it's like unboxing, only there's no box.

this happened yesterday.

 

unprepared

whoa! i'm here at my desk with time to write and i am completely unprepared to tell you anything because my day lately has three components: time playing ingress, time talking to MB, and time sleeping. i talk to MB for two hours. i sleep eight. you do the math.

okok, so it's not a goal i GET anything for. there are no balloon drops and there are no parties nor admissions to secret societies, but i got it into my head that i would LIKE to do it.

when i decided that i wanted to hit level sixteen before i got my black sojourner badge (360 consecutive days of play), i thought if i worked hard i could do it, maybe. i had over a hundred days.
THEN it looked like if i worked hard, i could do it in two months. then the number dropped to twenty five days.

NOW the number stands at nine days, but i'm taking the weekend more or less off because i have a scout training, so let's say twelve days and i'm done. i'm looking forward to being done, so i keep charging ahead.

afterward i will be able to go camping or clean my house or do normal people things.

and i will have completed my shiny happy goal.

2017 venture vermont: Write a thank you note to a park ranger

funny, but i have done this since before it appeared on the venture challenge. and because i WOULD write a note to one, i sort of feel i should send more than the one i would have done already.

so this year i sent three.

really, once i get out my stationery and stuff it doesn't take that much more trouble.

and it never hurts to thank people for their work.

2017 venture vermont: Find and decorate your own hiking stick

for a couple of decades now, i have used poles. but "find and decorate your own hiking stick" was on the challenge, so i found a stick and started making it into a hiking stick for myself.

i cut it to the right height for me and went to work giving it some useful and decorative touches. i shaved down a lot of the mass of it for a comfortable swing weight, and i gave it several different grips for either had, plus i gave it two forks in case i wanted to use it as a tent pole and a hook for pulling things up.

and i did a little decorative scroll-type thingie on the top.

and because it's supposed to be a hiking stick, i took it on a short hike up stowe pinnacle, just to field test it.

and it turns out that a good stick is working for me a lot better than the poles.

so now i'm going low-tech and old-school.