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Oct. 1st, 2010 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogHi there journal! It's been a little while since I told you about what I've been doing rather than what I've been thinking. So here goes!
This past weekend I went camping with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
posicat. I drove out of the city and met up with him on Friday after work. We discussed weather and, seeing possible rain late on Saturday, booked a hotel near Rockford via Priceline. We then set out for Rock Cut State Park where we camped that night.
The drive was nice, and we passed through a few places I recognized like Woodstock and Harvard. It was dark by the time we got to the park, but the park was still open and we chatted with the people staffing the front gate as we bought our site permit. The woman we talked to asked whether we wanted a spot away from other campers; there was something about her demeanor that made me wonder if she thought Posi and I were a couple. Which, while amusing, would also make me happy to know that the concept of same gender couples isn't so alien even out in rural area.
We took a quick trip back out to a local gas station for firewood, then set up the tent and started a fire. Once that was going, Posi got out his bult-like-a-battleship Coleman stove and made some dinner. Just before that though, we took a walk along the road to find the outhouse that our map told us was just up the way.
The walk, though short, was deeply memorable. A story on NPR talked about how the harvest moon this year was going to be exceedingly bright. The conjunction was a couple days before our trip, so I'm not sure that the 'super harvest moon' had anything to do with it. But for some reason the moon seemed brighter in the sky than I'd ever seen in.
The disc was bright enough to hurt my eyes for a moment if I looked directly at it after acclimating to the surrounding dark of the woods. Bright enough to mask surface detail. And I'm having a hard time describing the effect the lunar light had on the trees with their shrouds of leaves or the earth below them. All color seemed to to fade into velvety black and rich grey. The sharply delineated shadows that piled crazily on top of each other on the earth and reached up through the trees and up into the sky with their long, dark, bony fingers, spread open against the faraway dome of night, made the whole scene into an abstract painting; an impression of the wilderness that was more wild than real life could be. I regretted walking back to the camp site, with our fire burning and electric lantern ablaze.
If I hadn't been so tired and cold, I would have found a way down to the nearby lake to sit and watch the night. Alas, I turned in and got snuggly under some clothes. For a little while; soon the temperature was low enough that what I brought with wasn't enough, and I ended up sleeping in Posi's van, where I could keep a little warmer. Next time, I need to make sure I get to Kenosha and pick up my sleeping bag.
But all was well, and I awoke the next morning, stretched my stiff limbs, and tried to assist with the making of a little breakfast, learning a few things about cooking while I was at it.
We broke down the site and got on the road, looking for the hamfest we'd been planning on attending. We located the site, and ducked into a Salvation Army store for shopping and then an India House restaurant for lunch. Yum! That taken care of, we proceeded to the meet.
The meetup was kind of sad. Not that it wasn't a good place to be, to see the array of random bits of radio, computer, laser, and other tech and cruft. I love all of it. But the cruft seemed to outweight the tech in no small proportion. As Posi pointed out in the car after we left, the issue seems to be that the great majority of the people there are the same people who've been there for years and years, selling the same old things. There's not a lot of new blood coming into ham radio. I'm just as guilty as anyone of not contributing; I don't have a license, though I used to think about trying to get one a lot. It's something with a lot of alluring tradition and respect. My great-grandfather was an amateur radio operator, and my grandfather still has some of his electrical equipment, and it really does awe me to look at these soldering irons with cloth cords and think about what my ancestor did with them.
At the same time, with the advent of the communication tools that the internet makes possible, what's the point of sending packet radio or slow-scan TV? The fact that there are people with battery operated ham sets who can relay communications in emergencies is fantastic, and I hope that kind of technology and spirit lives forever. And I even see the appeal of trying to contact other states and other countries using your own power and your own radio, relying not on the existing framework of technology that most people use, but on your own equipment and understanding. But it's like going out and shooting analog film. There are things that analog film is still better suited to than digital. But not many, and perhaps not forever. And it adds so much time, cost, and complexity.
In the same way I miss the phone phreaking culture in the '70s despite being too young to have been a part of it, or the way I miss usenet despite never having been much of an active participant in it, I miss ham radio even though I've never actually sat down and used one. I may even study and take the test and get a license one of these days. But I don't know that there's still the same sort of culture I imagine that there used to be surrounding it. There's something about me that feels called to by things that once were and no longer are, maybe even simply because of that characteristic. Once I bumped into a description of a concept of zen aesthetics called あわれ （aware); it's exactly the way I feel about things like this. It's what I feel like I'm trying to convey in my urban ruins photography.
Anyway.
We finished up at the ham fest and thought about what to do next. I realized that we weren't too far from the Rochelle Railroad Park, and suggested going there. We checked in at the hotel and drove south, picking up some more firewood on the way.
The time spent at the park was a lot of fun. Posi started the fire and I shot a few pictures of him working and of passing trains. As the daylight began to fade, Posi plugged the word 'hobo' into Pandora radio on his phone and it responded with some very classic sounding Blues. He and I sat on benches around the fire, great long freight trains rumbling and roaring by either side of us, listening to harmonica and slide guitar, and talking. It made me really happy.
Back at the hotel, we made fajitas (which I'm going to try by myself tonight!) and got to sleep. Breakfast the next morning was sausage and eggs (we could do all this cooking because we had an extended stay room with a micro-kitchen) and we were on our way home.
We stopped at another thrift store on the way (I found a nice rolling suitcase which replaced the torn duffel bag I'd been using) and then visited the McHenry flea market. It's held at a drive in theatre, so I was happy to see the place just for that reason. But there were some fun things for sale too, and a few interesting people to talk to.
And finally, finishing up there, we went back to Posi's place where I got my car and drove up to Kenosha. I had dinner at Cracker Barrel withmoiracoon, visited with my parents for far too long, and made it back to Rogers Park about midnight to crash prior to getting up for work at 6 o' clock. *woof*
And that's the weekend. More about the week in the next installment of adventures of a Stormdog!
This past weekend I went camping with
posicat. I drove out of the city and met up with him on Friday after work. We discussed weather and, seeing possible rain late on Saturday, booked a hotel near Rockford via Priceline. We then set out for Rock Cut State Park where we camped that night.The drive was nice, and we passed through a few places I recognized like Woodstock and Harvard. It was dark by the time we got to the park, but the park was still open and we chatted with the people staffing the front gate as we bought our site permit. The woman we talked to asked whether we wanted a spot away from other campers; there was something about her demeanor that made me wonder if she thought Posi and I were a couple. Which, while amusing, would also make me happy to know that the concept of same gender couples isn't so alien even out in rural area.
We took a quick trip back out to a local gas station for firewood, then set up the tent and started a fire. Once that was going, Posi got out his bult-like-a-battleship Coleman stove and made some dinner. Just before that though, we took a walk along the road to find the outhouse that our map told us was just up the way.
The walk, though short, was deeply memorable. A story on NPR talked about how the harvest moon this year was going to be exceedingly bright. The conjunction was a couple days before our trip, so I'm not sure that the 'super harvest moon' had anything to do with it. But for some reason the moon seemed brighter in the sky than I'd ever seen in.
The disc was bright enough to hurt my eyes for a moment if I looked directly at it after acclimating to the surrounding dark of the woods. Bright enough to mask surface detail. And I'm having a hard time describing the effect the lunar light had on the trees with their shrouds of leaves or the earth below them. All color seemed to to fade into velvety black and rich grey. The sharply delineated shadows that piled crazily on top of each other on the earth and reached up through the trees and up into the sky with their long, dark, bony fingers, spread open against the faraway dome of night, made the whole scene into an abstract painting; an impression of the wilderness that was more wild than real life could be. I regretted walking back to the camp site, with our fire burning and electric lantern ablaze.
If I hadn't been so tired and cold, I would have found a way down to the nearby lake to sit and watch the night. Alas, I turned in and got snuggly under some clothes. For a little while; soon the temperature was low enough that what I brought with wasn't enough, and I ended up sleeping in Posi's van, where I could keep a little warmer. Next time, I need to make sure I get to Kenosha and pick up my sleeping bag.
But all was well, and I awoke the next morning, stretched my stiff limbs, and tried to assist with the making of a little breakfast, learning a few things about cooking while I was at it.
We broke down the site and got on the road, looking for the hamfest we'd been planning on attending. We located the site, and ducked into a Salvation Army store for shopping and then an India House restaurant for lunch. Yum! That taken care of, we proceeded to the meet.
The meetup was kind of sad. Not that it wasn't a good place to be, to see the array of random bits of radio, computer, laser, and other tech and cruft. I love all of it. But the cruft seemed to outweight the tech in no small proportion. As Posi pointed out in the car after we left, the issue seems to be that the great majority of the people there are the same people who've been there for years and years, selling the same old things. There's not a lot of new blood coming into ham radio. I'm just as guilty as anyone of not contributing; I don't have a license, though I used to think about trying to get one a lot. It's something with a lot of alluring tradition and respect. My great-grandfather was an amateur radio operator, and my grandfather still has some of his electrical equipment, and it really does awe me to look at these soldering irons with cloth cords and think about what my ancestor did with them.
At the same time, with the advent of the communication tools that the internet makes possible, what's the point of sending packet radio or slow-scan TV? The fact that there are people with battery operated ham sets who can relay communications in emergencies is fantastic, and I hope that kind of technology and spirit lives forever. And I even see the appeal of trying to contact other states and other countries using your own power and your own radio, relying not on the existing framework of technology that most people use, but on your own equipment and understanding. But it's like going out and shooting analog film. There are things that analog film is still better suited to than digital. But not many, and perhaps not forever. And it adds so much time, cost, and complexity.
In the same way I miss the phone phreaking culture in the '70s despite being too young to have been a part of it, or the way I miss usenet despite never having been much of an active participant in it, I miss ham radio even though I've never actually sat down and used one. I may even study and take the test and get a license one of these days. But I don't know that there's still the same sort of culture I imagine that there used to be surrounding it. There's something about me that feels called to by things that once were and no longer are, maybe even simply because of that characteristic. Once I bumped into a description of a concept of zen aesthetics called あわれ （aware); it's exactly the way I feel about things like this. It's what I feel like I'm trying to convey in my urban ruins photography.
Anyway.
We finished up at the ham fest and thought about what to do next. I realized that we weren't too far from the Rochelle Railroad Park, and suggested going there. We checked in at the hotel and drove south, picking up some more firewood on the way.
The time spent at the park was a lot of fun. Posi started the fire and I shot a few pictures of him working and of passing trains. As the daylight began to fade, Posi plugged the word 'hobo' into Pandora radio on his phone and it responded with some very classic sounding Blues. He and I sat on benches around the fire, great long freight trains rumbling and roaring by either side of us, listening to harmonica and slide guitar, and talking. It made me really happy.
Back at the hotel, we made fajitas (which I'm going to try by myself tonight!) and got to sleep. Breakfast the next morning was sausage and eggs (we could do all this cooking because we had an extended stay room with a micro-kitchen) and we were on our way home.
We stopped at another thrift store on the way (I found a nice rolling suitcase which replaced the torn duffel bag I'd been using) and then visited the McHenry flea market. It's held at a drive in theatre, so I was happy to see the place just for that reason. But there were some fun things for sale too, and a few interesting people to talk to.
And finally, finishing up there, we went back to Posi's place where I got my car and drove up to Kenosha. I had dinner at Cracker Barrel with
moiracoon, visited with my parents for far too long, and made it back to Rogers Park about midnight to crash prior to getting up for work at 6 o' clock. *woof*And that's the weekend. More about the week in the next installment of adventures of a Stormdog!
