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[at-l] Re Timeframes and Journals and Such



Friends and neighbors:

      This thread could not be more timely.   With a start date of March 14, I
have reached the fifth level of Pre-Hike Purgatory -- you know the one where
you're desperately trying to get it all together, and the pile of stuff in the
corner keeps growing, but the backpack just sits there looking at you saying --
"Yo, Dude, I ain't getting any bigger, ya know, "  and you just spent three
whole days of your Christmas vacation planning which shelters to stay in and how
many miles a day and how many mail drops between Springer and Waynesboro, and
then you get this email that gives you what you just KNOW is the right mileage
per day for Georgia, and you say to yourself "FONTANA".    Now I've got to go
back and redo the whole thing.

      That's where I spent the night.  The shelter of my mind was full, so I
camped out on-line at trailjournals.com.  May God bless each and every one of
you who have opened your journals, and your hearts, to those of us struggling
along toward the nirvana that lies in Maine.  Please forgive me if I take
comfort in the pain of your broken and bleeding feet, and solace from the 40
straight days and nights of rain that you endured.  The point is that you did
endure, and that should be inspiration enough.  But wait -- there's more.  There
is JOY on the Trail, and love, and peace, and awe, and simple acts of kindness
that might go unnoticed back in the world but are treasured and remembered
forever out there on the trail.

      Which brings me to memories.  Not just how to create them, but how to
share them and how to save them.  Being  "of a certain age", I did not grow up
with computers.  I use them, of course.  They make great typewriters.  The keys
don't stick, you never have to use white-out, and you don't end up with hundreds
of balled up sheets of paper all over the floor when you're finally done with
that paper for Ms. Truckmiller's 10 grade english class.  I like them, I really
do.  I just don't know much about them.   So I've come to worship people who
build web sites like trailjournals.com.  Only now, if I want to do this thing
right, I not only have to learn about backpacking and hiking and filtering water
and cooking on an alcohol stove, I have to learn how to use a digital camera, a
web-site journal, and (the most recent addition to that growing pile of the
stuff in the corner) a pocket mail device. (May the Saints presarve him!!!)

      Just last week I was commenting to she-who-knows-me-best-but
still-loves-me about my record collection in the basement.  I think we finally
pitched the old AM/FM Radio/Stereo Record Player the last time we moved.  The
one with the adjustable speed turn-table so you could play either 33 or 45 RPM
records.  I'm pretty sure we threw out her Betamax tapes of Johnny Mathis as
well, but maybe those were left over from my previous wife.  No loss.  (I never
liked Johnny Mathis much either.)  Point is, things keep changing.   If I'm
going to invest a lot of time and energy and thought in a journal, one that I'd
like to share not just now, as it's happening, but for all time, how am I going
to do that?   Best I can figure, print it out.  Several copies - the odds are
better that way.  Acid free paper is good.  But even CDs -- remember those five
inch "floppys" we used to store stuff on?  Remember those Betamax tapes....
Paper.  That's the thing.  Great invention paper.  So many uses.   Reminds me.
I gotta go tell the kids to start saving the last quarter of the rolls for my
hike.

Thanks for taking me in...
longhaul




                                                                                                                                       
                      "Leslie Booher"                                                                                                  
                      <lbooher@pure.net        To:       <gypsy97@bellsouth.net>, <at-l@backcountry.net>, "Jim Bullard"                
                      >                         <jbullar1@twcny.rr.com>                                                                
                      Sent by:                 cc:                                                                                     
                      at-l-bounces@back        Subject:  Re: [at-l] Re: at-l Timeframe to hike AT in Georgia                           
                      country.net                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                       
                      01/08/2005 10:20                                                                                                 
                      PM                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                       




"Object lesson for future thrus: Keep your own backup copy of your on-line
journal."

Yes, and a printed-out copy, too, on acid-free paper.  I thought I had lost our
Camino journal, and I was frantic for several days until I bumped into it on
Works.  I use Word, but Works had come with the computer.  I had also lost the
original print-out.  I redid the print-out and made a disk of the on-line one.
anklebear
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