A long night

Gary — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 02:21:17 GMT

Well I finally put one of my favorite stories of my life to pen for a class and thought it came out pretty good. Figured I share with anyone who cared to read it. Let me know what you think. It was late after a long hike. We set up camp and I was quick to hit sack. It felt as though I had just fallen asleep when the tent collapsed on my feet. Had I slept in? That was the standard wake up call given to those who oversleep. I assumed as much and told them I was getting up. Looking up I noticed it was still dark out and that the rest of the tent was also being pushed in. Whatever causing the tent to fold in hit my head with such force that it bounced of my makeshift pillow. My head throbbing, I turned to my friend who was sharing the tent with me to inform him that a tree had most probably just fallen on us. I could no longer see do to the impact, but clearly heard him say that he was sure that it was a bear. Perhaps I was a little dumbstruck, but I didn’t see this as a big deal. I’ve heard all the “how tos” of getting out of bear attacks. Making loud noises was the first choice to pop into my head at the time. Even if it doesn’t scare the bear away it should get us some help, or so I thought. We began shouting out, “Bear! Bear! Help!” The bear tolerated this for a couple heartbeats or perhaps we just confused it, but it took another swipe. I heard the ripping of the tent and could almost feel the strike coming. I pushed myself over as far as possible, the bear just nicking my chin. Turning my head slightly I asked in a whisper what he thought we should do next. His reply was a fearful, “I don’t know.” Well, no worries, I had another brilliant anti-bear scheme, playing dead! That was next on the list of how not to get et by a bear. So there we lay as quiet and still as we could waiting for what would come next, hoping that the bear would lose interest and leave. Instead it gently set its paw over my stomach. My breath froze. Could it actually be checking to see if I was dead? I sat there as still as could be all the sound in the world seemed gone the only thing that existed was that giant paw pressing gently down on me. The paw then slowly pulled away and I thought for a second that it had worked when it tried to bite my arm. Fortunately it only nipped me, but I felt a surge of frustrated anger well up. Was it just toying with us? We played the whole game and it wasn’t following the rules. With that my hand balled up into a fist and I swung wildly. I hit something that felt like a concrete block and I kept swing at that spot until my fist passed through empty air. Again we laid there quiet and still. My head, arm and hand were throbbing. I tried to listen for any noise that might indicate that the bear was gone. Or any noise at all, but there was nothing. I could not tolerate the dead silence any longer, “Is it was gone?” I asked my voice a whisper but, louder than I wanted. His voice much the same as before replied that he did not know. With the moment of peace the situation that I had remained so calmly detached from washed over me. I began to shake as fear took hold of me. I was trapped in the remains of my tent, the world was dark and dead to me and there was a creature roaming out there that was very much so intent on doing harm to me. So we waited unmoving and unspeaking fearful that any sound or movement would draw it back to us. Eventually we heard in the distance a fellow camper banging on a pot crying out, “Bear! Bear!” With that out cry the world seemed to settle in around me again. Noise erupted as everyone realized that a threat was near by. One of our group members came running, stumbling quickly through the dark, a flash light waving in his hands. He arrived at our tent and relief washed over me, we were no longer a solitary island in the dark. With the group around the center of the camp we built a fire and related the events to everyone. It turns out that they did not come to help thinking we were trying to play some kind of joke on them. The camper who finally saw and scared it away was just on his way to empty his pot when he saw it shamble over. Making loud noises seemed to work for him however and the bear took off with all do haste. I spent the rest of the night under the stars and awake around a large bonfire. The rest of the ten hikers piled into a two man tent, how or why I’ll never know. They just seemed like a giant bear burrito to me. I stared up at the starry sky drifting in and out of sleep through the night. Awaiting the dawn when we could make are way to the base lodge. We thought It was over but when mourning came it was back . . .

Solar Fest

Gary — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:12:53 GMT

Got back from my first go at Solar Fest and was really blown away with the whole thing. Lots of good people and interesting bands. The workshops were great just disapointed I couldn't make all of them. Starting to get sick of the whole anti Bush thing. I don't really think he was the best thing for the country but people have got to start spending time working to improve the situation instead of wasting time on trying to impeach Bush or any given president. There is a hundred things that time and money could be spent on instead of BS like that. The only other thing I thought was kind of funny about the whole weekend was the number of people who were all for the enviroment but left their SUVs idling while they loaded or unloaded them. Just pumping those harmful gases out while handing out a flier on how to be energy efficient. Just too funny!

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A long night

Solar Fest