uphill through snow. Oh, I also remembered boots. Boots help. We saw a mountain goat. It was a lot smaller than I imagine, which I guess is why they can climb so high.

It was kind of depressing though. Parking was difficult. I mean, Mt Rainier is a mountain. You can't really get more impressive, or vast, or awesome. Not without also being deadly. When I go flying in my tiny little Cessna, it sometimes give me a bit of a god-complex because at 3000 feet above the ground all of the little people and buildings--everything mankind does--looks tiny and unimpressive. What does look impressive, still, are the mountains. They can be like walls. In fact, if the clouds are, say, overcast at six thousand feet, and I'm flying just East of Kent, then I find myself boxed in on three sides by mountains, with a ceiling of clouds above me. Only mountains can do that. Mountains are impressive.

Except, of course, when you drive to the visitor's center at Mt Rainier. First, there is a scenic, awesome and super windy road, which motorcycles and Subaru STI's are made for, and on which you will be stuck behind someone that doesn't know how to drive and chooses to drive their vehicle at roughly 1/5 of the speed you could go. I am actually not exaggerating; I did the math and it was 1/5th. I had a lot of time, on a ccount of how damn slow they were going.

Anyway, you can just drive, on roads, all the way up to 5400 feet above mean sea level. There is a lodge with restrooms and greasy food and stay-off-the-meadow signs. And no parking. Its a mountain, and there is no parking. The biggest natural...object, save for all the glaciers which will probably melt (I'll get to them in a bit), and there's no parking. This, my friends, is what depresses me: there are so many people here we can fill up a mountain. Granted, there should be more parking spaces. But its a mountain. Lack of parking is something you experience in a city, or at a movie theatre, or at the DMV. Not at a mountain. It felt like I had arrived at a cheap carnival.

Another interesting fact about Mt Rainier is the...difficulty level. I am told that to get to the summit, you have to climb up to some camp somewhere, spend the night to acclimate, and then make your bid for the summit. And it requires tents and ropes and ice picks and ice boots and probably radios and shovels and all that. And we'd have to train for it. At least, that's what Luke keeps saying. I'm sure he's right, but when I'm at the mountain, the more I hike the more I think I could just kind of waltz up to the summit. I think it is deceptive because the slope starts off easy and then increases, getting harder and harder until you have to like fight for a 100 feet, instead of just strolling along.

Anyway, we climbed to somewhere between 7200 and 7300. I know this, because we passed a sign saying we were at 7200, and we never made it to some place called "Camp Muir," which the sign at the bottom said was 7300. We were probably pretty close, but I elected to turn around. We were above the tree line, and past the scary sign saying the weather is going to change and you're going to die in a cloud. We were actually at the height of the clouds. It was pretty cool. Also there was no grass. Just snow and rocks, which, by the way, are easier to hike over than snow.

Then we went back down the mountain, and I tried to work on my ability so ski on nothing but my two feet. A lot of people were wrapping trash bags around their waists (or doing something smart like wearing snowpants) and just sliding down the slopes on their ass. I was in jeans, though, but the sliding did look fun. As we neared the bottom I began to understand why an out of shape person can't actually just stroll up the mountain and get to the top. I began to understand this fact because my legs started to hurt. Hours later, it hurt to walk. I normally take the stairs at my apartment, but I've been taking the elevator ever since. My legs still hurt, actually.

My sister was on East Coast time, so she went to bed and I tried to catch up with some friends in Freemont watching Army of Darkness. Interestingly enough: that movie, my email address, and the fact that I waited ten years for a video game called Duke Forever that was never made, are all linked. Back to the story. I get to the theatre, but the one person whose cell number I had wasn't answering....ok this actually isn't that interesting. I was going to write about how it was incredibly painful to walk, especially downhill for some reason, and then how I ended up walking back and forth through Freemont twice trying to find some bar my friends were going to. Unfortunately, this is one of those stories where I just end up looking like a dumbass. My legs do hurt, though.

Anyway, today we went to the Locks. The locks are pretty cool, and exciting to watch. The actual water raising/lowering is quite slow and boring, but watching all of these boats pack in and tie themselves to the sides or each other is fun. And then they get up or down to the next water level, the lock clears out fast. I kind of want to own a boat, just so I can go through the locks. It would be a good place for a date. Actually, a lot of things I've been doing lately would be good dates. The only thing missing was, you know, a girl. More on that in a sec.

After the locks my little sister rode along on my flight lesson, and didn't throw up. So I guess I'm not that bad of a pilot. Still a bit anxious about the soloing thing. As in, I am not looking forward to it at all. I understand, though, that the whole point of the license is to be able to fly by yourself, so I'm going along with it.

Last night at the bar one of my friends mentioned that there are a lot more guys than girls in Seattle. I had been denying this fact to myself, and didn't really want to believe it, but everyone else at the table was in agreement. Mathmatically speaking, there has to be somewhere on this Earth where the opposite is true. I mean, if Women outnumber men on the planet, and men outnumber women in Seattle, there must be at least one place on Earth where women outnumber men. I don't really care that much. I'm just annoyed that some girl stood me up this weekend. I was supposed to see Harry Potter with some girl I met on the internet. Dorky, I know, but I actually want to see this one, because I hear Snape becomes a bad guy, and I'm curious as to how true that is, and whether or not that fact will ruin the series for me. The thing I liked about Snape was that he was a dark character, but he was still a good guy. He had depth. If he turns into a bad guy, then every shady-looking character in that series is a bad guy, and (to me) the series becomes little more than a cheap childrens tale. Maybe it will be fun to watch anyway. I dont know. Suffice to say I wanted to see it, and I really wanted to see it on a date with a girl, because there is really no other way that you can watch a Harry Potter movie. Now, it seems that I won't be seeing that movie, and I basically just wasted all that time chatting up that girl, and I have no idea what random thing I said that pissed her off.

My car continues to be awesome. It's name is definitely Jessica now, and this time I'm the one who named it. That reminds me: Katie, the ninja 250 I sold to a guy at work, has a new life as a gift to some girl. I told the guy who rebuilt it that its name was Katie, and he said he'd pass that on.

When my flight training is done I plan to save up for another bike. I also am going to find someone to make me a ski harness, so I can strap skiis onto my back, ride to Mt Rainier, park in the motorcycle parking area, and then hike the mountain, and then ski down and rode home on my sportbike.

Speaking of "when my flight training is done," I have a huge list of "when my flight training is done." I'm basically putting my life on hold until someone signs a piece of paper saying I'm allowed to fly a Cessna with some passengers. The reason--and I can't believe I'm admitting this publicly--that I'm even doing this is because of a girl. It was one of those times where I fell in love with some girl and she didn't feel the same way and I decided I needed to make my life more interesting. You know, that live-life-to-the-fullest, sieze-the-day, do-anything-but-sitting-at-home thing. I didn't realize at the time just how much time and money it costs to get a flying license. I am beginning to think that "carpe diem" is a load of crap, and the next time I hear someone talking about living life to the fullest, I'm going to inform them that it is too expensive.

In other news, I have a Miley Cyrus song stuck in my head. Normally this wouldn't be a problem. I tend to like artists that most people hate or look down on, like Nickelback, Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift. However, my good buddy Mark pointed out to me a particularly dumb lyric in the particular Miley Cyrus song that is stuck in my head. Why is this a problem? This is a problem because my method of getting songs out of my head--unstuck, if you will--is to listen to them over and over and over and over again. Which is what I'm doing right now, actually. But thanks to Mark, every time I hear that stupid, stupid line it causes psychological pain. Ironically, hearing Mark complain about this song is also the reason it is stuck in my head in the first place. I'm not sure what to do. This damn song is so catchy. Why couldn't they write better lyrics? I don't even know who Miley Cyrus is. I just know that people on the internet like to make fun of her.

Yeah. That's right. I'm up at 12:40 on a Sunday night in my PJs writing in my blog and listening to Miley Cyrus on youtube. You know what? You're reading it.