New Posts.

As requested I will finish as much of my Hommes trip journal as possible this weekend, and in the coming weeks, I sort of forgot about that project working on other things and stuff. So more Hommes posts to come!

SNOW!

Today we had snow, and woke up to about 29 degrees here in Angelus Oaks. Only a little bit of snow, little pockets of it here and there, but it has snowed on October 11th. Which is really cool!

Fire!!!

Today we were out chainsawing, and on a ridge about 3000ft above us we saw smoke. Then we heard frantic radio traffic and saw helicopters and a small Helitack crew fly in and start dropping water, then we heard that the Forest Service was calling up the Mill Creek Hotshots, Big Bear Hotshots, Del Rosa Hotshots and the Mojave Greens. Which is a lot of people for a small fire, about 80-100 firefighters for a small fire, but we are having a huge drought so I guess they wanted to hit it hard. We almost thought they were going to call us up since we were in the area, but they didn't which is good. They got the fire out in about an hour which was cool to see, we sat two S.E.A.T's flying in with retardant (Single Engine Attack Tanker) which was pretty cool, and we saw the helicopters drop water quite a bit. It was really cool to see how the crews actually work.

Forest Recovery Team Backpacking trail maintenance

Since Wednesday we (the Forest Recovery Team) have been backpacking like crazy around the San Gorgonio Wilderness doing trail maintenance. We all packed out Tuesday evening with all the gear we would need, and left Wednesday morning around 9am. We drove nearly 2 hours to get to our destination, and then we parked the cars, got out our packs and prepared for a 5.5 mile hike climbing from 8000ft to 10000ft. And we would camp at a campsite at roughly 10000ft. We got to our campsite in a little under 3 hours and set up camp, made dinner and we all went to sleep pretty early to hike out the next day to work on the trail.
We got up around 7am, and made some breakfast, then we packed up what we would need for the day, and walked out another 5 or 6 miles on the trail. once we got there we pulled out tools and began to cut the trail back, and make the trail more usable, now I think the trails here in SoCal are basically like highways, they basically are 2 to 3 feet wide and not really all that steep at all, but that is what the Forest Service wanted us to do so we did it, we cut about 3 miles of trail and then hiked back to camp. We got back to camp around 6:45 pm and we got some dinner ready and went to sleep.
We got up around 7am again and packed up to hike back to the cars, another 5.5 miles, we eneded up leaving around 9:15am, and hiked to the cars, which we got to by 11am. A really fast hike, although it was all downhill and pretty easy. We got in the cars and drove back to camp, we arrived at about 1:30pm, and then we were off for the rest of the day. A really good week, mostly hiking and not too much work although we did hike 23 miles in a little more than 48 hours, which was a little tiring, but we have the weekend now. It was really fun, I thought it was really odd that some of the people with us had never been camping before, I guess with all the camping experience I have I let it slip past me that some people don't really ever get the chance to camp, or canoe or hike as much as I do. But everyone had fun which was really cool.

Forest Recovery Team, so far

So far through August and this part of September I have been training as a wildland firefighter. I had to take 3 weeks of classes, and 1 week, the first, as Physical Training for make benefit of altitudinal workings.The 3 weeks of classes were pretty interesting, although we had to get up pretty early to go into San Bernardino in the valley to go to class at the Forest Service Offices. We had to learn firefighting strategy and how to go about doing all the things necessary to our job. After the three weeks we spent time doing what we call "cutting line". This is basically what all HotShots and SmokeJumpers do to contain a fire in the wilderness. We cut a certain amount of material, depending on the fire, usually 6 feet-10 feet of cut line, and 2 feet-4 feet of scraped stuff to mineral soil to prevent the fire from spreading unwatched past us.
After that, we went back to classes for Chainsaw training, which was basically us taking a bunch of written tests and learning about the cuts, and how and where, and also when to drop a tree. After that was our out in the filed test, which was a lot of fun. We cut down a whole bunch of dead and burned trees, and spent 2 days doing that. And now after all of that I am a "red carded" firefighter which basically means I can be a firefighter anywhere, a hotshot in any region of the US, which is pretty cool. Also I am in a cabin with some pretty cool guys, and all the people here in the camp, in Angelus Oaks CA, are really cool.

Hommes Journal Part II days 3-4

Day 1 on trail:6/30

We woke up around 7:30 am, and got things packed up quickly to get to AirTindi early for Craig and Katie's groups. We stayed around the airbase and said our goodbyes and helped them to load gear. Said goodbyes again and then Mike drove us about 110k to Rae (Bichoko) a first nation village west of Yellowknife. We went to the tribal government office and met with a guy named John who showed us somethings on maps he had, and gave us information on the route we were taking and were certain portages were and how high the water was etc. After that we went to the bridge in town that crosses a tiny part of Marion Lake, and unloaded our stuff, and got ready to head out. Once we got all of our stuff out and loaded up the canoes we ate some lunch and took some pictures (which are hopefully going to be on the Menogyn website)and saud goodbye to Mike, and got ready to go. As we paddled beneath the bridge we realized that the wind was crazy strong and as Mike left to return to Yellowknife, we started to paddle. Got a little over ½ of a kilometer out past the bridge and stopped at an island about 100m from land, right outside Rae. The wind was crazy with 4-5 foot waves on the main part of the lake, so we felt it would be safer to stop and wait out the wind. We set up the tents and I slept for maybe an hour and then we discussed what we should do next. And unfortunately we realized that we were actually wind-bound on the first day on trail, which was really discouraging. We got out of the tent around 9pm, having left Mike at 3pm, and decided to make some dinner, as we did the wind seemed to die down, so we decided to paddle a little further outside town, at least so we couldn't see it anymore. We packed up and started to paddle around 11:15pm, into a semi-sunset. We got about 1.5 miles away from Rae and crashed a campsite , set up tents and and got our stuff ready for sleeping. We eventually got into our tents at about 1:15am. And it was still quite light outside.

Day 2: 7/1

We woke up today around 10am, broke camp down and had eggs and tortillas for breakfast, and spent another hour getting loaded and ready to go for a paddling day (finally!) And left to paddle the lake (a 19 mile long lake) We ended up paddling about 17 into a headwind and stopped right outside the mouth of the Marion River, we stopped so as to avoid setting a bad tone to the trip, with a “paddle late, wake up late” mentality. We made chili for dinner and and made a cake in the outback oven (an amazing item) we went to bed a little later than we had hoped but we are planning a 7am wake up.

Hommes Journal Part I (first 2 days)

Hommes du Nord 2008

Coppermine River

Journal

6/28/2008

We (2 hommes, 1 femmes, 3 drivers)have been driving for nearly 3 days, from Grand Marais to Yellowknife NWT. As it stands we have just finished a stop in Peace River, Alberta, Canada. We started our lengthy drive from Grand Marais with 36 hours of nearly non-stop to get to Edmonton, Alberta, through Regina and Saskatoon Saskatchewan. We have driven a little more than half of our total distance to Yellowknife we are a little less than 1000k from our destination right now. I have so far seen the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, which we are now driving through at 14:25 mountain standard time. We are planning another all night drive through the 29^th to hopefully reach Yellowknife by the 29^th . We have spent much of our time sleeping, watching movies in the van, reading and listening to music. All of this has been great, out first actual “camping” was behind a church about 40k outside Edmonton in a little town. It was quite cool outside, so I am hoping for very comfortable sleeping conditions once we reach the NWT, and eventually Nunavut.

6/29

We arrived in Yellowknife today around 1:00pm. And went straight to AirTindi. The float plane company that is doing the flights to the Back River for Katie's group, and Craig's group, and also for our food drop in 20 days. We then went and got food at a grocery store and went to a campsite in Yellowknife with a beach. We got our bags out and sorted out gear and other things, got fuel ready and organized group stuff. We then went to a guy's house in Yellowknife who works at AirTindi who will be holding our food until the drop date. We then went back to the camp ground and cooked dinner. Burgers (veggie burgers for me and Jack) and after two hours of cooking, a few of us went to the beach (Taylor, Alekos, Walter, Cameron, Becca and David), and we played Ultimate for nearly 2 hours and it was great. Then we went back to the campground and went to sleep.

Coming soon!

Soon I shall post my journal entries from my arctic adventure, Hommes 2008

Word of the Day

предусматривать

(что-л.)

несовер. - предусматривать; совер. - предусмотреть

foresee, envisage, anticipate; provide (for), stipulate (for), make provision (for) (обеспечивать)

предусматривать все возможности — to provide for every eventuality

Work Situation II

And also as of yet I have found no work, hope to, as I need to pay school, but really wish Mr.Bush would maybe not gift tax rebates to people and maybe fund education or maybe help people below the poverty line. Not that that is me, but expecting my mother to be able to pay for school for me, and live with my brother who is a garbage disposal, and pay for her own life is completely unjust, saying that America has one of the best education systems, as it did, maybe in the 50's is completely incorrect, as we as a nation are 25th in Math in the world, and we aren't even the best at speaking English?!?! How is that really possible it is the national language, as Mr.Bush seems to refuse to make Spanish one of the National languages. Which I find funny that he is so against "illegal immigration", the Native Americans should sue us, and make all of the people not "from here" leave, as Mr.Bush is an illegal immigrant also. Ha.

Work Situation

As I have seen since I went off to college, finding employment seems awfully hard, especially in a city that is one of the poorest in the country, Mr.Bush seems to think that his tax refund program will stimulate the economy, he is supposedly a Republican, and yet he spends more money than any other president in the history of the United States, which I find odd, he doesn't even follow his own party's views on spending, I hate to say it but I think Reagan was a better president, he limited spending and made the government smaller, less "in society", also Reagan seemed to refuse to mess with the economy, and if he did it was on a small scale. Mr.Bush offered money to the people buying out Bear Stearns. Jefferson and Madison, two previous Presidents, said that a National Bank would be a detriment to American Society and government.
Back to employment, I find it hard to believe that in a city with so many open jobs, and other positions that it has taken me this long to even get a few interviews, I find that a city that seems to want to exploit workers to the fullest backward if they can't seem to make jobs possible for me, not that it isn't mostly my fault, but really, a very poor city with a large African American population, and a large percentage of the population here living at or near the poverty line, making jobs available for the population should not be hard. Instead of having tax refunds and minimum wage jobs, the city, state and country should try to make, say the minimum wage a living wage, and make the country more prosperous, or do a reverse tax refund, the poorest tax filers get the richest tax filers refunds, it would stimulate the economy and also make people more willing to contribute to society. Just an idea, instead of giving people a minimal tax refund, give them a reverse refund, a very socialist idea, but due to the Patriot Act we seem to have a dictator so why not make it a socialist dictatorship. While I was in Russia, it seemed more free than the United States, more welcoming, I felt scared and imposed upon as soon as I arrived in the United States from Ireland, yes security is important, but at what cost? Forcing American citizens to relinquish their civil rights, and making them into mindless puppets, that have to listen to the government that has seemingly limitless power, and a president that can veto certain parts of bills. Oh wait I remember a country like that, the Soviet Union under Stalin, given that Mr.Bush has not killed 50 million people, I will say he is better than Stalin, but removing civil rights for "security" seems really anti-american, if you want to look at a terrorist, someone that has put fear into American citizens and made us feel as if we are not free, take a look at the President.

To Clarify

When people who do not understand why things work a certain way in slavic languages, it pisses me off, that people seem to think that the world revolves around America, which as we see it doesn't. As for the В or На argument, if anything that makes the saying of just Ukraine easier, as the whole point of the phrasing has to do with Ukraine being the bread basket or old Russia, that that is where the Rus started and how their culture evolved. Ha is only reserved for a few countries, some because it makes sense, others because that is just the way it works, as with Ukraine, Russians, Belorussians, Moldovans etc. Don't say the Ukraine when they learn english, it is a stupid american thing. And that is that.

This Really Pisses me Off

Something that really pisses me off, that I, along with other people probably see all the time is people that say "the Ukraine" it is not the United States, there is some weird grammatical difference between them that I cannot think of at the moment, but really, since I have started to follow soccer much more on the World scale, I have seen that people outside the US, know to the just Ukraine, but people here seem to have some aversion to knowing how to speak well. I always hear people here asking why I didn't go to "the Ukraine" well that is because I would like to go to Ukraine, but can't go to "the Ukraine". And that is that.

Words of the Day

Russian words for the day:
соглашаться:
несовер. - соглашаться; совер. - согласиться
1) (на что-л.; делать что-л.)

agree (to), consent (to), assent (to)
2) (с кем-л./чем-л.)
agree (with), concur (with); concede (to) (уступать); admit

хвастать

несовер. - хвастать; совер. - похвастать

brag (of, about), boast (of)

дым
муж.
smoke

New Paddle!

The new paddle that mom got for me is pretty cool, I shall include a picture, and hopefully it will work well in an Arctic environment!


It is pretty cool, and should do what I want it to do, so Thanks mom!

Proposed Route

Hommes du Nord 2008

Great Slave Lake to Kugluktuk on Arctic Ocean

Emile, Parent and Coppermine Rivers

Caleb Dayton Taylor Fay H. Eben Kowler David Lilien Robbie Rosenthal Sasha Van Voorhis-Horn

6/29: Potential Day on Trail?

6/30 – 7/5: Day 1 – 6 On Trail

Great Slave Lake to Basler Lake, through Marian Lake and upstream on the Emile River

Starting on the Great Slave Lake about 100km east of Yellowknife, and traveling through a channel to Marian Lake, we will begin our trip up the Emile River. This section of travel will be mostly lakes with short river sections in between. The sets in this area will be portaged or lined.

All river travel until Grenville Lake (in the Coppermine Watershed) will be upstream, and the section after Marian Lake will have the most sets to line or portage.

7/6 – 7/11: Day 7 – 12 On Trail

Basler Lake to Brown Water Lake, along the Emile River

This section is characterized by long, winding lakes and very little river travel.

7/12 – 7/17: Day 13 – 18 On Trail

Brown Water Lake to Rawalpindi Lake

North of Brown Water Lake, we will leave the Emile River and paddle up Dune Creek to Dune Lake, and then into Grenville Lake and the Coppermine watershed from Mesa Lake.

7/17: Resupply on Rawalpindi Lake at 8:00 PM (tentative)

7/18 – 7/23: Day 19 – 24 On Trail

Along the Parent River to the Coppermine River, through Red Rock Lake to the Hepburn River confluence

This will be our first downstream travel and includes some whitewater. Max Ward’s cabin is also in this section. We will cross the tree line again here, back into the taiga.

7/24 – 7/29: Day 23 – 30 On Trail

The Coppermine River from the Hepburn River Confluence to Rocky Defile

The Coppermine River in this area is fast moving, mostly swift water with little or no whitewater, depending on conditions. Most groups report fast travel here across the border into Nunavut Territory and through the “Big Bend.” Rocky Defile is a huge canyon.

7/30 – 8/5: Day 31 – 37 On Trail

The Coppermine River from Rocky Defile to Kugluktuk on the Arctic Ocean

Our last section of the river includes a few sights, including the confluence with the Kendall River, Franklin’s Route to the Great Bear Lake, and Bloody Falls, a National Historic Site.

8/6 – 8/7: Day 38 – 39 On Trail

Kugluktuk

We’ll spend a couple days here to explore the town and meet some of the people living there. Last summer, the Hommes and Femmes groups did a community-paddling clinic in Baker Lake, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to do the same.

8/7: Kugluktuk to Winnipeg on Canadian North Airlines

Our flight takes us from Kugluktuk to Yellowknife to Calgary to Edmonton to Winnipeg. Four transfers!

8/8 – 8/9: Winnipeg to Menogyn by van.

8/9: Welcome at Menogyn

8/10: Home again…

The advantage of planning in six-day segments allows flexibility on trail, so that we are not trying to reach a specific campsite each night. The plan also includes one non-travel day per section for layover days and wind-bound days. We also have two days in Kugluktuk at the end as a buffer.

От голоса своего!

Misha

Ok, sorry about that, Misha, Всё равно и я тебя люблю.

Hey Misha. SHUT UP!

Ok, misha stop, you don't need to criticize me and say that everything is my fault, yes given that I missed the deadline to switch classes, yeah that was stupid, but it is the schools fault that their Russian program is defunct, and also their fault that they say they accept IB and then claim they don't. So ask me what is going on instead of assuming what is going on, the first three letters of "assuming" are ass, so stop it. And I am not trying to yell at you or anything, but in this case yes the University is against me, and I am stupid for not researching more, and not knowing the deadlines for switching classes. But that is all, had I known that the Russian program at UWM sucked, then I would have gone after Madison a lot harder.

Worst Day Ever

Today I had to drop Russian, a language I love so much, because the professor is against me, and so is the UWM administration, Joe doesn't even want to follow UW standards of placement when it comes to me in Russian, so today I dropped it. And it is the first time in 5 years I have not had Russian, and I feel as though I am now missing a part of myself. Which is not so cool. I wish Joe would just have realized what he was doing to my love of Russian, and I just hope that possibly transferring to Madison or going to Russia can fix what Joe has done to me. He has, unless I find another way, messed up my future in Russian. Mostly because Majoring in Russian at UWM means I have to get 26 credits past the level of Russian I am in now. And 6 in Literature, making a major in both Russian and Business impossible, without going into debt up to my eyes.

So I have been forced by a Russian professor of a defunct Russian program to drop Russian, I hated the class, but will always love the language, the people and the country. So WTF Joe, learn when people are pissed at you, and get something right. You are not even a tenured professor, you just got your doctorate a few years ago, and got lucky with an Adjunct Professorship.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Wisconsin

I must once again congratulate WI on being afraid of snow, I did not have class today because of 8 inches of snow, given that that is quite a bit of snow, and as I write this we are getting about an inch an hour, so more will be here. But in MN school would not be canceled if it were absolute zero with 200 mph winds and hell had frozen over, while WI cancels life if there is more than 4 inches of snow at an inopportune time, the snow here started to fall heavily around 4:30 AM today, thus making plowing hard for the people who had to get up to do it. And making class be canceled today. Yay, I shall no longer complain about the state of WI, just the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.

My Comments on the Super Bowl

In general I felt that the Super Bowl was not all that "super" I felt that the Patriots did not live up to the hype that was all around them. I also feel that this was Randy Moss' last real chance to get a ring. But whatever, the super bowl is stupid anyway, american football is stupid.

Now a tournament that actually matters is Euro 2008 for Soccer, that will be a great tournament to watch, each game is as big as the Super Bowl and there are going to be like 40 games, possibly more, probably more. And one other thing about that tournament is that the Russian National Team will be playing. Anyone who would like to know more about the Russian National Futbol Team can check out this website, one link for y'all that ain't speak no Russian, and the other for those of us that are enlightened and can speak the language.

Russian:http://www.rusteam.permian.ru/
English:http://www.russiateam.com/

That is basically it, oh and Russia will be holding the final for Euro 2008, I think, at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, seats like 90000 people.

"That is a vile and odious lie!" Stewie Griffin

Today in Russian

Today in Russian, I ended up not speaking with "Joe" and had to go to Criminal Justice. Joe wanted me to make another appointment with him, and speak to him about my "problem" and also was told again that I should not spend so much time emailing and more time with my cases. Ahhh, WTF dude, what is your problem. Learn when people are bored, and not "stupid" as you may think that I am. I just want to go to Russia. And also Joe thinks that nobody has ever seen Russia, he was describing Tchaikovsky theater in Moscow and making it seem like it was in the middle of the street. However it is not.

Hmmm. Russian Prof. Sucks.

Today I shall venture off to Russian Class to confront my newly pissed off Russian Professor. I sent him an email, which mom wrote, and he decided my arguments had now real validity, and therefore we will now end up in some form of a confrontation. As to what will happen, there are two and only two possibilities, he will acquiesce to my requests, and support me in my fight against the Hierarchy of UWM, or he will not, and therefore is not worth my time, to which I will seriously consider dropping Russian, and possibly going to St.Petersburg for school for the rest of school, or switching American Schools.

Why Russia is Better than America

First of all a lot of people think that Russia is a land of severe persecution and people suffer everywhere because of the tyrannical government. Oh wait that is America. Now as I have been to Russia I have seem first hand that it is no worse that America and even in some cases better. People there can live what used to be called the American Dream, there if you work hard you can actually become rich, and if not rich at least afford to live in an economy that is actually expanding. And has in effect been expanding since the mid 19th Century. While the US slowly falls, Russia is expanding, Russia is becoming a great nation once again.

While in Russia I did see poverty, and people who could not work, and obvious discrimination, however we have that in America to, just not as obvious. We have all the things that Russia does, the US says Russia is no longer a super-power, why then is our President afraid of what Vladimir Putin will do? There is are inherent differences between the two presidents, one pays attention to the media, partially because he controls it, but also because he cares what the people say and how they think he is doing as a president. Also this president is quite intelligent and hard-working. While Time Magazine was interviewing him for "Man of the Year" the interviewer had a series of three-four hour meetings with this president, and he did all of these interviews about very broad subjects both without any notes and very openly, as though he had nothing to hide. Also he has something like a 72% approval rating taken from a third-party poller from outside of Russia. Obviously one can come to the conclusion that this is not the US President, and obviously the Russian President Vladimir Putin. While the US President on the other hand hides everything he is doing, and also does not listen to what the people want, does not listen to media, and has also been quoted as saying something along the lines of "I am not a reality-based person, but more of a religion-based person" WTF!!! You cannot have a person lead what has been referred to as the strongest nation in the world who is not reality based. That is just insane.

And Bush will not do any interview or anything without advisors or a script or Condaleeza there to help him along. Given he may not be as stupid as he has been made out to be, he still has no clue what is going on day to day within his country. He could in no way carry on interviews without notes, or saying "I am going to have to check on that" or something like that.

I just find that Russia is given a bad rap here in the US because half of the people here still think it is the CCCP which it is not.

Obvious Illegal Profit

The last time I checked it was not the point of a state institution to make money, they are in effect non-profits. But the example I will give is that when I was accepted into the Dorm here at UWM, I was told I was going to have to pay nearly what tuition costs for three months in the Dorm, more than $4000, or roughly that. Now the University should not be trying to profit off of its students, it should be trying to break even. Not make money, now I understand trying to make enough to break even, but not to pay off the new dorms in one year, not all people in the US are worth millions of dollars, in fact most college students, as is popular belief, have no money. Thus the University is acting illegally and I just wish that the State would investigate, it would be hilarious. And it would also apply to my previous post if the State did indeed investigate.

UWM Sucks

In general one would think going to school would be at least enjoyable, while I do have classes that I particularly enjoy, some are less than enjoyable, both due to tension and general boredom. For example my Geography class is one of the classes where the general boredom idea apples, I am learning what lines of Longitude and Latitude are, ooh not like I never knew what those were before, not like I already know how to read maps from my days at camp. But let's move away from the general boredom part of my days at school and move into how UWM is actually actively against me.

I have been disenfranchised by UWM, they have given things to me, which they then wish to take away. My example: Russian. As far as I knew last semester, I should have been given both retroactive credit for my accomplishments in Russian in High School, and also credit for doing well on the HL IB test. I was told, as was my mom that I would be receiving 14 credits for my accomplishments, however that is not how things are working out. At first it seemed as though my Russian Professor would actually be an advocate for me, actually help me in my quest against the hierarchy of UWW, however he seems to have caved, and now I am on my own.

It seems that the Hierarchy of UWM has in effect alienated me, and while I could go about doing what the US had done in 1776 and name off ways that UWM has screwed me over, I will not, as now that would seem un-american, and I would not want to seem un-american :). Yeah right. I just wish to say that if a member of the UWM hierarchy promises something to a student and to their mother who is an attorney that they should keep that promise or be ready to be sued. And while my Russian Professor denies all knowledge of any possible credit, that is not what I had been told earlier, and therefore have been in effect screwed over. And as for my rant about why school sucks, this is the highest on a relatively short list. But I really don't think it is the goal of a University to screw its students out of money and out of credit, the last time I checked the point of a University was to be a tool for the student to use to receive an education. It has in effect changed from a non-profit state institution to one that is only for the hierarchy, and only for profit. Something the last time I checked was illegal.