Relocating

My virtual blog presence is changing to another site. I expect that the content on this site will remain intact.

Vegan..

It so happened that I greatly enjoyed the company and conversation of a vegetarian — and it has so happened that I declined to pursue a conversation on ChristianCafe with someone who thought that she needed to follow the OT dietary laws. I’m an omnivore; and I’m a flexible person who respects how people go about feeding themselves. I wouldn’t find comity, though, with someone who thought “meat was murder” or that what goes into a man’s mouth is what defiles him.

Turn your head and cough..

My friend DingoEnlish gives me this link about the TSA; not revealing anything that I didn’t know already. But it is worth a read; and it illuminates my thinking a bit as well. When I was in Bahrain in transit to London we all got patted down (women passengers, as well – by a female officer wearing a kind of half-veil over her face) and frisked. It was, ah, rather personal. I joked in the departure lounge with some American oil workers that I was tempted to turn my head and cough, but that the Bahrainian security either a) wouldn’t get the joke or b) would get it and not take it kindly.

Pilfered

So, my lost baggage came to my house by courier – it was found in Newark; apparently it never left the country. I seem to have most everything, but one thing is not accounted for — a 70$ rucksack purchased for the trekking part of my trip. Simply gone from the suitcase. It is evident that the contents were gone through. (While there, I purchased for about 20$ a Chinese knock-off rucksack in the tourist warren of Thamel, where I was staying; which I left behind with a German-run charity when I left). It is distressing when theft touches you.

Edit: It turns out my micro-shortwave radio was also taken. Arghh.

Soldier and sailor, too

I’ve only met a few ex-Royal Marines, but they each impressed me greatly. I had the pleasure of adventuring with one a few days in Nepal (he was on my raft crew) and also interacting with him back in the capital city. Thus I am also reminded of this poem I have favored by Rudyard Kipling about that breed of man.

The road not taken

from Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Day 8 of 10

I have rafted on rivers fed from the Himalayas (with some hair-raising moments in the water), sat in buddhist and hindu temples, and walked the countryside for three days in the company of a local guide. A small spot of health problems overcome with locally procured medications. More to come.

CHISOPANI MOONLIGHT

A Chill mountain wind
Both close and far to heaven
Riot of starlight

Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

So, my first adventure was getting the word from the BWI lady that it was good that I had a Visa already – her computer flagged my destination, where I sit typing these words, as requiring this. Apparently I would have not been allowed to travel forward, in her mind; though that’s hard to figure. I’m an American. Supposedly I have a Constitutional privilege to travel between borders. Adventure #2 was having my first leg of the journey held up long enough that leg #2 wouldn’t have worked, so I got moved over to another flight, going to JFK instead of Boston. Fine. I’m here in Nepal, but my luggage is somewhere between London, New Delhi, or here. My carry on bag has some socks and underwear, in anticipation of this possibility. Adventure #3 was responding to an overhead page “Is there a nurse or Doctor on board?” Someone passed out, apparently postural hypotension, on the trip to London. Finally I was attacked by a rogue meal cart on the leg into Katmandu. True story. But that’s for another time…Postings may be spotty, since I am working with something less than dial-up speed.

Departure

Open door for me
Alchemy of the Silk Road
Himalayan dreams

Pieces..

My grandfather was a collector of militaria and a gunsmith, among his other trades; and my father an avid sportsman. Myself, I haven’t shot an animal for food for over 20 years; but I’ve done it. That having been said, I should say that I parted with my Glock and Ruger single-six about six years ago and have divested myself of my few rifles. I still own a single-shot shotgun (suitable for squirrels) and a rifled-barrel shotgun (suitable for members of the order Cervidae.) I think though to part with the latter (I do not have the courage to go out in the Maryland woods during deer season…..trust me on this); but yet consider to purchase anew something “safer” for home defense; most likely the Mossberg “home defender” (since I gave the last Mossberg to my son, whom I taught to shoot responsibly at the firing range.) That’s what dads do. I’m unapologetic about it, and about shooting mammals. I am not a “gun nut.” Not anymore, at least. Not for many years. But I’m a right-to-defend-yourselfer.