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October 1, 2001
October 2001 Posts
Sunday, October 28, 2001 'Zare' did not serve freshly squezed orange juice this morning. Or maybe they just had some particularily un-flavorful oranges delived today. Either way, I was mildly disapointed as I've come to expect only the sweetest, yet tart, fresh juice from Zare. The eggs were up to the usual standards though. Saturday night... yowsers, and epic night of debauchery precisely as it should have been. Photos a-plenty. I was the bee. I decided to retire plaid-man this year, but Dave didn't have a costume, so he inherited it... and did a mighty fine job I might add. Would up at a party in the neighborhood that rivaled anything I've seen in quite some time. Got back at 5:30 in the morning... well, actually 4:30 because daylight-savings kicked in...or kincked off...which is it? Anyway, 5:30 sound's more dramatic, and impressive. Highlights of the evening were Thomas frightening the girls away with his 'pimp-daddy' get-up, the beloved angel of death, and a riotous giant-jenga game. Friday, October 26, 2001 hi world (from esther using nick's blog cause he SHOULD 'sign out' but. . . i guess it is his computer.) critical mass rules & thanks for scoring me the sweet bike. goodbye Friday, October 26, 2001 Tonight is Haloween critical mass. Drat! I forgot my camera. Would most likely make some nice videos. Oh well. Recruited Dan, Esther and Jason, so it should be a grand old time. Thursday, October 25, 2001 Esther and the dawg have come down from Portland to pay a visit. Just going out to the pub quiz now. Wednesday, October 24, 2001 Here it is! The site of the stalking, in vivid color, taken the morning after the incident, with annotations:  Note Jeff checking for tracks. It looked a lot less frightening in the daylight, especially with countless joggers and bikers cruising by, unaware of the near death experience that took place only hours earlier. Here's a picture of the tunnel we had to go through in the dark, pursued closer than we thought. Click for larger image:  More photos from the trip here. Saturday, October 20, 2001 Wow wow wow... I just had a truely extraordinay, terrifying yet fascinating, totally once in a lifetime (hopefully) experience. I'm in Boulder Colorado right now, and it's 4:30am. Jeff and I went for a walk around 2am into the hills outside Boulder, a harmless adventure into the peaceful Rocky Mountain Foothills, on a paved bike path, never ranging more than 2 miles from downtown Boulder... Jeff, what then happened? JEFF :: we walked up the canyon trail till it turned from paved into cinders...not really too far and there we climbed a bit up a slopy rck to sit and enjoy the silouette view of the rocks aqainst the sky...totally out of the blue nick says "look at that!" in a wispered voice...and this feline shadow tail outstretched behind it goes runing down the trail we were just on not 15 feet from where we were sitting. Was that? Yes it was! Jeezo a real cougar just went trotting down our trail towards where we had come from. Christo, I'm not going back that way. What the fuck. That was a real cougar. "Hey do you hear that?" "Something is coming down the slope behind us." NICK :: I spun around, and there was a big ol' shadow of a cat staring down at us just like you picture it ought to from a movie or something. I figured it was a *second* lion, not the same one, but upon reconsideration, we realized that swarthy rascal had run past us, then came stalking behind us, and was ready to pounce on one of our heads. I yelled "Get Down!!!" and we jumped from our perches and ran down to the trail (a very wide an heavily used pathway). Then I grabed Jeff, said "don't run, back off slow!!!" and we turned to face the lion, who had jumped down after us, and was standing, curiously looking at us, not more than 12 feet away. Everything happened really fast then, and I can't remember it all that clearly...I remember screaming at him/her and flashing my jacket so as to appear larger. At some point, we kicked gravel in his direction and he ran back up the embankment, and we slowly made our way back toward a tunnel under the highway, not knowing where the lion was. JEFF :: I can't even remember how closely the lion was following us...I heeded Nicks words and backed slowly into the tunnel always looking back for the shadow of what ever was following us. As we entered the tunnel I fekt we had to be exceptionally careful in exiting the tunnel as what ever lion had passed in front of us before would be waiting just outside the tunnel to leap down and snuff its prey. We. exited the tunnel slowly without hinderance and slowly reclimbed the slope back up to the paved path always looking behind. Was it my mind playing tricks? The shadows on the edges of the tunnel seemed to be moving. We exited the tunnel entirely and started down the trail. There behind usm now separating from the tunnels shadows was the mountain lion. Trotting along that bastard right behind us. NICK :: then it got realy wierd. We couldn't belive he was still behind us. I never think twice when I see a deer, or even an Elk, but this animal, althought we figure he/she was only around 80-100 lbs, and thus weighed less than half of each of us, was clearly, and aggresively stalking us. Half of me wasn't scared at all, thinking, "what's up kitty, you want a candy bar" and half of me was in utter panic, realizing that despite my significant weight advantage, this creature wanted to take a bite out of me. So we screamed at the top of our lungs, and slowly backed down the trail. Every step we took backwards, that damn lion took two forwards!!! Then the lion bolted towards us along the trail, and off to our right, coming less than 6 or 7 feet ftom us, between the trail and the highway, and simply stood there grimacing at us. We waved out arms, screaming at it. (I'm thinking: 'what the hell do you possibly want with us!!!???') and we tried again to advance down the trail. The lion jumped in front if us, blocking our path and let out the classic Mountain Lion hiss you see in all the movies. I was close to a loss as to what to do, thinking seriously that we were in for a physical encounter. Suddenly it seemed logical to crouch quickly, grab a handful of gravel and hurl it at that cat's face. We both did so and the lion jumped away about 10 feet. Just then, by luck, along came a car. The glaring headlights sent the cat running, and as I watched it run away, I looked at Jeff and said "Let's Run Now!!!" We took off so fast, I'm nursing blisters right now. We probably only ran a few hundred yards, then slowed down, and vigilantly walked back into town, without a further incident. We're still awake talking about it (obviously). Wow, is all I have to say. As we were walking back into town, there was a life sized bronze couger perched on a pedestal on Pearl St. waiting for us. I had immediate flashbacks and hat to pat it on the head to keep it from moving. Oh man, I hope I don't have bad nightmares tonight. Friday, October 19, 2001 Well, the webcam hasn't been much of a success because my computer has only been on at night, hence the splotches of light. Anyhows, decent week around here. I'm going to Boulder Colorado today. (Do I travel too much?). This is my first time in Colorado, so I'm very excited. Going to do some climbing and possibly some biking with Jefe.... oughtta be good! Saturday, October 13, 2001 I was a little bored this afternoon, so I set up the 646 webcam. You can now spy on my neighbors in the backyard 24 hours a day. Thursday, October 11, 2001 Hundreds of smiling people dressed in flourescent yellow were stationed at street corners in downtown SF this morning for no othere reason than to bid people good morning. I liked it! I think it was a high school that organized the event, but I can't find any news on it. Tuesday, October 09, 2001 Heaps and heaps of photos... no documentation though. (sorry) I'll sort out the bast later: Walking around Prague Friday, October 05, 2001
I was playing with my camera on the planes, took a lot of photos from Greenland. Also landing in Zurich. Here's a little video. Thursday, October 04, 2001 Lazy me, lazy me. Despite the inevetiable satisfaction that I know comes from regularily writing this blog, I have continued to be lazy lazy lazy... well, back safe in SF, after one last wild night in London. Ok, to avoid laziness... and since I have no pictures yet, here's the most surprising and obscure place I've been in the past week: Sopron, Hungary. Yep, Hungary. Travis' wedding took place in a little town in Austria called Morbisch, they day after the wedding, I borrowed someone's bike, intent on riding to the nearby Hungarian border. Talk about the decline of the iron curtain. The formerly fortified border was a breeze. I rode past the Austrians without them looking up from the table, and the Hungarian authorities only looked at the outside of my passport, never even opening it. (though I kinda wanted a stamp). Anyhows, suddenly I'm biking through Hungary. I came upon a crossroads and a map on a post. The map showed a city called Sopron about 6 miles down the highway, so I figued I"d check it out. I cruised along the highway, without too much traffic hassel, and passed numerous vineyards, handsome country homes, and a forbiddin prison with barbed wire. Sopron itself was pretty empty, it being a Sunday I suppose, but it was a truely fascinating change from Austria. Old an run-down, with numerous Onion-Dome churches and a big click tower on the main square. Since my camera had run out of batteries, I wandered around looking for a shop that sold disposable cameras, but couldn't find anythin gopen. I rode around for about 30 minutes on the alternatingly cobblestone and dirt roads, then decided to return to Austria. On the way back, I found a bike path through the woords which was well marked and followed the highway all the way back to the border. It went past a lot of vineyards, and some ponds in which people were fishing. The only bad thing was swarms and swarms of gnats that kept hittin me in the face as I cruised through the woods... next time in Europe I'm going to arrange a long bike trip of some sort! |
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