Resolution Recap 2019

As I've gotten older it's felt like days and weeks go by faster. However, 2018 was amazing because it felt like the last 365 days have been twelve long, agonizing years. I can't say it's been the worst year I've had because there's been a lot of good to come out of it with the bad, but I'm ready to head into the next year. I grew as a person, learned a lot, and, most importantly, I did some stuff.

Last January I wrote about my resolutions and how they went and then re-wrote a list of New Years Resolutions for 2018. After all, there's no better recipe for success than personal accountability and actually remembering what it is you're setting out to do, and with the minor successes I had last year I figured I could do even better this year. Much of the list is the same as the one from 2017, and a few bullet points are in my list for 2019, but let's take a look at some of the highlights:

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- QUIT FUCKING SMOKING

I did it! I wrote about it in March after not smoking for maybe a week, and after nearly a year without nicotine think I'm done with smoking for good. What's more, I've been running faster, my blood pressure is better, I've been sleeping at least marginally better, and I don't stink so bad. Cravings pop up every so often, especially during stressful nights at work and moments when I'm feeling down in the dumps, but they pass a lot easier now than they did before. Having smoked for 15 years and successfully quit cold turkey is probably the biggest thing I've done for myself all year. 

- Hike More 

I did literally one hike I intended to do this year, though I'm glad it was the Whitney Portal Rec Trail because that was a blast. Especially going the weekend before Whitney Portal Road opened for the season, the trail was empty, the Portal was empty, and it was as if I had an entire woodland world all to myself. Scheduling conflicts put my plan to summit Mt. Disappointment on the back burner, and I didn't even end up going to Death Valley this year, but next year I hope to hike more and knock out some more trails. 

- Build Savings Account

The bad news is I had a little medical emergency that completely wiped my savings account, and I haven't been able to completely rebound from it. The good news is I had a savings account to begin with to pay those bills, and my finances are at least starting to get on the mend, so I can enter the coming year a little wiser and with a lot more spite toward the American health care system. 

- Keep Running 

I finished the Santa Clarita Half Marathon much faster than I had in 2017, and my recovery was a lot more pleasant. Up until the last few weeks I was pulling a minimum of 15 miles per week, with some runs lasting 10 miles without me thinking much about it.

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The list for 2019 has a lot of the same stuff. The list is starting feeling less like "resolutions" and more like "maintenance" but, honestly, I'm kind of cool with that. Knowing I survived my 20s with only minor scarring, trauma, and brain damage, if my goals are to maintain the work I've done already then I'll go with it. I have a lot to look forward to next year, and even though the concept of "A New Chapter In My Life" is kind of old hat, I'm happy to be entering one.

Happy New Year! See you in 2019! 

Jingle Bell Rock

I was a humbug for a long time. As a matter of fact, it's only been within the last few years that I've knocked off most of my humbuggery, so now I can actually enjoy holly jolly festivities and ugly Christmas sweaters without spouting out things like "This Feeds Into The Consumerist Dogma" and "It's All Empty Gestures And Commercial Lies" too often.

As such, I used to absolutely loathe Christmas music; it's an entire subset of music that is only relevant once a year, and by the time it's actually Christmas it's been overplayed since Thanksgiving. While I've gotten over it, there are two songs in particular that I hate to hear. The first song, of course, is "Last Christmas" by WHAM! since, of course, I cannot listen to it without succumbing to WHAMaggedon. It's a fine song, but I simply can't listen to it because it's against the rules. The second song is "Jingle Bell Rock" which is the worst ever.

Bobby Helms, the original person to release the song in 1957, probably hoped it would have a lasting impact. Considering it made an appearance on the Billboard Top 100 as recently as 2016 I'd say it has. Well, what I actually said was, "Holy shit it got to #35?! " but that's basically the same idea at its core. The reason I'm so surprised is because, personally, I think it's a dumb song. It's dated, the lyrics are stupid, and it's been covered by enough other music artists to have it be its own subgenre of the Christmas music subset. There's one subgenre of this subgenre of this music subset, however, that I hate most, and I can't hear the song any other way when I think about it; it's the elementary school Christmas program rendition.

Whatever evil dictated that every kindergarten class since at least the 90s had to sing "Jingle Bell Rock" can go straight back to hell. Whatever play the school might be doing manages to shoehorn in some line about rock-and-roll, and the kindergartners come out onto the stage. Parents chuckle and coo as they take pictures of the children, usually adorned in reindeer antlers or Santa hats. The adults turn to one another, saying things like, "Oh, how cute!" and, "So precious!" as they beam with pride a their rascals. There's always one kid with the attention span of a gnat and too much unbridled energy that takes a bit longer to get in position (that was me growing up, I'll admit that) but once that kid is ready, and the teacher is only holding on to the hope of the bottle of wine at home, it begins.

The opening music starts and the bass line ba-dum-dum-dums into what can only loosely be defined as singing. I'm not sure what key the kindergartners sing-- or, let's be real, shout-- in, but it's a key that transcends generations that, I'm pretty sure, was banned by the Geneva Conventions. It's also somehow sung to the same beat regardless of when or where you hear it, that being a sporadic and anxiety-producing one. There's always one kid that's a little too excited about singing/shouting (again, that was me), and there's always one that very clearly wants nothing to do with being on stage in front of a bunch of strangers. To their credit, the kids almost remember some of the words to the song, so some parts are clearly and confidently belted out. Others are mumbled as the teacher frantically uses hand gestures to get the kids to be louder, as if the kids need encouragement. The whole affair ends with, "THAT'S THE JINGLE BELL, THAT'S THE JINGLE BELL," sang/shouted at different intervals, before culminating into a, "THAT'S THE JINGLE BELL ROOOOOCK!" that can, and probably has, broken glass and caused dogs to panic. The energy of the class throughout the performance is at all ends of the spectrum. The dissonance is palpable.

The parents applaud. The children are herded away as one kid jumps around and flails his arms (again, me). The teacher considers running to the store on the way home to pick up another bottle of wine. The play continues.

I think that's the reason I'm not a fan of the song; it reminds me of a dozen children who'd rather do anything else shouting on stage. Now, to be fair, I don't have kids and I don't plan on having any, but if I did I might appreciate my tyke belting out that classic with their classmates. It makes sense that any parent would be proud to see their child capable of memorizing a song and looking nice, but I don't have a child of my own, partly because I don't want to risk having to go out of my way to hear "Jingle Bell Rock" and partly because I know what kind of child I was and don't want to do that to the world.

Anyway, regardless, I'm okay with the season overall. Just get me some eggnog and Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and I'll be set 'til the 25th.

Happy Holidays!

Old Hotels, pt. 2: Hot Water

I was going to write about the steam heat at work and how it clangs and hisses when it's in operation, but I decided not to this time for a couple reasons. First, the heat in the hotel is doing really well right now, which is both a relief and very suspicious. Second, there was an exchange I had with a guest earlier today that I've similarly had with other guests before. It was about the hot water.

The guest called the reception desk. Fortunately he warned me he was going to be that kind of guest by starting the call with, "Now, I don't want to be that kind of guest, but..."

According to him, the hot water in his room wasn't working. He had an issue with his television that maintenance resolved earlier today and believed the two issues were somehow connected for some reason. He berated me, saying the hotel fell so low in quality from "its golden age" (mind you, he's maybe stayed here twice in as many years, so I'm not sure what his benchmark is). Before I had a chance to tell him to let the water run awhile longer, he interrupted by saying the water wasn't getting hotter even though he had both taps running. Instead of  informing him that running hot and cold water at the same time doesn't make water hotter, I told him I'd check the water heater. He responded by very aggressively hanging up the phone, possibly in gratitude. True to my word, I checked the water heater which, not surprisingly, was working normally. I checked a sink in a room that was connected to the same water heater and, wouldn't you know it, it was running hot. I tried knocking on the guest's door so I could check the water in his room specifically, maybe also to check if the TV was taking up all his hot water somehow, but didn't get a response. By the time I returned to the desk I saw a missed call from the room, so I assume he was in the shower since there was nothing ever wrong with the hot water in his room.

Maybe it's because I've lived in houses built prior to 1960 almost my entire life, or maybe I'm proof that millennials don't always expect instant gratification, but I understand and accept that sometimes it takes a minute for hot water to get to the faucet. I think it's normal to wait with any water heater, possibly aside from tankless systems, but for whatever reason older pipes hate hot water and older people hate waiting for it. The guest who complained earlier was even in the newer wing of the facility with updated plumbing, so if he was in the part built in 1923 I'm sure he would have been able to heat the whole building's water purely with his unadulterated rage that would come from having a tepid tap for so long.

Water temperature in the old hotel is sometimes slow to warm up, and sometimes is erratically hot and cold when. Some guests have told me they had to leave their taps going for the better part of 10 minutes before the water started to heat up. Others have said their water would go from pleasant to ice cold to too hot to pleasant again in the span of the time it normally takes to shower. I mark their complaints down to pass on to the general manager and apologize to the guests, but I usually get a snide remark or scoff in response. If I were a plumber it'd be one thing to put me down for that sort of thing, but since I'm not I do my best to take those moments in stride.

It's wasteful to let water run for so long, especially being in the California high desert. I know that, but I also know the business owners aren't about to completely replace the plumbing in a nearly century-old building with high-efficiency lines and heaters. Part of the retro experience in this instance is using two gallons of water to flush the toilet and infinite patience with how long the shower takes to heat up. Usually it's not so bad and not always that wasteful, but it's honestly a crap shoot. That's part of the reason why "they don't make 'em like they used to."

So remember; much like old people exercising, old plumbing in old buildings takes a minute to get warmed up, so be patient.

That Time With The Horses

Last year I wrote on the annual film festival in October, and how westerns are oftentimes problematic. While that has been in the forefront of my thoughts in critiquing the event recently, thanks to "Facebook Memories" I remember another issue I have with it; some of the guests. It shouldn't be a surprise, really. Anyone who romanticizes imperialist fantasy probably isn't going to be a dream to be around, but besides that I remember some specific people with horses that I don't really think were a part of the event. It was six years ago today. At that point, the owners of the hotel had hosted a cocktail hour during the Festival that was open to the public. Event staff, attendees, hotel guests, locals, EVERYONE took advantage of the open bar. It was a free-for-all of noise and joviality in the lobby that, while it was a cocktail hour starting at 7 pm, it usually dragged on until I was nearly done with my shift at 11. It was tradition then for people to get liquored up at the party, then head to Jake's Saloon up the street for more beer, then to the Double L for shots, then back to Jake's Saloon, and some of the folks who had that plan in mind were some cowboy folks on horseback. They stopped at the party and tied their horses off at the pool area of the hotel. Some local kids, knowing the staff of the hotel (a.k.a. me, alone as usual) were busy attending to the folks at the cocktail hour, decided to sneak into the pool area to swim. A couple of kids did cannonballs into the deep end, which spooked the horses tied to the fence, which caused the half dozen half-ton animals tied to the flimsy aluminum bars to rip them out of the pavement. The kids scattered and the owners of the horses went outside. Noticing the commotion, the damage, and the cowboys untying their horses from the debris, I went around asking, "Hey, are these your horses? They damaged our property and we need your information." They ignored me and rode away. I spent an hour that night shoveling the horse shit from the parking lot and making a statement to a sheriff's deputy. After all that, I stashed the broken fence pieces out of the parking lot and strung up some caution tape where the fence used to be, then cleaned up the lobby after the party. I was a little stressed out, so after work I decided to head to the bar for a night cap. And those fucking horses were tied up next to the bar. So I went to the other bar because, frankly, I didn't want to deal with it anymore. After the incident (which, come to think of it, I don't think we ever figured out exactly who it was that damaged the pool area fence), the owners of the hotel tried to do away with the party completely. However, after long-time attendees raised a stink about it, the owners changed up the party from open to the public to exclusively for hotel guests and event staff, and now only serve beer and wine. It's still annoying to clean up after, but it's a lot nicer than shoveling shit and talking to cops. Westerns portray cowboys as brave conquerors of the western landscape, but maybe more accurately the cowboys of yesteryear were more like those cowboys from the party; drunk assholes that won't answer for the damage they've done. Seriously though, fuck those guys. Happy Friday.

"Is This Place Haunted?" pt 3

Autumn weather is slowly coming to the Eastern Sierra; the leaves on the aspen trees are starting to show their gold, the north wind carries a welcomed cooling, and the off-season lull in tourism hangs on the horizon. It's my favorite time of year in the Owens Valley (summertime is too hot and windy, winters are too cold and windy, but autumn is just right... and windy), not just weather-wise but also for reasons a lot of people like autumn; the spooky stuff. 

The closer it gets to Halloween, the more people ask if the hotel I work in is haunted. I tell them some stories that I've heard throughout the years, and the guests enjoy the notion of staying in a haunted hotel in the middle of nowhere while I have fun telling people a bunch of ghost stories. It's been years since anything spooky has happened to me at work, but I saw something earlier tonight that I'm not entirely sure how to explain. 

I think something was in the basement.

There is a door beneath the stairs on the north wing of the hotel that leads into the basement. It's used mostly for storage nowadays, like any other basement, but has a purportedly illicit past; When the hotel was built in the 1920s, prohibition was in full swing, and big name actors from the day often stayed in our little desert oasis. As the story goes, folks like John Wayne and the like would smoke cigars and play poker in a makeshift lounge in the hotel basement where, in a hideaway wall, liquor was stored and served to big name actors. 

I can't say how accurate any of that is, but it makes for a story that guests think is neat, and it explains the hideaway wall down there. Nowadays it's simply a windowless room with faded green paint on wooden panels and word maroon-colored tile floors. Green carpet lines the stairs, and a bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling at the base of them. It may have been dressed up for the public eye before, but not so much anymore. 

Earlier this evening I was walking down the north hall when I noticed light coming from underneath the basement door. We've been decorating for the upcoming film festival, so I figured someone must have forgotten to shut the light off so I didn't think much of it. Later on I was back in the north hallway, running an extra sheet to a guest, when I thought I saw something move behind the basement door. I figured I was just imagining things and that it was looking at the light while walking that made it just seem like something was moving around, but when I walked by after that I only saw light without any movement, and later still I found no light coming from underneath the door at all. 

I rationalized that it was probably just a dead light bulb instead of a dead person. The basement gives me the creeps, sure, but I figure that's just because it's the nature of a creepy old basement to give people the creeps. Curiosity eventually got the better of me so I grabbed the master keys and walked to the basement door. A rush of musty air hit me when I opened it up, and nothing seemed out of place... except the light at the bottom of the stairs was still on. 

The door had been locked, and staff are the only ones with a key. Either there was someone that had locked themselves in that creepy basement and turned the lights out, or something inexplicable was creeping around down there, but regardless I didn't stick around to find out which one it was. I gently closed the door, made sure it was locked, and headed to the front desk because it was too spooky for me and I still needed to do stuff before the end of my shift. 

It's not the most interesting ghost story, as far as ghost stories at this hotel go; it's no phantom waking up guests in the dead of night, or forces turning on lights, or a ghost taking a piss, but it sufficiently spooked me a piqued my curiosity; what's in the basement? A gambler's ghost? An evil spirit? Or just an electrical box, some Christmas decorations, and my runaway imagination?

Whatever it is, it fits well with the autumnal chill.

AJ's List Of Spookytime Podcasts

Don't freak out, but autumn is only a couple weeks away.

With autumn comes a lot of my favorite things; brisk mornings with coffee, golden leaves falling from the trees, flannel shirts on my back and flannel sheets on my bed, and spooky stuff. Autumn is a goldmine for ghosts and ghoulies in media, and it's no secret that I'm a fan of it year-round. Ever since I was a kid I was interested in extraterrestrials, ghosts, Sasquatch, and everything in-between, and hearing "true" accounts of the paranormal has always tickled my fancy.

Having a fictional scary story is a lot of fun. I like cheesy old horror flicks and modern scary movies a lot, but having the disclaimer of "Based On A True Story" gives me the heebie jeebies more. It adds an air of believably; what if my apartment was haunted (like my last one)? What if I went missing in the woods? If I came across Sasquatch would she think I was cool?! There are quite a few podcasts that cover unusual and eerie things based in reality, and the following is a list of a few of my favorites:


-Unexplained

The music is somber and the narration soft, but the content is anything but relaxing. Host Richard McClean Smith tells true tales of unexplained events throughout history, ranging from hauntings to alien abduction to the occult to things that defy any explanation. He presents the evidence without trying to come up with explanations to the events he describes, which leaves the listener to wonder what--or if-- there could be an explanation to the unexplained.
Pairs well with: quiet, rainy afternoons spent tidying up the house with a cup of coffee.

-Astonishing Legends

Have you ever wondered what happened to Amelia Earhart? Or what the Mothman is? Do you like discussion about things that are astonishing, legendary, or astonishingly legendary? Hosts Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess, along with the Astonishing Research Corps (A.R.C), dive deep into mysteries and stories on a wide range of topics. Some topics are paranormal, like the Bell Witch and Resurrection Mary, some are potentially extraterrestrial, like the Kelly-Hopkins encounter and the Kecksburg incident, and others are subjects of unsolved mysteries, like Henry Plummer and the Somerton Man. While the topics are sometimes broad, they discuss them in length and leave listeners with a lot of interesting information on the what they present.
Pairs well with: internet wormholes at 3am with a pale ale.

-Haunted Places

It's an audio tour into the most haunted places on earth. Host Greg Polcyn tells stories of the ghosts and spirits that dwell in infamous paranormal locations, like Bodie State Historic Park in California and Bhangarh Fort in Rajasthan, India, among many others. There's a flair for the dramatic to the show, and there are stories that take plenty of creative license, but if you like stories "based off a true story" and old-timey radio drama, you might like this.
Pairs well with: adventurous vacation planning

-Lore

Also a show on Amazon Prime and a book series, host Aaron Mahnke explores the dark corners of history. With haunting piano music playing in the background, he tells the stories of places and things that have long been in the territory of nightmares, like poltergeists, being buried alive, lake monsters, and more, all with historical context. Each episode is a lesson not only in things that frighten us, but also a look into the human condition and the background of the places we live and visit. It's not so much an in-your-face scare as much as it's a lingering, creeping, unsettling sensation.
Pairs well with: a night in a leather armchair next to the fireplace in an old study with a glass of Syrah.

-Jim Harold's Campfire

I admit, I've only recently given this show a listen, but it hooked me. Jim Harold, a long time player in podcasting, gets calls from listeners who tell their experiences with the paranormal. There's something refreshing about a ghost story presented as an experience instead of a means to give someone the heeby-jeebies, and this podcast is just that; callers laying out what they experienced. They're the kind of stories I get at work from guests sometimes, and I think it's a lot of fun.
Pairs well with: a commute in need of some spooky talk radio.


There are a lot of great podcasts that fit the mold of "paranormal nonfiction" but this is a good starting point to get you primed and ready for haunted houses and cemeteries in the weeks to come.

Old Hotels, pt. 1: Cooling

Working in an old hotel is definitely an experience. Having been in operation for nearly a century, the property I work at is a Spanish-revival throwback to the old west movie days of the 1920s and '30s. It's a neat place; every room is unique, quaint, and furnished and decorated in period style, so it's an easy sell for anyone who wants to take a trip back in time while also not being too far away from satellite TV and WiFi.

However, one thing about travelling back in time to 1920s California; summers are, and always have been, hot. It's California. This property is specifically in the California desert, straddling the border of Death Valley, so it gets pretty hot during the summer months. To remedy this, the hotel installed a state-of-the-art cooling system in 1930 to beat the heat. Our property was featured in the manufacturer's ads because of how impressive the machine was back when it was built.

Then again, it was state-of-the-art in 1930. Since then we've put people on the moon, created a vaccine for polio, built computers that can hold the whole of human knowledge and can make phone calls that fit in your pocket (assuming you're not wearing women's jeans, what's up with that?), and, most importantly to my point, developed modern HVAC systems.

The hotel is centrally heated by steam radiator and centrally cooled by evaporative cooling. That means, while there's heating and cooling, there's no climate control. Half the folks that inquire about rooms scoff at the idea of not having a thermostat of their own; after all, we're in the 21st century, a guest should have their room as balmy or frigid as they please. The other half don't care, so long as there's air, except most of those people end up caring when the realization kicks in that they can't control the heat or cooling.

Most nights, especially around June and September, guests will come down to say their room is too hot or too cold, usually within five minutes of each other and usually within a couple doors of one another. European tourists apparently like to sleep in warm spaces while folks from the US like to sleep cool, and it boggles the mind to think that two rooms that are nigh identical can be both too warm and too cold. It's Schrodinger's room climate. The three bears from Goldilocks come to mind too, because there's more often than not at least one asshole who overhears someone telling the front desk staff the room is too warm/cold and he pipes up with a "Nah, it's juuuuust right! They're super comfy! Gosh I love it here!' before sauntering off to bother someone else.

My job is fine, don't get me wrong, but I do honestly lose sleep over how much I wish I worked in a place where people all could control their room temperature. I daydream about working in a hotel that didn't have a century-old throwback with century-old setbacks. I try to imagine what it must be like to not have to explain that, no, you can't make the air colder, and no, you can't turn it down, and no, you can't make it quieter, and no, we don't have any rooms available in the motel this evening with personal a/c. Maybe it's ghosts making the rooms too cold. Maybe being out in the sun on Mt. Whitney or in Death Valley has tourists roasted so it only seems like the room is too hot.

One thing's for sure; I'm super ready for that two week window where the weather isn't too hot or too cold that neither the heat and cooling have to be on.

Summertime

It's interesting to think about how our ancient ancestors migrated across continents to populate the world. Before established roads and maps were invented, nomadic tribes crossed continents on foot and oceans on canoes. They survived threats from predators and the environment itself, crafted tools and shelter to make their homes, and hunted and gathered to keep fed and alive. It's interesting to think about because if our early ancestors were anything like some of the tourists I encounter on my day-to-day during the summer months, we'd be extinct.

I've mentioned the inability of travel-weary people to figure out how doors work. People also oftentimes can't figure out how to turn on their TVs, failing to try the power button. Some guests can't figure out where the bathroom is in their room when there are two doors to look in, one of which being a closet. Basic directions to a room start to sound like IKEA instructions. The hotel suddenly becomes a magical labyrinth where everything is a mystery. I'm essentially a Minotaur in khakis and a button down tasked to point people in the right direction and to solve mystic riddles like how to connect to the WiFi, when I should just be another human being interacting with other human beings that happen to be on vacation.

I like to think the heat makes tourist's brains melt. Summers around here are hot, especially in Death Valley, and a lot of tourists drive through there this time of year to see what the hottest place in the US is like (hint: it's hot). Heat makes people uncomfortable, irritable, and spacey, and when you couple that with a hangover from a couple nights of partying in Las Vegas and a four hour drive through a rolling beige landscape, mental faculties aren't going to be firing at 100%.  Whatever semblance of common sense and critical thinking that may have existed in a person is sweated out of the system along with the previous night's shots. The ability to pay attention or listen is a distant memory. Instincts like perception and invention-- instincts that have advanced the civilization for all of human history-- are gone as soon as the city limit sign for Pahrump is in the rear-view mirror.

Mt. Whitney is also a popular destination, and while not hot enough to melt a brain, the air is thin enough apparently to suffocate it. People come in droves for permits to climb the mountain, so cocksure and ready to conquer the tallest mountain in the contiguous US. One would think, surely, being in alpine territory, those instincts of survival and exploration would kick in, but when you consider people come from their homes in San Diego-- at sea level-- and immediately try to climb a mountain that's over 14,000 feet without acclimatization and wonder how they got altitude sickness, or that SAR was called out recently for an injured hiker only to discover he just wanted a helicopter ride back to his car, you start to wonder how some folks survive into adulthood.

Summertime is the busiest season for tourism for the Owens Valley. Being the midway point between Death Valley and Yosemite National Park, and being at the base of Mt. Whitney, makes Lone Pine a popular stop. When exhausted and sunburned tourists, either off the trail or from the desert, brains mush from too little air or too much heat, they oftentimes get to talk to me. Thinking about those brain-melted tourists being descended from ancient nomads is about as believable as me being a Minotaur, but in a way it makes the world that much more magical. If they can make it here, weary travelers emerging from tall mountains and vast deserts, then I can do anything I set my mind to.

If nothing else, I can at least feel good in the fact that, in those moments that I feel stupid, I'm not alone.

The Devil's Itch

Yesterday, before I headed out for a run, my friend yelled out, "Remember sunscreen!"

I shouted back, "I did!" because I actually remembered to wear sunblock, and I then set off down the road and then through the desert. June in the high desert means abundant sunshine. Anyone who's met me knows I'm fair skinned. When I'm out for awhile I get rosy, and if I'm out for a bit longer I get beet red, and one time that lead to blisters and a world of hurt, but a few years back I learned the hard way about one potential side-effect to getting too much sun: The Devil's Itch.

It was after a fun weekend of camping and climbing, sans common sense and sunscreen. My chest, back, shoulders, legs, everything got roasted, and I prepared to have every inch of me freckle and peel and be tender for a few days. A few days after that weekend I was getting ready for work when I started feeling itchy. Thinking it might be just a normal itch, I unconsciously scratched at it and thought nothing of it. When every inch of my body started itching in screaming pain, I ended up on the floor in a ball hoping for it to stop, rolling around the carpet like a dog with fleas. I willed myself up and into the bathroom, took a cold shower, rubbed in some aloe vera gel after the fact, and went to work thinking, What the hell was that about?

There aren't a lot of articles on The Devil's Itch, also known as Hell's Itch, but from what I've found there isn't much reasearch on it and roughly 5 to 10 percent of people have dealt with it at some point. It manifests 24 to 72 hours after the initial burn, usually where there was the most sun (like shoulders and backs, or in my case everywhere on my lobster bod). While apparently nobody knows exactly why it happens, it can last up to a couple days and can drive a person up the walls. It's not permanent, but it absolutely leaves an impression. Like, there's a subreddit for it of people swapping experiences and remedies, which goes to show that, one, there's an internet community for everything, and two, it's pretty gnarly.

Maybe it's caused by nerve endings in the skin firing off while healing, or the oils in the skin being reintroduced into damaged tissue or something, but I don't know since I'm not a doctor or medical researcher. I'm just a guy that tends to get pink when the sun's out that learned a valuable lesson in skin care one time. When I'm out and about in the desert, especially in the warm season, I do my best to remember the SPF 50 and a hat. It'll be a miracle if I don't get some kind of skin cancer, but I'll also consider myself lucky if I don't have to experience that kind of sudden, maddening pain again.

Remember: prevention is the best medicine. Use common sense, use sunscreen, use hats and long sleeves, and maybe you'll make it through the summertime without crying and writhing on the floor from The Devil's Itch.

Bakersfield

Roadside signs advertising fast food, motels, and truck stops clustered together along the freeway exit along with power lines and billboards, like weeds competing for sunlight. It was fitting considering I was looking at Weedpatch Highway, east of Bakersfield, right off the freeway.

I was sitting in a McDonald's, staring out at the hazy horizon at the businesses across the road while I ate a cheeseburger, thinking about how excited I'd get to go to Bakersfield when I was a kid. My family would make the three hour drive from the Owens Valley once a month to visit my grandparents, so I spent many hours of my childhood in the back seat of a Suburban watching the desert floor of sagebrush and Joshua trees turn into rolling hills of golden grasses and sycamores, and then to miles of farm land that looked like a patchwork quilt from above. It was a departure from the norm, so I thought it was fantastic.

After my McDonald's lunch I headed west on Edison Highway. Scrap yards, shuttered buildings, and businesses with spray painted signs lined up on the left, a seemingly endless line of train cars stretched to the right. Downtown is a collection of '20s design and utilitarian brick buildings from the '60s. New suburban developments have taken over where corn and cotton fields had fallowed years ago, nestled against older post-war neighborhoods and oil refineries. Oil wells bob up and down in backyards. New freeways cut through town like asphalt rivers. Palm trees and tumbleweeds sway in the wind.

After spending the day with my aunt and cousins I drove my dad and myself eastbound to home, just like my dad drove my family back in the day. Bear Mountain and Tejon Ranch off the 58 were a welcome sight, but the best view of Bakersfield to most people (including me) is in the rear view mirror. The brown-gray haze faded back into the familiar rolling hills, and the rolling hills sprouted dozens of wind turbines, giant white pinwheels in neat rows standing in contrast to the deep brown of the hillside, as the landscape turned to desert beyond Tehachapi. The sycamores turned to Joshua trees, and they in turn became sagebrush by the time I got home.

Bakersfield isn't a pretty city. It's not the kind of city people dream of moving to, like San Francisco or Los Angeles, but a city you either learn to love, learn to survive, or learn to escape. There are a lot of cities like that in California alone; trying to reinvent itself, expanding for a growing population, full of people making a living or at least surviving, rural roots being taken over by the weeds competing for sunlight. Maybe it's being exposed to the pesticides and petroleum byproducts at an early age, or hearing that song from Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam since I was born, but there's something endearing about the streets of Bakersfield that make me both hold it in some reverence and avoid them like the plague if I can.

Blog Update 5-10-18

Hi there! How's it going? How've you been? Thanks for checking out my (seldom updated) blog! I guess the Blog Update post is an annual thing, and since I haven't written much in the last, y'know, couple years or so, I figure I should give the lowdown on what I've been up to instead of writing:

• I'm still running! I finished the Old Agoura 10K again, and I got 6th place in the Transplants Brewing Fundraiser 5k a couple months ago. I missed The Wild Wild West run-- the local race here-- but I signed up for the Spartan Race in LA in December because I don't love myself I know what I'm up against and love a challenge. I plan to run the Santa Clarita Half Marathon again this year, and maybe find another race between now and then. 
• I'm still not smoking! It's been two-and-a-half months I think. I guess I have more energy, I've stopped coughing all the time, I smell better, and I'm saving money, so it's a net gain even considering the cravings that come up every now and then. I'll keep it up.
• I officiated another wedding! I seem to officiate one once a year now, so that's fun.

Much like last year, my focus has been elsewhere. My calendar has been-- and continues to be-- full every week, so at least I haven't been bored. With the busy season at work dawning and a lot of weekend activities lined up, there won't be a shortage of things to write about. However, it seems like the more interesting stuff I do, the less I write, so, y'know, sorry about that. 

Anyway, I just wanted to touch base and say "hi" since I don't think I do that enough. 

Have a good one! I'll write something soon! 

Kids These Days

"Kids these days, am I right? They keep doing stupid things," Your Facebook friend says in a post, "Somewhere down the line we must have failed in raising our children, because if we did well enough they wouldn't have started eating Tide Pods, snorting condoms, or whatever dabbing is. We survived childhood with spankings and playing outside! Gen Z is going to be the end of us."

There are probably thousands of posts along that vein; kids nowadays are dumb, and they do dumb things because they're dumb. Maybe it's just because I'm a part of the Millennial generation, but I don't think that's a fair assessment. Don't get me wrong, Gen Z eating laundry detergent packets isn't the brightest move by a long shot, and my generation spearheading "The Cinnamon Challenge" and planking doesn't help matters either, but to say that Gen Z-- or Millennials, for that matter-- are comparatively dumb ignores the past in an egregious way.

My favorite example of older generations doing stupid shit stems from the 1970s. As told in the Harvard Chronicle on May 7, 1973, some students got into eating light bulbs. One Harvard glass eater described coughing up blood "for a few days after swallowing an insufficiently chewed piece of a whiskey bottle" but had no trouble when eating the thinner glass of light bulbs. Keep in mind, of course, that these are Harvard University students I'm talking about here. Some of what were considered the best minds in the nation defended their hobby of eating glass by saying "At UMass they get into clothes dryers, turn them on, and see how many times they can go around without throwing up." The article states the record was 100 times.

There was phonebooth stuffing in the 1950s, where people would see how many college students could be squeezed into a phone box, like if the TARDIS from Doctor Who wasn't larger on the inside. Though, after that fad came hunkerin', which is essentially the mid-century equivalent of the "Slav Squat" meme of today:

It's like an alternate history of The Cold War
(left photo from Life, right image from Hint)

Hunkerin' was such a fad that, according to a Time Magazine article in 1959, people were suggesting US President Eisenhower and Secretary Khrushchev of the USSR to hunker together to set aside their differences and end the Cold War. That's basically like telling Trump and Kim Jong Un to dab for peace. It's just as ridiculous, but it was the in-thing back in the day. 

Goldfish eating was a thing that happened in the 1930s since they didn't have Tide Pods yet. Starting in Harvard (true innovators, really) in 1939, students across the US decided it would be hilarious and fun to swallow live goldfish, making them at least irresponsible pet owners and at most puking messes wasting college tuition. The challenge was to see how many they could eat, with schools competing to see who would win what essentially was a really fresh but cheap sushi eating contest. 

The 1920s had flagpole sitting, which is more than a song from the late 90s: it was people sitting on flagpoles for long periods of time, which is pretty stupid and the grandfather of planking. Though, if you want to dive in to the ancient ancestor of planking, there's the stylites that lived, fasted, and preached on top of pillars. In their regard it's more akin to chaining ones self to a tree to protest logging, but it's still someone on top of a post for attention. 

Kids do dumb things, but they've always done dumb things. What sets Gen Z apart from the rest of history is that they have the largest global platform to display their stupid trends. If people in previous decades had the internet as we know it today there would absolutely be YouTube videos of kids eating glass as a prank or Facebook posts of Harvard guys taking goldfish shots, but they didn't have those platforms. We look at the stupid, reckless behavior of kids today because it's everywhere. You don't have to be in an Ivy League school to see people do dumb shit anymore. Previous generations aren't as infallible as they like to think; they're just forgetful. Probably from eating all that glass or for having all those toothaches.

Cures your toothache and helps you understand why the 70s and 80s were how they were

Next time you start to shit on Gen Z for being stupid, remember that the ones broadcasting stupid behavior aren't representative of the whole generation. Don't be the asshole who thinks your generation was perfect either. If Mozart's canon "Leck Mich Im Arsch" about eating ass can teach us anything, it's that people have done and enjoyed silly and stupid shit forever and will do and enjoy it forever. Get off your high horse; this generation is just as doomed as the rest.

Speech

My job consists of a lot of talking. I answer phones and speak to people face-to-face for 40 hours every week, and I've done so for many years. Whether I'm explaining the differences in the two wings of the property, telling people things to do in the area, directing people where to go to dinner, asking for information when making reservations, or making small talk during check-in, I spend a lot of my day speaking. Because I talk to people from all over the globe I've done my best over the years to speak as clearly and concisely as possible so that, even in the case of language barriers, guests understand what I'm talking about.

In the last few days I've had a couple people comment on how I talk. One lady checked in the other day and mentioned how nice and professional my phone voice was when I had made her reservation the week before. A few hours ago a guest from the Netherlands asked if I was from the US, and then thanked me, saying my accent was clear and easy to understand. It's really uplifting, especially considering I wasn't really great at talking for a long while.

I have vague memories of being four years old. They're the kind of murky scenes that almost seem like dreams, but I do remember seeing a speech therapist, though I didn't know what was going on at the time. When I was at an age where most kids would speak pretty normally, I had an expressive vocabulary of about ten to fifteen words. Apparently I communicated in a lot of whines and grunts for the most part, with a select few words here and there when absolutely needed. This understandably worried my parents, so they sent me in for a bunch of tests. Doctors didn't see anything abnormal with me developmentally, so they suggested a speech therapist. I remember hanging out at the preschool with a lady that had me play a lot of games and talked to me a lot, which apparently helped me expand my vocabulary and form words, so by the time I started school I was on the same level as the rest of the kids. As the story goes, I haven't shut up since.

As I grew up I participated in school plays, getting background roles as a little kid and some speaking roles with actual lines to memorize later on, so I learned how to speak clearly and project my voice. In high school, since they cut from freshman year until after I graduated, I got into writing. That evolved into speeches, so I took my memorization and projection skills from school plays, applied it to speech contests, and did okay with them. However, even though I could do speeches well enough, there was one thing I had a really, really hard time doing: talking to small groups and individual people. Public speaking terrifies a lot of people, but I found that talking at an audience is easier than talking to a single person. While I could orate to a room of people about some social issue, I couldn't order fast food without being a nervous wreck, or answer a phone call from a number I didn't know. The first time I asked a girl out I was 19 and I thought I was going to puke. I wanted to die during my first job interviews. Even though I was a decent public speaker I was still, at my core, really, really, painfully shy.

I want to write about how I came out of my shell and went from being an introverted kid to a social butterfly in some kind of spiritual awakening, but honestly it was just from the hotel job. Prior to the front desk I did maintenance work and kitchen work, which was fine by me because talking to people scared me and there isn't much human interaction while washing dishes or shoveling horse poop. I didn't know much about hotels when I first started, but since it was just a summer job I figured I'd roll with what was presented to me. I spent a lot of the time stumbling over words, nervously mumbling over the phone, and clamming up when presented with questions, but as the weeks went on I got a little more comfortable with talking to people. When the summer job got longer my people skills improved and my speaking ability gained more polish. Now, almost nine years later, not only is this the longest summer job I've ever had, but I can talk to pretty much anyone without much trouble.

Then again, it helps that I get paid for it. I'm still a nervous person and inherently introverted. Plus, half the time I think my voice really is annoying (the other half I think it sounds like my dad, which I guess is okay but it's still a little weird to me). Either way, I have to admit talking to people is a lot easier now than it was when I was a kid. I can strike up conversations with strangers without much trouble, make appointments without getting too nervous, answer phone calls just fine, and even order fast food (I still panic in the drive-thu though because people are waiting behind me and the clerk is waiting for my order and I always forget what I want whenever it's my time to order so I blurt out a random number and hope it's a combo I'll like).

Maybe it's stupid, but I'm kind of proud of myself for growing from a kid that didn't talk at all, to a kid that was too shy to talk, to having people impressed enough by my speaking abilities to tell me about it. Sure, it may have come from nearly a decade of having pretty much no choice but to get good with speech, but I'm still flattered when little old ladies come up to the front desk and say, "Are you the young man who made my reservation? You have such a lovely phone voice, you sound so nice! Thank you, Eric!"

They never call me by my actual name. Nothing I can say will change that, but it's close enough and I'm too flattered to care.

Smoking

I’m pretty sure this is the longest I’ve been without a cigarette in years.

My smoking habit isn’t something I talk about much. It’s kind of embarrassing because, yes, I know how bad it is for me and, yes, I know it stinks. I know it causes several varients of cancer, tooth decay, heart disease, and stroke. I’ve had various resources over the years to help me quit. It’s only been recently that I’ve managed to stop with any success, and it’s only because I got sick enough to start coughing up blood, but I’m rolling with it and supplimenting it with the resources I've had before.

Even though both my parents smoked when I was growing up I didn’t think about how the act of smoking and the smell of cigarettes was almost omnipresent throughout my childhood. However, when I was 15 I tried a few puffs off a cigar some friends had pilfered. That evolved to bumming cigarettes at parties and finishing half-smoked butts from my dad’s ashtrays, sneaking out in the middle of the night to burn them by Main Street when my hometown was asleep. By the time I was old enough I started buying my own packs, so I started smoking more. By the time I graduated high school and started going to college I smoked with fair regularity.

I mostly stuck with Marlboro and Camel in my late teens and early 20s, chain smoking while I studied or using them as an excuse to step away from parties. Graveyard shifts were spent smoking to pass the time. Long drives in my Jeep were easier with the rush of wind from the open window and thin, gray ribbons of smoke escaping. Nothing was more luxurious than a glass of red wine and a smoke. Mornings I’d wake up early to watch the sunrise over a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Nights I’d smoke before bed. It was in everything I did.

After awhile it was just something like a nervous twitch. An American Spirit cigarette hanging out of my mouth was a much a part of my personal identity as the way I speak and hold myself, so I didn’t think too seriously about stopping. The price for a pack grew and the number of people who smoked in my social circles shrank, but deep down I felt that didn’t matter; it’s who I am. Even as I grew more health-conscious all I did was switch to lights and cut down somewhat. Friends and family insisted I quit, and though I wanted to withdrawal symptoms and even the prospect of them alone held me back.

Then I recently caught the flu. I’d had colds and the flu before, and I just switched over to menthols thinking the menthol would help my throat and the smoke would dry out the mucus in my nose and throat, despite none of that actually working or making much sense. This time, however, I didn’t feel like smoking. The body aches, chills, and incessent coughing made the prospect of standing outside in the cold and wind less appealing than staying in a warm bed. Withdrawal symptoms intermingled with general illness, and I couldn’t tell what felt more miserable. A few days and a bunch of Tamiflu later I was feeling a lot better. It dawned on me that it was long enough for all the nicotine in me to have cleared itself out of my body, and that I’d done something I’d been meaning to do for years totally on a fluke. 

The last few years I've stopped smoking at work so guests wouldn't have to be offended by the smell. I stopped smoking in my car so I can keep the interior nice. When I have a race to run I don't smoke the night before so I can breathe easier. I decided to only smoke after work during the week and after dark on the weekends. After setting personal restrictions, not smoking for a couple weeks, and getting over the withdrawal hump, it's occurred to me that there's no reason for me to smoke at all. It doesn't really do anything for me except take $12 out of my pocket whenever I need a pack and answer a call of a need I don't actually have. It's a way to waste several minutes and spend some time outside, sure, but I don't feel like doing I need it as an excuse anymore; I'm an adult, I can go outside if I want with or without an excuse.

As stupid as it sounds, the closer I get to 30 the more I think about improving myself. I was a regular smoker for nearly my entire 20s, and a heavy smoker for part of them. Nearly my entire life was spent around people who smoked, and half of it was spent smoking. I wasn't even going to acknowledge my quitting publicly, but I feel like euligizing about it can put that part of me to rest. I know if I keep it up I can spend at least the rest of this year in better shape than I've ever been. I'll continue to hold myself accountable, ignore the little urges, and with any luck my nicotine habit will be a thing of the past.

Thanks to coughing up blood for getting me healthier than ever.

Resolution Recap

Happy 2018! I mean, aside from pretty much everything in political news, mudslides in Montecito, and it being one of the worst flu seasons in decades-- it's only January, by the way-- at least we aren't in 2017 anymore, right?

Right?

2017 was an interesting year in a lot of ways, but personally it was different because I set actual goals intending to accomplish them. A bulleted list was typed, printed out, and taped to my front door so I could see what I set out to do for the whole year every day. Usually I'd rattle off a couple New Years resolutions at the bar while counting down to midnight, only to forget them a couple days later, but 2017 was going to be different; I wanted to do more and be better, so I set out to do just that.

But how did I do? Let's go down the list:


1) Quit Smoking

Uh... moving on...

2) Run more

I ran three different races last year; two 10ks and a half marathon. I ended up with a pretty bad ankle sprain after the Verdugo Mountain 10k in May so that laid me out for all of June and most of July. I was pissed about it, but I got back at it and continued the ten to fifteen miles-per-week goal and surpassed it after I signed myself up for the Santa Clarita half. Now that I have new shoes that might not aid in spraining my ankles or make me trip and give me gnarly road rash (that happened mid-September, my arms now have some ugly scars) I plan to get back at it.

3) Work out more

I petered out a little bit as the year ended (from Thanksgiving on it's been a mix of apathy and comfort food), but I managed to keep exercising even when my ankle was fucked up, so I plan to continue that too.

4) Build up Adventure Fund

My "Adventure Fund" consists of loose change, tips, bonuses, et cetera, saved up for a trip somewhere. So far, after having Adventure Fund as a concept for a couple years, I haven't used it for adventures for reasons better explained later. However, I'm working on that again this year, so we'll see if it gets used for its original intention instead of groceries.

5) Camp more

I didn't go as much as I'd have liked to, but I did squeeze in at least one trip in 2017. Hopefully this year is different because there are some spots I'd like to post up at.

6) Hike more

I did hike a fair bit, but much like camping I didn't go as often as I'd have liked. Then again, I did run quite a bit, which is kind of like hiking but faster, so it's a sort-of success? Either way, I have new maps of new areas I haven't explored before, and old maps with places I haven't been to yet, so I'm excited for that.

7) Kayak

I got a kayak from my brother in 2016, and I got a rack so I could haul it places on my Versa, but my nieces use it around my brothers house, I never got the rack on the Versa, I never seemed to find the time to even go, and I traded in the Versa anyway and sold the rack. Regardless, I still want to float the Owens River in the kayak eventually, so hopefully I can find a weekend to make that happen.

8) Continue job hunt

It's disheartening, but I'm still looking.

9) Build up savings account

Remember how I mentioned I traded in my Versa? That happened because the transmission basically died. Less than 6 months to pay it off and not even 100,000 miles on it and the car croaked! It's fucked up, right?! So I had to bite the bullet and drop pretty much everything I had saved up on a down payment for another car. Sure, I love my 2015 Civic, and I'm glad I didn't end up upside-down on the Versa, but I'm still building my savings up after that stress-filled fiasco.

10) Invest more in 401(k)

I just said I'm still building up my savings again, chill out.

11) Get rid of some stuff

My girlfriends family and I did have a yard sale, and I did let go of a lot of stuff. Having a small apartment means deciding what crap you really need, and I still had stuff in boxes from when I moved in, so I purged and managed to sell and donate a fair bit. I'm a fan of cleaning and getting rid of crap so it was a win in the bag.


I have a similar list of goals for this year, about half being continuations of last years list. I'm trying to pick up running mileage again, squirreling away money into savings and Adventure Fund, and even trying to re-learn Spanish. It should be a good year as far as accomplishments go, so hopefully that's the case.

If 2017's list of resolutions has taught me anything it's that things are really unexpected and often inconvenient; Some goals weren't attempted, some were attempted but failed (coughcoughsmokingcough), and some were hindered by things beyond my control. Beautiful summer morning runs were replaced by a swollen ankle. Paying off my car loan and building up my savings was replaced by spending weeks calling garages, talking with car dealers, and dropping thousands of dollars. Call-backs for jobs were few and far between, and the ones I did get didn't go anywhere.

Despite the missteps-- both literal and figurative-- and setbacks, not everything unexpected was inconvenient. I didn't think I'd reconnect with a good friend whom I hadn't spoken to in ages. Marching in protest was out of left field too. There was a lot of bad last year but it wasn't without respite.

Either way, here's hoping this year isn't the worst, even though it probably will be, and if it is here's hoping we make it out in one piece.