I'm still working on The Thesis That Wouldn't Die. The work is essentially done, and a draft of the thesis is now in my advisor's hands. It now looks like the defense date will be mid to late July (so I will miss Starwood, boo), but hopefully I can get it signed off and done before the end of July, which is MIT's deadline for the September degree list.
I shaved my head right after Beltane, so I have the clean head effect once again. It feels good. There has been some good parties (Tom & Stacey's birthday party on 5 May, Cardigan in 13 May with a ride in Bella's big van, the RootFest house cooling at Tom & Steve's, where I brought Jered, and Carla's farewell dinner on 4 June, with a clothing swap and party afterwards). I also took Lyman to visit his family cabin in Readboro VT, on 10 May, because we had to check into the cabin's condition. We found the foundation falling away, and the water supply not operating anymore. I hope he can get all this stuff fixed, the cabin is really nice in general.
The annual Condo Meeting (followed by the Central Square Worlds Fair) was punctuated by a drastic jump in the water bill, which we traced to the tenants' toliet leaking. In the process of addressing this issue, the tenants completely stopped cooperating (this has been building for a long time now), and I fell back to charging the unit owners for the extra water usage and all. I guess this is good practice in being a hardass. I don't like conflict, and I hope they get off the dime and straighten things out soon.
I ascended the Blueberry Ledge trail, where there are fine views of Squam and Winnepesaukee to the south, to the Whiteface summit, which has good views of Chocorua to the east and the lakes to the south. >From there I took the Rollins trail to Passaconaway, overlooking the "Bowl" wilderness area. The summit of Passaconaway is wooded, and there are no views, but there's a spur trail to a ledge that overlooks the west and north valley, with fine views of Tripyramid.
I spent 9 3/4 hours on the trail, which is about as long a hike as I want in one day. I have reconfirmed that my walking staff saves wear and tear on my knees -- although I did end up with a little knee pain, it would have been much worse without the stick. I was using a PVC tube as a staff, so I got to play it as a didjeridu at rest breaks, too. As a side benefit, I get an upper body workout as well. I will use it from now on!
There are loads of white and red trillium, and tiny yellow flowers like micro daffodils. The only animal visitation was a little garter snake, slithering along beside the trail, and some bumblebees, but I did see a moose on the drive back, bathing in a roadside marsh.
The human encounters were less fun. There was a group of talkative ladies with loud voices and strong perfume (!), who I kept running into. Fortunately I could usually hear them from a long way off (they just wouldn't shut up, even on the steepest ascents) and either speed up or slow down to keep distance between us. Still, it was annoying having to adjust my travel to deal with theirs -- this is the last thing I need on a holiday, especially when one was taking a pee and made me keep my distance and wait till she was done. (Of course she didn't bother to tell me when it was okay to proceed.) There was also a rather clueless guy who needed my map to figure out where he was going. I don't mind helping out, but what is this guy doing without a map and not knowing his way? Duuuuude!
The day was hot and humid, and we had a nice hangout zone set up under the shady trees, with the Air Chair hanging from a maple limb, and other chairs around, so I held court there while guests arrived in ones and twos. An intense thunderstorm came through around four. Then we had drinks (homebrewer's taste comparison, which was fun) and barbecue grilled fish, fresh from the local market. The air was a bit cooler after the storm, making for a very pleasant evening on the deck.
At twilight we started a driftwood fire on the beach, despite the mosquitos, and did some low key drumming and hanging out into the night. I made sure that the drumming was over and the fire burned low enough to put out by eleven, so this time we didn't have any police show up. We didn't go much later than that. Chris and Cristina stayed overnight but left very early, and Lyman, Sally, and Thatch stayed on and helped clean up the morning after. Thanks everyone! It was a great time.
Back to the thesis grind for me. I hope everyone's having a good summer!
Wil