Here’s my mountain climbing training plan. It’s pretty ambitious.

2/18: rattlesnake ledge, 1160 feet, 4 miles, 580 ft/mi up
2/24: pony bridge, 900 feet, 5 miles, 360 ft/mi up
3/31: Tiger Mountain Trail North, 1100 feet, 5 miles, 440 ft/mi up
4/7: alger alp, 1000 feet, 4 miles, 500 ft/mi up
4/13: poo poo point, 1650 feet, 7.4 miles, 445 ft/mi up
4/21: Mt. Washington, 1600 ft, 4 miles, 800 ft/mi up
4/28: Pyramid Lake, 1500 ft, 4.5 miles, 666 ft/mi up
5/12: Oyster Dome, 1900 feet, 6.5 miles, 584 ft/mi up
5/19: mt. si, 3150 feet, 8 miles, 787 ft/mi up
5/26: mt. pilchuck, 2200 ft, 5.4 miles, 814 ft/mi up
6/2: snoquera falls, 2800 ft, 6 miles, 933 ft/mi up
6/16: bandera mountain, 3000 ft, 7.6 mils, 789 ft/mi up
6/23: davis peak, 3900 feet, 11 miles, 709 ft/mi up
6/28: sourdough peak, 5085 feet, 11 miles, 924 ft/mi up
7/2: mailbox peak, 4100 ft, 6 miles, 1366 ft/mi up
7/11-12: st. helens, 4500 feet, 10 miles, 900 ft/mi up
7/17: mt. storm king, 1700 ft, 3.8 miles, 894 ft/mi up
7/19: mailbox peak, 4100 ft, 6 miles, 1366 ft/mi up
7/24: poe mountain, 3000 ft, 6 miles, 1000 ft/mi up
7/26: mt. Aix, 4200 feet, 12 miles, 700 ft/mi up
7/31: mount teneriffe, 3800 ft, 6.5 miles, 1169 ft/mi up
8/2-3: Camp muir, 4600 feet, 10 miles, 920 ft/mi up  then Glacier Basin, 1600 feet, 6 miles, 533 ft/mi up
8/7: rooster mountain, 4100 ft, 8 miles, 1025 ft/mi up
8/9-10: camp muir twice, 4600 feet x2, 10 miles x2, 920 ft/mi up x2
8/15: sulphur mountain, 4200 ft, 10 miles, 840 ft/mi up
8/17: crystal peak, 3100 ft, 8 miles, 775 ft/mi up
8/21-24: Mt. Rainier climb, training for two days, then 920 ft/mi up, then 1571 ft/mi up

Luck be with me!

If you have a .htaccess file or an apache webserver, here’s what you can add to make your website go dark:
RewriteEngine On \\turn the redirecting stuff on
RewriteCond %{TIME_YEAR} =2012 \\make sure it only happens on the 18th
RewriteCond %{TIME_MON} =01
RewriteCond %{TIME_DAY} =18
\\I actually will blackout the whole day, so I skipped the next two lines
RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR} >05 \\that's 5 AM. my server is on PST, not EST, adjust as necessary
RewriteCond %{TIME_HOUR} <17 \\that's 5 PM. learn 24 hour time, dude.
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ protest.html \\the relative path to your protest page. do not use an absolute path (http://etc. etc.)

Just add this code to your .htaccess file (or create one if you don’t have one) and make a protest page. Easy peasy.

Here’s my protest page, for reference. Steal what you need.

2012:

1. climb Mt. Rainier
2. more politics
3. more music (writing, watching, playing)
4. move out
5. improve job situation
6. more rally promotion

Let’s see how it goes.

In no particular order:

• 1990′s Mazda 323 (white, first stick shift)
• 1980 VW cabriolet (black)
• 1980 VW cabriolet (white)
• 1990′s VW cabriolet (red)
• 1990′s honda accord EX (bronze, fastest speed record)
• 1993 ford aerostar (black)
• 1977 ford thunderbird (black)
• 1952 buick super (green/white)
• 1990′s honda prelude (black)
• 1990′s mitsubishi mirage (red)
• 2000′s honda civic si (silver)
• 2000′s mini cooper s (blue)
• 2000′s subaru WRX (black)
• 1990′s Subaru Outback (green/bronze)
• 1999 Subaru Legacy Wagon (green)
• 1984 mitsubishi cordia (red, first turbo car)
• 1990′s vw syncro vanagon (blue)
• 2000′s nissan xterra (silver)
• 2000′s chevy aveo (red, Mexican)
• 2007? VW GTI mkV (white)
• 2002 VW GTI mkIV (blue)
• 2004 VW R32 mkIV (blue)
• 2010 VW GTI mkVI (black)
• 2012 VW Golf R (blue)
• 1980′s VW GTI mkII (silver)
• 1980′s chevy s10 (white)
• 1977 ford truck (black)
• 2000′s big uhaul truck (white/orange)
• 1990′s honda civic hatch (red)
• 1990′s honda civic hatch rally car (orange, #258)
• 1990′s honda civic hatch rally car (white/red, #466)
• 1980′s vw rabbit rally car (blue, #437)
• 1980′s vw gti rally car (silver/german, #437)
• 1974 vespa ciao moped (green)
• old, beat up Mexican scooter (white)
• four different forklifts

There’s probably more, but I can’t think of them right now.

Occupy Seattle held their first General Assembly on September 30th. However, hints of beginning an occupation began about a week prior on the Occupy Seattle facebook page. Occupy Wall Street had started spreading to other cities after the initial occupation on September 17th via the occupytogether.org website. According to them, the movement has now grown to over 100 cities across the world, with hundreds of others reported to be in the planning stages. Seattle is the largest occupation in Washington, naturally, but Olympia, Tacoma, Bellingham and other Western Washington communities have protests planned or happening as well.

Most people who hear of the movement want to know what the demands of the protesters are. Yet, all the “occupy” groups shy away from posting official lists of demands. This is likely because the demands are varied and every member is passionate about their own personal demands. It’s also because that list is long. There is a lot to be angry about.

Demands and protest signs center around corporate reform, if you are looking for a trend. Protesters call for ending corporate personhood, reforming tax law, ending privatization, and various other economic and social reforms.

However, the movement is about more than demands, which runs counter to expectations of the mass media. This movement is about reforming how Americans participate in politics. For the few hours I could attend on Saturday, I saw people standing in small groups discussing a wide array of topics. Those not involved in discussions were listening to the speakers at the concurrent Indigenous People’s Day rally. The march was postponed until 5 to accommodate the rally.

This movement is about becoming involved in politics. The best way to find out more is to go down to Westlake and talk to anyone milling around. Essentially, Westlake park is Seattle’s mix tape of progressive politics and if you listen, you’ll find something that suits you.

Most importantly, it’s time we all get off our couches and shake off the political apathy that has crippled us and let them try to ruin everything. I don’t care if you want to further deregulate the banking industry or think that the rich should be richer, we should all be having this conversation now. We’ve let representatives “represent” us for too long without our voice being heard. 2011 will hopefully be marked as the year that trend changed and American politics finally began to live up to the ideal of “by the people, for the people.”

For more photos, you can visit my flickr stream. I hope to head down for the student walk out tomorrow and do some interviews for a possible SunBreak piece, but I’m lazy, so it probably won’t happen. I’m just getting back into writing, so this rambling blog post will have to do for now.

I welcome discussion.

No, things are going pretty well actually. Been writing show reviews a bunch, so you should look for those. I just don’t blog as much anymore, sorry.

If you want to buy some of my stuff on eBay, you’d be pretty awesome, though. There are a bunch of records up there as well as some other cool things. Here’s the link.

31 items up for sale right now.

Maybe I’ll come back later? Probably not.

the things i (won’t or will) not miss:
your slow computer
never being enough

i’m writing this down so it won’t come true.