The weather last night was perfect. Everyone was a little late showing up to the field, which left me just tossing disc with a few guys I didn't know. But by 6:30 people started showing up. I was a little nervous about all the running for a variety or reasons. Not the least of which was the fact that I really haven't had any strenuous exercise since my surgery. Also, I'm not acclimated to the altitude at all, I hadn't eaten since lunch, am hideously out of shape, etc.

So it was sorta disheartening when the turnout was poor initially, and greg decreed that we should play full-length field anyway with fours. This means extra running. But people were trickling in steadily so I wasn't too worried. I found myself able to run full speed and make cuts without any pain, other than in my lungs. So that's a relief.

Then came the point from hell. We had some really ugly throws and catches which led to a point which lasted for about 25 minutes. I was well over-exerted. Couldn't run anymore, tasted blood in my mouth, felt like I was going to puke, etc. Not good. So I ended up sitting out for the next 45 minutes or so. And I figured this just means that I am a big out-of-shape git. But it turned out to be a lung problem only, and after my extended bench time, I got a great second wind and was able to play full-force for the rest of the game. And it felt great. I had a couple good catches, and a few gratuitous lay-outs. I [heart] ultimate.

Afterwards we went to the canyon bar & grill for free pool night, where I demontrated my ability to really suck at pool, and we got discount pizza hut.

Now that I've slept for a night, my lungs are feeling a lot better (I'm not wheezing like I've been smoking for 50 years...) and I've become Sore Muscle Man™.

My feet were still a little blistery and I was still a bit sunburned from yesterday's excursion to Bandelier, so I decided I'd spend today driving around some of the dirt roads in the mountains around Los Alamos.

Just west of Bandelier and south of the Cerro Grande is a section of the Santa Fe National Forest with numerous trails and dirt roads going through it. One area of particular interest is St. Peter's Dome, or simply 'The Dome.' Taking Forest Road 289 south from state highway 4, I drove along the "improved" gravel road to its intersection with Forest Road 142. An improved gravel road is flat, wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other, and is generally well-maintained.

142, unlike 289, is unimproved. And it seems like the farther along it you travel, the less improved it gets. The road consists of two tire ruts with grass growing inbetween. The ruts are often at different heights and there are frequently large rocks sticking out into the road which really give the bronco's suspension a workout. Low-hanging tree branches frequently scrape along the edge of the truck, and until i wisened up, would stick themselves right in through my open window and poke me in the head.

Some portions of the road were very very steep and featured deep drop-offs along one side. But the view is tremendous and well-worth the skipping CD player. I wouldn't say the road was a rough as the Black Canyon lookout tower road down in the Guadalupe Mountains, but it was close.

About half-way to the St. Peter's Dome lookout tower, I entered the burn region. In 1996, there was a terrible forest fire that burned everything for miles around. And it burned it completely to the ground. All that is left now is black tree trunks and some new low undergrowth. It's less bleak than the 2000 Cerro Grande fire area near Los Alamos, because it's had 5 years to regrow. But it's still odd. The wind rushes through the dead trees and makes a lot of odd sounds, particularly when two dead branches rub against each other.

At the dome trailhead, the road is blocked and progress to the lookout tower has to be made on foot for the remaining half-mile. I didn't bring any hiking gear with me, so I just stopped here and had a look around. The Capulin Trail 116 is closed due to the fire, which is unfortunate since I was hoping to use it to get to Painted Cave later this summer. Alternate routes require a lot more vertical hiking.

Arrival out in Los Alamos has marked a major change in my life for each of the last three years. It makes a convenient marking point at which to take care of certain bookkeeping tasks. For instance, I just went back through my email inbox and cleared out stuff that was no longer relevant. My MIT mailbox shrunk from 205 messages to 8. Mouser.org went from 72 to 16. Something about those statistics bothers me, especially since I delete messages that aren't important when I get them. So at some point in the last year, 253 emails that I considered "important" sat around for so long that they became useless. Oops...

Reporting live from Los Alamos, NM

For some reason, my flight from Boston to Dallas went right over Niagara Falls. Maybe my memory of geography is a little hazy, but that doesn't seem right to me. Anyway it was a really cool way to see the falls. They look smaller but no less impressive from 30,000 feet.

I drove the back way up from Albuquerque, over the Jemez and into Los Alamos via the Cerro Grande. I just can't say enough about the beauty of state highway 4.

I was pretty tired when I arrived in town, so I went to bed at about 10 and got up early to go hiking and test out my new gear. My destination for today was Bandelier National Monument, which is adjacent to Los Alamos National Laboratory but somehow in the last two years I never went.

I had about five hours to kill before I needed to go and return my rental car, so I picked a handfull of the shorter trails Bandelier has to offer and hiked all by my lonesome. The first trail was the main tourist loop. This is about a mile long and goes past a variety of archelogical ruins. One in particular, called the Tyuonyi Pueblo, is rather extensive. Most of the ruins are cliff dwellings with hand-carved caves as back rooms.

The trail is paved and mostly flat, and has too many tourists on it. Maybe memorial day weekend isn't the best time for this trail. The weather was gorgeous today too, which probably contributed to the density of old people and little kids.

The next trail I tried was the Cerimonial Cave trail, a 0.5 mile spur off the main loop. This trail is not paved, but is very flat and wide. There are an abundance of Ponderosa pines here that smell great. The Frijoles Canyon is wide here and I found the hike very relaxing. At the end of the trail, there is a series of ladders and steep steps carved into the lava rock (called "tuff") which lead up 140' to a "cave" called Cerimonial Cave. It's not really a cave so much as a large overhang with a kiva in it. The ladder work was fun, except for waiting for the less-ladder inept folks in front of me. This trail had less tourists on it, but was still lacking in a feeling of seclusion.

Finally, I went on the 2.5 mile Frijoles Falls spur. This trail goes from the visitors center to the Rio Grande, passing upper and lower Frijoles Falls on the way. This trail was nearly empty, and just the way I like to hike. The narrower, rougher trail was relatively flat and followed the stream for about 1.25 miles until it reached Upper Frijoles Falls, which was gorgeous. The canyon narrows considerably and the trail gets much more vertical and rugged. The lower falls were not as spectacular, unfortunately, but still nice.

I had lunch at the lower falls, and then turned around - skipping the last mile of the trail and the Rio. I was getting pretty sunburned, tired, and my un-broken-in boots were starting to really pinch my feet.

This takes care of most of the short, easy trails at Bandelier, leaving only the backcountry trails to be investigated. These are more appropriate for overnight hikes with multiple people, but they are definitely on the to-do list.

Packing complete. I just carried a 48 pound package in a huge box down to the post office, which is the most physically strenuous thing I've done since pre-surgical rock climbing.

Heading out in the morning. Tonight I'm having dinner with Mel's mom and some of Mel's other friends, then hanging out with Ashley.

I love the weather.com forecast for Los Alamos: Sunny and clear for the next 10 days, highs in the 70s and 80s. How excited am I? A lot.

Went sailing for the first time in about 15 years today. Jesse, it turns out, was on the sailing team and does this for fun. He's good enough at it that he can just go down to the sailing pavilion whenever he wants to and take out a 19' boat. I was assigned jib duty. It was a lot of fun. I got to make a lot of pirate jokes, etc.

Swapfest was devoid of things I wanted; I haven't slept properly in weeks, and I need to finish packing. Looking at another all-nighter, for the n-th night in a row. Morning research meetings blow. It's Jesse's turn for the bed; I'm on couch patrol. Ugh.

And my garlic breath is bothering me; I can only imagine how horrible it must be for everyone else.

So remember all that money I saved up to pay for the laptop repair that I don't actually have to pay for anymore? I had to get rid of it somehow... And yesterday I took care of that.

I'm going to try to do some outdoorsy thing every weekend this summer. And that means gear. I bought a new 4500 ci pack last week, and yesterday I bought a new mummy bag, pad, and mountaineering boots. Mucho dinero, but I'm so ready to go backpacking. Starting next weekend.

Due to recent bloggerschnitzel, I haven't been posting anything.

Let's see.... Helen's glass blowing exhibit is really cool. Ashley's computer graphics reserach is sounding more and more like my AMR research. Weird. Techno music videos, for the most part, suck. But Laurent Garnier is hillarious. Jesse is back in town, we spent the evening together at the Pour House chatting it up about his sordid life of debauchery and my life's total lack of debauchery.

I'm packing up my stuff in the hopes that a warehouse will be found by the time I return. Jesse moves into my room in a week but I don't leave for 2 weeks. Figure that one out.

So long, and thanks for all the laughs.

Another of my favorite authors dies. At least I got to meet Douglas Adams before he died. He was a really great person.

Saw the Harvard experimental theater's take on "A Lion in Winter" last night, and it was fantastic. The actress who plays Eleanor was just stellar.

I was hoping to play Ultimate yesterday, but it got cancelled due to a freak hail storm.

It wasn't really big hail, about marble sized, but it was super-high flux. At the peak I couldn't see across the parking lot through all the bouncing hail. And this on the same day as my drive to the dome (see photos, below). The weather here cracks me up.

ok so some maintenance guys, presumably sent by my landlord, came into my apartment this morning while i was napping and used a jackhammer to punch a 10" hole in the kitchen wall. [?] and then they left it there, all their tools are everywhere, and they're gone. and they woke me up, fuxx0rz...

So Nico hooked me up with a DJ from London that he's trying to get onto his label.

Paul Sparkes is a really cool person, and well... he has the accent. Enough said. He played at Boston clubs for the last two nights, and then finished up his "tour" with my show. Aside from some minor technical issues at the outset (one headshell was playing in mono, the other had static), it was a great success. Nico, Paul, Paul's "best mate" Steve, and I had a great time.

Uh oh, this is going to cost me... Started drawing up plans to put together a laser mic. Optics = expensive. But I've always wanted to build one...

The best part about being totally nocturnal is getting to watch TV over lunch at 5:00am.

An ad came on for a CD compilation including tracks like "The Thong Song," "Rump Shaker," and "Daisy Dukes." The title of the compilation? Monster Booty. I am not kidding. I have never been more tempted to buy something only available through a special TV offer.

Good news yay! The $830 laptop repair check that I sent in this morning: MIT is going to reimburse me. Aw yeah! and the icing on the proverbial cake: MIT is going to let me keep my laptop when I graduate!

Could it get any better?

[obligatory bad news: Aaron can't come to NM. not good. And it's too hot here.]