Tresler's blog

There is a definite part of me that is a bit of a policy wonk. This part is diametrically opposed to the part of me that despises needless bureaucracy. However, I just want to point out a little observation regarding recent events.

Haiti had no policies in place to guard against earthquakes. If they did, they went largely unobserved.

Over the course of the next few days specific people I know may be interested in this will be getting invites. As some of you know, my latest hobby is cooking. I have this tendency to take a hobby and go off the deep end with it, so as a result, I've been cooking whenever I get free time, and reading cookbooks and food magazines non-stop.

Well, frankly folks, I'm swamped. Inundated. Overwhelmed. Gots too much to do. Here is the clif notes version:

I am not a Vim guru, but it is my editor of choice. I get stuck on a lot of remote servers and it just is too much for my peanut brain to handle switching back and forth from a command line interface to a Gui just to write some code. It fits. I like it.

We've had a good run of it, but Dad and I are off the trail for the season. We hit just under the 800 mile mark right outside Roanoke, VA. There wasn't any dramatic event, injury, or rationale for getting off the trail, we'd just both gotten fed up with the bugs and the heat, and the never-ending Virginia green tunnel. I was also quickly running out of money.

So, Sam, how has the adventure of a lifetime been going? Funny you should ask: freakin' fantastic! I suppose I have a lot to update on, so I'll start with the gloss-over logistical stuff. We made Dennis Cove Rd. about 50 miles south of the VA border at the same time that the annual Trail Day's festival was starting in Damascus VS, so we took a shuttle north to catch it (amazing).

Howdy folks,

I'm short on time and have way too much to say for a single post, however, I have notes and will go back at some point and fill in the blank spots. Eventually, I want to post most of my pen and paper notes as blog entries and organize it accordingly, but for now, I'm going to give a brief overview and post a bunch of pictures that I have taken along the way.

I've promised some updates on my progress on the A.T. so here we go! Um, I start next week and I'm going stir crazy.

The plan was always to land here in North Carolina and await for a good time to head for Georgia given the weather, and available transportation. Well, it's been freakin' cold. We are finally biting the bullet and just going next Thursday Apr. 2.

Hi All,
For anyone who hasn't heard, I'm going to be hiking the Appalachian Trail this season. I leave NYC on March 2nd or 3rd. Do two weeks of training, then hit the trail March 15th, with the exception of some brief day trips as I pass by hiking northward. I'll be out of NYC till the end of August.

Paul Krugman, winner of the nobel prize in economics, wrote in the New York Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/opinion/26krugman.html?hp

The man is a jerk. I don't like him and I don't like his politics. I could write something here about the political expediency of such a choice. I could explain in detail why it might be part of a larger plan. In the end, though, it's the first thing that the man I spent 2 years trying to get elected asked me to do that was unpalatable.

My favorite bar, South 4th Bar is hosting a first annual 4 alarm Chili cookoff. I pity the challengers. I've been working on this recipe for 10 years. It takes me three days to cook it, and it is heaven in a bowl.

I'm going to swim upstream a little and say that I'm not in favor of the bailouts. I'm skeptical about the stimulus package, but I have yet to see the specifics of what they are geared for.

VERY recommended reading. 7 pages of common business sense, and a litany of thing I feel should have been questioned by the American people long since.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhorn.html?hp

The site is now bright and Shiny Drupal 6.8. It actually has been for a few weeks, but I'm just getting around to writing a new blog post. The frontpage is now panels, and will soon reflect several 'views' discrete lists in different areas.

Moving to Drupal 6. Prepare for turbulence.

Crazy night last night. Wound up being a complete mess for half an hour and surprised myself by how much this election has been one of the sole things I've been living and breathing.

To me the quantifying change that happened last night was that we again as a nation have the perception that what we do matters. That we can individually and collectively enact things that can change the world. We just did it. Global warming can't be nearly as hard as this first step was.

Go. Do. Good. Things.

I just voted. You should too. Although, in truth, anyone who reads this blog, is probably as adamant about voting as me, so perhpaps I am preaching to the choir.

I don't care. Go vote. Do it now, bring a book in case the line is long, but do it.

Last night I dreamed of a giant bobble headed John McCain chasing me. I kept landing in a hamster wheel frantically trying to climb it like a ladder. Whenever giant bobble head McCain caught me he'd forcibly reach in my pants pocket, pull out wads of cash and eat it.

This has been the (hopefully) last in a long string of political anxiety dreams I've been having. Christ I can't even have a political discussion without screaming anymore. I'm done. Spent.

And yet I feel as if I can breathe and see sunshine all over again.

Just signed up for Nanowrimo. My friend Winter did this last year to great results. I have a notion to try it this year. Don't expect great things.

However, would people read it if it was a public, no-revisions style river of words? Let me know.

The current plan is to have February 27th be my last day at work. I'll then spend a few days getting my gear together and then attend attend DrupalCon in Washington D.C. On the 9th or 10th I'll make my way down to Pilot Mountain N.C. to meet up with my father and together do a little shakedown and last minute prep of our gear.

Then on March 15th, 2009, I'll be on Springer Mountain, GA to start at the southern end of the Appalachian Trail. The goal is to walk approximately 2175 miles to Katahdin mountain in Maine. Roughly 85% of the people who start with this intention don't make it to the other end in the same hiking season.

I've got hiking on the brain. I have an excel spreadsheet that keeps me up at night with the packing list, complete with the weight in hundredths of an ounce of every item I plan on carrying 2175 miles. Currently, with 5 days of food and 2 quarts of water my pack will weigh in at 23.56lbs. Yes, that is absurdly low and I expect it to change as I continue to prepare.

I have another sheet in that same document that lists dozens of likely trail foods, their caloric values, and amount of carbs, protein, and fat included. The goal is to cram between 4000-5000 calories per day into 2 pounds of food that is remotely tasty.

I now own a titanium spork. .5 ounces.

I am ridiculously obsessed. And also detached. I know me, and I know that once I hit that trailhead all bets are off, I'll probably live on raisins and chocolate, but that does not mean that the planning is for naught. This is a big undertaking and if I can put some structure to it before starting the deviation will at least be from a good starting point.

I think the most entertaining aspect of all this has been me testing camp food in my kitchen. It is a miracle I haven't burned the place down yet. My little alcohol burner (1 oz), cooking rice and chorizo. The dehydrator has been running 24/7 stockpiling veggies. And Zip Loc has a neat new line of vacuum bags that beat the pants off of a vacuum sealer.

So, this is all by the way of saying, if you haven't heard from me, if I've been off the radar, if you come across me with a blank distant look on my face, it's likely that I am running weight-shaving scenarios through my head to get rid of half an ounce somewhere.

1 mile = 5280 feet. = 63,360 inches
1 stride = 28 inches
63,360/28 = 2,262.63 strides in a mile
2,262.63*2,175miles = 4,921,220.25 strides in the AT.

4,921,220.25 stries x 1oz. = 4921.220.25 ounces
1 lb = 16 oz.
4,921,220.25/16 = 307,576.07 lbs.
307,576.07/2000 = 153.79 tons carried for every extra ounce taken on the AT.

153 tons. 1 oz. matters.

If you watched the debate last night you probably are well acquainted with Joe the Plumber. Joe was contemplating avoiding buying a business that made $280k per year due to Obama's tax increases for citizens making over $250k.

I thought I would introduce some math to Joe.

This post may read like 'The Bad News', and in some ways it is. I think I'm on the far side of negative about the economy because this one seems personal to me. You see, I never had a knowledgeable adult who could sit down and explain business to me. That isn't a pity plea, but rather just by way of explanation that what fiscal sense I have I gained from books, and experience later in life than a lot of people, and the more I read about it, the more apparent this particular moment in history seemed inevitable. Except anyone I talked to about it acted like I was crazy and had no idea what I was talking about. Fair enough, I probably didn't.

Now that it's happening I have this bizarre sense of vindication. I twisted part of me wants to sit back and say 'there, see I was right'. Which is, of course, just petty.

So, all that to say please excuse the negative, somewhat alarmist tone with which I write. I really don't *want* the economy to fail, but also want us as a nation to exit the other end of this situation with perspective and appropriate humility.

Ok, down to brass tacks, so it's looking like my previous bad feeling wasn't all that unfounded. The market plunged Friday, and stayed that way till about 3:15. At 3:15 Bank of America, JP Morgan, and Citigroup all jumped to precisely +10%, causing the DOW to have a late day jump.

Does this seem odd to anyone else? The DOW is an index composed of 30 of the biggest corporations in America and somebody decided to buy enough of three banks to jump their stock price to exactly +10% than it had been at the start of the day. This isn't meant to be phrased as a conspiracy theory, but it seems remarkable to me that no one in the media has addressed the cause of the late day rise. A buried quote as it was happening in the NY Times said:

However, strength appears to be concentrated among those stocks exerting the greatest influence on their index; advance-decline numbers on the NYSE show that most stocks are actually lower today

The government is negotiating the details of injecting raw cash into the markets in return for equity stake. Europe has already arrived at a plan that will do just this.

If you don't read Robert Peston's blog, start. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/ He's more or less the man leading up the reporting of these event's in Britain.

Whether I agree with him or not, it is relevant that some of the lines the media is feeding to the people in the UK sound like this:

It's the biggest fund-raising exercise that's ever taken place in the UK.

What it demonstrates is the weakness of Britain's banks.

And the banks that feel most humiliated by the debacle are - of course - Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS.

But its embarrassing even for Barclays. It didn't want to raise more than £3bn but it has has been pressurised by the Treasury, Bank of England and FSA to raise nearer £7bn.

This is history in the making.

Right. Its embarrassing and humiliating, in England. Where is this tenor in America? Who is apologizing to the American people for the most devastating fiscal situation in a generation!. I just want SOMEBODY to say that they are sorry. That this is indeed, not everyone's fault. It is the fault of a repeated failure of our legislature to introduce and pass regulatory bills that a five year old could see were needed. It is similarly the fault of the Banking institution that not only saw the fragility of credit default swaps, it exploited it for short term gain. There is blame to be had, and it lies at the feet of the people whose job it was to prevent this, and not at the feet of people being sold sub prime mortgages.

Yes. I said it. The people who were victims of sub prime mortgages are idiots, but by and large they are ignorant idiots. The people who sold them those mortgages were looking for an easy mark. The question in this evaluation is intent.

Also from Peston:

By the way, there's also been something of a breakthrough in Paris, at the meeting of the eurozone heads of government hastily arranged by President Sarkozy. If financial institutions aren't reassured by their pledge to guarantee interbank lending for five years, well then we're in the kind of mess that's simply not amenable to government solutions.

Whoa! What the hell was that last sentence?!? Let's look closer at that:

If financial institutions aren't reassured by their pledge to guarantee interbank lending for five years, well then we're in the kind of mess that's simply not amenable to government solutions.

This is the first I've seen someone raise the very real possibility that we all may be screwed. I can say I've been wondering when someone would. Here's an interesting interactive graphic from the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/11/business/20081011_BEAR_MAR...

By comparison things have dropped further, faster than any other bear market in history. At this point the only question is how long it persists. If things go well then Monday morning markets raise across Europe with the cash injection and this thing bellies out. If that doesn't happen we are looking at a situation the governments realy can't control, with any amount of money.

Cheerful.

I won't get into a lot, but I have this gut hunch that tomorrow, barring drastic action by the Fed., will be one of the bloodiest days in stock market history.

I don't have a ton of evidence, but rather this gut hunch. Perhpas that makes me irresponsible for posting this; I don't know.

Basically, I think that the Fed. is more or less out of options. The consistent drops we've seen in the past five days have all been people eeking out their time in the market, and waiting for a solution and today's talk about a potential buying of equity shares reeks of 'last resort' talk. Moreover, I don't see what the Fed buying shares will accomplish that it won't undo by tipping its hand that whatever company it is buying is in the tank.

Overall, I'm distant and intrigued to watch this happen real time. I know that sounds callous, but this has been something that I have known is a possibility as an abstract concept for years, now I am learning the specifics by watching. I feel like the time I cut my finger and after a nerve block watched the doctor sew it up, and give me a brief tour of the inside of my pinky. The nurse turned a little green, while I'm detached and studious, yet know that what is going on very much affects me as a person.

I hope I'm wrong, and frankly, don't have any experience so it is a high likelihood, but I'm of the opinion tomorrow will beat 777 by a fair margin. Spooky.

Last night I was gearing up for the debate party my friend Sean was hosting around the corner. I was tasked with picking up sour cream and diced tomatoes on my way so I grabbed my cloth bag from the rack put on my jacket and waled outside. I passed the perpetually group of kids ranging through to 20 somethings that inhabit the stoop across the street.

Now, I live in a quickly gentrifying community. I know this because I've lived here since before it was gentrifying, and I see the people coming into this neighborhood inspired by inexpensive rent but also having no desire to make this a home, or invest in making this neighborhood nicer. This was one of the primary reasons I felt a need to get involved even minimally with the community garden, and reach out to the more receptive neighbors. I want to live in a place I am welcome.

I was about 20-30 feet past this group when I heard a loud crack and felt an intense pain in my left ear just and just rear of my temple. I don't want to over dramatize it, but my immediate thought was, is this what it feels like to get shot? It isn't.

This is what it feels like to get hit in the side of a the head with a rock about the size of a golf ball thrown from somewhere across the street and behind me.

I doubled over and stumbled into the plywood wall of the building under construction unsure if more were to follow this and reached up to assess the damage. Blood dripped down onto my hand and I could barely think. I might have screamed, 'What the fuck was that?!' at the top of my lungs, and quickly hurried down the street and around the corner. I vaguely remember an adult voice saying, "That's enough get inside now!"

I called Sean, and told him to open the front door and got upstairs. By this time the initial haze was wearing off. I got my ear cleaned up, and like most head wounds it was a small cut but a bleeder. Disinfected it and told Sean I was going back to talk to these people. Perhaps not the best decision I could have made.

But this is where I draw my line in the sand. I don't want to live in a place that doesn't want me here. I've put a lot of work into trying to fit into this community and not just using it as a crash pad till I move up in the world. And I'll be damned before I let someone hit me in the head with a rock from behind and not have the guts to walk up to them and ask them why they did it.

Now, as we walked back around the block, I got to thinking about how I've seen the younger kids throwing rocks against this plywood wall before. I have no doubt that this wasn't an accident. But I can imagine two scenarios leading up to this. The first in which a late teenager or twenty-something decides they don't like me and they want a fight and they nail me in the head with a rock. Straightforward, simple.

I can also imagine a 9-12 year old, cocky, and thinking they could scare me with a near miss and unintentionally nailing me. I'll never know, but I know I can live in a neighborhood with the latter scenario, and perhps find a little forgiveness for it too. The first one only ends poorly.

I walked right up to them, still a little stunned and said, "Can I talk to you for a minute. I don't know who did it, but someone just threw a rock at me across the street and hit me in the head".

A chorus of, "We didn't do nuffin, man".

I followed up, "I didn't say you did, but you were all out here, and if you know who did, just let them know if they got a problem with me they can talk to me. I'm your neighbor. Does anyone over here have a problem with me?".

"Nah, no one here has aproblem with you."

"Did you see it happen, it was right over there," I point, " and I was screaming at the top of my lungs, you had to have seen it."

"Nobody here saw nothing."

"Sorry, I'm still a little rattled, I just got hit in the head with a rock. Ya'll have a goodnight."

And that was about that. I went on to watch the debate, with a handful of aspirin and an ice pack. So, what now? Well, I don't believe communities happen, I believe they get made. I think I'm just going to try to reach out more, say hello on the street more, work more in the garden. In truth, I really don't know what else I can do.