At UNBC. Have running water (hot and cold!), refrigeration, shower, flush toilet, and a whole mattress all in the same place. wow. I don't know what to do with myself. They say never shop when you're hungry. Never, EVER shop when you have refrigeration for the first time in eleven weeks.
I camped out last night on a logging road, got a 7 AM wakeup call from a logging truck blowing past me and then made tracks for Prince George. A few kilometers down the road (I think in kilometers now... the only problem is mileage. You can't say kilometerage, it just doesn't work. Who's so darn smart now, england?) I saw a tail flick into the woods. I stopped about 100 yards away from it and eight wolf pups came walking out into the road. They saw me and sat down right there in the middle of the road looking at me. I took a few pictures that will be up soonish and then put it back in gear and carried on just fast enough to stay out of a stall, can't have them getting used to sitting in the road like that. Logging trucks don't get curious and stop when they see a tail. The brave (or foolish) one of the litter that had been walking towards me to check me out stayed on the road until I was about 10 yards out, pretty cool to see but no pics up close (I'm not that bad).
So that's about all I could ask for on my last morning out on the road. I think I might be the first person to fill the bookshelf in his dorm and lean a homemade canoe paddle against it. And an ice axe. That's the "one of the unique students in forty years" for ya. Just found out Hall's still telling stories about me in his class. It's going on my resume.
So here's my reading list, I read a lot more than this but here's the absolute must-reads:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X. If every person in this country read just one book, that should be it. We'd be in much better shape if the government printed three hundred million copies and sent one or two to every home, apartment, project, street corner, hole in the wall between here and mexico. Hugo Chavez is doing something like that, providing books below cost to his people. Interesting idea. The way X tells about his pilgrimage to Mecca makes you wonder why the hell we're anywhere near that place with our culture (we really can't even call what we propagate around the world "culture" if we have any idea what they've had going for so long) and armies. I started out against the war, figured something was rotten in the state of denmark, this might be it (among other things).
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM) and Lila (sequel to ZMM). If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand. Just read the first one and if you don't say "yes, that's exactly what I've been trying to say/figure out" don't bother with the sequel. Well, do bother with the sequel, it's got some great ideas that aren't even touched on in the first one.
The Life and Death of Michael Collins. My history teacher at Yarmouth told me to watch the movie Michael Collins when he found out I was mostly Irish. The movie really doesn't do the man justice. It makes a very good effort, but the really incredible things are in little details that couldn't be shown on film. There was also a progression of thoughts that went like this: Michael Collins was from Cork-Michael Collins beat the piss out of the Crown's spy system-English reprisals (burning farms, dairies, businesses etc at random when an Irish ambush went our way) hit Collins' homeland, County Cork, the hardest in 1920/21-my ancestors lived in County Cork-My ancestors left Cork for America in 1920. Wait.... So I need to read a whole lot more about this and figure out just what the hell happened with my family. That's going to take some time and doing, but if anything in this world is worth it... Don't recommended the book or the movie for anyone without a personal interest, it'd be very boring. Instead, watch The Devil's Own with Harrison Ford, it's very good. Less historical, but it gets the feeling across.
A River Runs Through It. It's a classic. Read it. Try and get the copy with USFS 1919 and Logging and Pimping, or Your Pal, Jim. Both are excellent. Especially in the title.
The Grapes of Wrath. So that's what happened during the Depression. Didn't mention that one in school.... whoopsies.
Paddy's Lament by Thomas Gallagher. This is the one I'm reading now, it makes the Grapes of Wrath look like a picnic. The Irish potato famine. Seventeen million pounds sterling worth of food shipped out of Ireland to england while two million starved to death, millions more forced out of their homes and off their island, any stores they might have had taken to pay the landlord for the land they worked. Much less than half of the cultivable land was planted with potatoes. The other half to three quarters was in grains, completely untouched by the blight but controlled by english landlords, shipped to england to ensure "no interference with the natural course of trade." This some forty something years after Ireland became part of the so called union. When england needs soldiers to die, peasants to work to death with no food in their bellies, taxes to build navies and food to feed armies then Ireland's in the union. When the food the english forced the Irish to depend on disappeared, what union? Bloody Irish paddies.
Bury My Heart and Wounded Knee. I haven't finished this one because I have to take it one chapter at a time and space those chapters out, but I'm five or six chapters in and it needs to be finished by me and many others.
the Lord of the Rings trilogy: The movies were awesome until you read the books again. Then they're just very good. Or they're still awesome and the books are a level above awesome. yea, that's it.
The SAS Survival Guide: It gives you the nitty gritty about how to deliver a baby in between detailing CPR and stitching yourself up. It's a winner.
My high school physics textbook. I spent so much time sneaking out to get lunch (why the frigging hell does and 18 year old have to sneak out of a public school to get lunch anyway? besides being so much fun of course. There's only one motorcycle in the parking lot and it's not supposed to leave between the bells, you'd think they'd have figured it out after the first hundred times. it's not exactly a quiet bike.) and moaning about how I already knew how a frigging ladder worked (I stand by what I said on that subject) that I didn't have time to look in the back of the book. I had to buy the book when my basement flooded and it got a wee bit damp. Best book I was ever forced to buy. the "advanced topics" section in the back is fascinating, and the theories and laws on light explains a lot about photographic equipment.
The neutrals: Books I finished but wouldn't mucho mucho reccomend.
Profiles in Courage (JFK). It's like a very well done high school research paper. If you're interested in hearing about how there's good people in the senate (which is a good thing to be reminded of, we usually only hear about the bad ones.), yes. It's readable and the subject is good. It gives things you learned in AP US History some context that makes much more sense than a study guide. Not a must read, but a good read. One of its saving graces is it mentions William Pitt Fessenden of Maine. Any book that gives a Mainer his due is okay with me.
The Silmarillion (Tolkein). If you're really really really REALLY into LOTR it's awesome. I'm only really into LOTR. It was interesting.
The Restaurant and the End of the Universe (sequel to Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy). I'll admit I only saw the movie of the first book. Tsk. Going by the sequel, the HHGG movie didnt have much to do with the book. It's still a good read. If you have a copy, go for it. There's some interesting ideas in there.
The Sirens of Titan (Vonnegut). It's not bad, really... read the restaurant at the end of the universe instead.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. When you see the sixth movie you've got to reread it. It's only natural.
Duds: Here's some I couldn't get through and won't. If anybody's read them feel free to tell me how they end and if they get any better:
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. Making fun of America is easy. It's something I do often and well. I usually like to read people who feel the same way. I shut this book after three chapters. ha. ha. ha. the national anthem has question marks. ha. ha. ha. america invented body bags. ha. ha. ha. the revolution. nothing smart, nothing that even cracked a grin. no new news about america. we drive cars. we're going to destroy the world. This week we're seven different kinds of messed up and next week we'll find seven more. It takes a lot to offend me, I loved "Why We Suck" by Denis Leary for pity's sake. The writing is bland, assuming, and vapid. If you want to know what's f'd up with America, read the Grapes of Wrath, Bury My Heart and Wounded Knee, and Profiles in Courage (to get the picture compare the senators in the book to the ones on CNN).
Books I need to find and read: The Monkey Wrench Gang, The IRA, Ireland Since the Rising, other subversive fun like that.
Edit, I now have the Monkey Wrench Gang, Desert Solitaire, The IRA, Modern Ireland (1600-1972) by someone OTHER than tim pat coogan (whew), some Malcolm Gladwell (look him up if you don't know who he is), Catch 22, 1984, Brave New World, Johnny Got his Gun (rent the movie but don't watch it before bed), a book on the Israel lobby and its influence on United States policy, a cheap paperback copy of the britannica guide to the Islamic world (which, knowing a little more about british propaganda/ignorant jingoistic self deluded shit, is not on top of the list), an investigation into the various rulers of small countries that the USA has overthrown in the last century and a bit, and Barry Schwartz's new book (google Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom. do it now. NOW. I'll do it for you:
[link] now all you have to do is click).
Also blew through the sequel to the Da Vinci Code, which is called The Lost Symbol and is very exciting if you don't mind the structure being exactly the same as the last two. Interesting to note that Angels and Demons ends with some innuendo about the benefits of sleeping with a woman who practices yoga, DaVinci Code ends with Indi, sorry, Langon, upgrading to the descendant of the descendant of god himself, but in this one Langdon and the girl of the day just watch the sun (and only the sun) rise. They do make pills for that... Maybe he's just being loyal to god's great X 10^42 granddaughter, which would be a wise move. Always good to stay on the inlaws' good side, but much more so when there's the very real possibility of floods, locusts, fire and brimstone, pale horses with he who sat on him was death etc.
Edit to the edit, the ending of the book is actually very good despite the lack of sex. I do recommend reading it.
Ideas:
One of Malcolm X's strongest points was that "the collective white man" had stolen his people's identity. Meaning when the slavers shipped the blacks out of Africa they broke up the culture as much as possible, leaving most afroamericans today with no idea where in africa they came from. With the technology of the human genome project it seems like it would be possible to have a massive inter-governmental(continental) research project that reconnected any interested people with their homeland and ancestors. Slavery was given the wink and the nod by the government for a long time, some of our great presidents were slave owners, so it seems logical and moral that the government would pick up the tab. No frigging no-bid contracts though, and substantial third party oversight. Give Al Sharpton something to do eh? Maybe when the economy is a little better. Not like the oprah winfrey oh shit I'm not really a zulu kind of thing, connecting the common man with the common man, giving them a report saying here's where you came from, here's how to contact your nearest relatives in your ancestral homeland, etc. The kind of things I'm going to be trying to figure out about my ancestors in Ireland that I might not have had more than a passing interest in if Halsted hadn't turned me on to Michael Collins and the events leading up to the Truce and Treaty and presumably my ancestors immigration. Like Malcolm X was saying, knowing these things gives you a certain dignity. It'd sure as shit do better than these bullshit reparations and senatorial apologies.
Do what Hugo Chavez is doing with the books (print them cheap and sell them below cost to the people). Think what you will about his other policies, but credit where credit's due, that's a damn good idea and you can't say the country would be done any harm by having its nose in a book once in a while. Those that don't remember what happened before they were born will remain forever children or whatever that smart guy said.
There was one other big one but I'm thinking more about the bacon I have in my fridge right now. I have a fridge now. That's so awesome. I'll update later when I remember my other big idea. It was a pretty good one, I think it's in my journal somewhere. It'll come back to me.
Thats what it was. If the system says that teachers have to cover this this and that, even if this this and that is the physics behind ladders and springboards, the system is going to fail some pretty sharp people. We know how to work a ladder and we know basically how a ladder works, if it doesn't slide you can climb up it. No shit, really? I spent how much time in class learning what my grandpa taught me when I was five? People like me and Seamus don't give two shits about ladders, but bring up string theory and we'll be beating down your door for more. There's information in the back of the textbook that would have fascinated us if it was talked about.
What if some of the senior teachers would just say hey, I know this is dumb but I have to do it or I get fired and replaced with someone who doesn't even know what bullshit this is. Come back after school and we can talk about string theory and whatever else is on the cutting edge that really matters in the future. If they spent an hour or two on one or two days a week after school encouraging interest in the brilliance of modern scientific achievement, it would make sitting through ladder-theory almost tolerable.
The front half of the textbook has stuff that the most brilliant minds of the time spent their lives developing. Important stuff. Nobel prizes Just by reading the conclusions of one generation we know more than half of the pioneering scientists of the generation previous to the ones credited with the discoveries. It is important to understand, I'll give you that. But.
But modern physics is so far beyond the basics that they're almost irrelevant. Most of the most interesting topics in the appendix are preceded by the sweet words "classical physics fails here." So if classical physics fails to explain the phenomenon, someone who's copied down classical physics word for word and believes that what's on the test is all there is will be at a disadvantage. Good stuff to know, but when you get into the really interesting stuff you're straight down the rabbithole in a crazy new world. There's no classes in that kind of thing in high school and there probably never will be. This is not good.
The school teaches the stagnant, gradeable shit. If the teacher doesn't know the answer, if nobody knows the answer, how can it be graded? How can we answer the grandest question of them all: is our children learning? The school spouts all sorts of shit about how they're just teaching us how to learn, so's to cover their ass when we find out that we never really learned anything.
It doesn't have to be like that. I'm lucky enough to not be able to say "we need teachers who will do this." We need MORE teachers who will do this. I've had a few and I learned more from them than anything in any curriculum anyone ever taught. But it was individual. I appreciate it more than I can say, but I'm just one and I'm already gone.
If a first-rate physics teacher would say at the end of class "I'm going to have a discussion about what they're doing down at the large hydron colider after school today with anyone who wants to show up. I don't care if you're failing this class, if you care I want you there." No grades, nothing to get in the way. Just knowledge.
The teacher has all the classical knowledge and perspective to pick out the good stuff to talk about. We could learn real things, not this bullshit about how to learn. All this is is a nasty little circle that's going down and down and down, the lowest common denominator that nobody disagrees on, copy this technique in creative writing and learn that gravity makes your shit go into the toilet and not back up your ass. That area is reserved for your head.
Believe it or not there's a lot of young people out there who are capable of comprehending these things. There's an element of self fulfilling prophecy mixed with the validity effect (see, Hall, you did teach me something). Teachers say over and over again that we need to make this understandable to everyone, therefore we need to simplify, simplify (this is where Thoreau needs to shut the hell up), and teach only the cut, dry, indsiputable facts.
There's this idea that we need to be taught to think. By people who think like that. If we were taught to think by people who thought that we were capable of thinking great things, then we'd be getting somewhere. But we're taught to think by people who think we don't even know how to think.
That pisses us off like nothing else and our reaction seems to prove their idea of us. But here are the mediocre students living in pickup trucks reading the textbook back to front and learning the history of their ancestors and reading great literature and philosophy. I picked up more useful knowledge in the last eleven weeks than I did in twelves years of public school. Some of it was prompted by a little nudge here and there, a recommendation, a book, a title, some little hint. These people know so much more than what they're allowed to teach to the masses. The truth of history shouldn't be something peddled in a back alley.
I have had some teachers who thought that I could think, and holy cow did I ever learn from them. There's something here I haven't quite put my finger on yet. The system is mediocrity standardized and if teachers stop at the recommended dose of knowledge... Feed your head. Keep trying.
Edit: just ran into this on TED.com. Somebody agrees with me and she's actually in charge of something. Not my points exactly, but the same direction of thought.
[link]Here's some stuff copied from my actual journal. Parenthetical are notes I'm adding now:
Neil's Little Book o True Facts
"Let me say it one more time, I'll tell the truth and make it rhyme, and hope I understand me" (paraphrased from "Feed Jake" at the beginning of The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, which would have been in the must reads section if I'd read it during the trip)
Hamilton, Montana has 5 liquor stores, 10+ gas stations, at least one adult entertainment store, 3 fishing supply stores and a representative of every major fast food chain, but if you want to buy a used book you have to push on to Missoula. (that's where I ended up getting half my books and moving the whole fish tote crate thing to the front seat, full of books, to keep myself from picking up any more hitchikers (that story's later))
Mariposa lilies are the ones with one long thing leaf with flower parts in 3s, the elegans variety is self explanatory.
It is possible to cross the USA and spend no money on accommodations, and practical to spend $15 total. I have done this.
H.M., Hippocampus Man, was called Henry Molaison by his momma.
Not everyone is like you. This is not a bad thing. Don't forget it.
"Find the balance" (Bill)
Toilet paper comes in many forms, not all of them good, very few of them understandable until the time of need. Graduation gowns. A TP investment is always a wise investment.
You'll wish you were back here someday
When I don't have TP I get PISSED (that was big and underlined...)
I get madder paying for campsites than I do for gas. Whats up with that? (I think it's because it's something I usually get for free, and the money goes to services and infrastructure that I don't need or want)
There's a line between alone and lonely, it's faint but definitely there.
If you really give a shit about water in third world countries, raise money and build a well in Africa, don't spew self-centered egotistical bullshit about virtual water footprints on the CBC (I'd just listened to some vapid insert-your-favorite-derogatory-term-here go on for an hour about how much water she used in the shower. Where I come from it rains. A lot. If you care, build a well. Not using the millions of gallons that fall in your hometown does not put millions of gallons in some town in the desert. It takes more than that.)
I've got it made and I shouldn't forget it.
Johnny Got His Gun was one hell of a freaky movie (watch it)
I feel like I've lived a year in a month
Day 1: Graduated from high school, drove to VT, "just get me off the roads I know" (if you haven't figured out how I feel about the public school system by now....)
Day 2, drove, "this land is Mohawk land, not NY land" (this was on a thirty foot long banner hung off a building in upstate new york. There's been a dispute about border guards carrying weapons on tribal land, apparently there's been some trouble with them.) Crossed CA border, guard asked if I had any guns at home. (I'm shit at lying so I told him a lever, a pump, and two bolt actions. He had a semiautomatic on his hip, what's he going to say, "this guy has some antiquated guns a thousand miles away so we can't let him in"?)
Days in Ontario: Long drives, no views until north side of Lake Superior, which was spectacular. Put canoe in there, new paddle is excellent.
Minnesota was meh. (sorry, Minnesotans. the only interesting thing I saw in your state was somebody taking white out to the Cook County Junction 69 sign so it said Cock County Junction 69. Understated and hilarious; well done.)
South Dakota days: First picked up Healer, Winnebago man (the tribe, not the RV company), heard stories about the Thunderbird that he'd seen, the shit that went on at Fort Snelling (look it up) and the religious duality of the Lakota people, apparently they've got a sort of blend of Christianity and older traditions. Healer as a doomsday theorist and reviver of the dead. Dropped him off at the mission in the city, his shoulder was giving him trouble so he was making his way to the VA doctor. There's a different kind of handshake on the res (or maybe just between hitchiker and hitchikee out of convenience in small spaces), done with the hand pointed up. It feels much more personal than the regular anglo shake.
Everybody but Healer and some of the older generation asks for a few bucks. One of the older women said unemployment on the res is 90% (still worried about what's going to happen to society if it goes over 10% here?). Visited Wounded Knee early in the morning, met one of those reservation dogs you hear about sometimes, she acted like she wanted to be friendly but was afraid. A good dog anyways.
Idaho Days:
Camped on fire roads, once halfway up a ridge overlooking a lake where birds of prey would fly by, very beautiful place. Saw a really shiny single engine airplane that bit me with a flying bug. If the opportunity ever comes up... goddamn expensive to learn, dangerous to do (that's not really a con is it?), and giving rich people tours might be... yeah. who knows. right now I'm too busy studying chemistry...
Crossed into CA with no problem this time, guards are much cooler out west.
Whirlwind tour of the southern Yukon, barely left the truck, there's an 8" layer of boggy moss everywhere on the mountains, very delicate and guilt inducing to step on, so I gave it up after a bit. And the thousands of mosquitoes that live in there didn't help any either.
I'll type more later....
The ten commandments of photography as compiled by
[link] 
and me after we got fed up with all the crap floating around that seems to be the result of apathy or incredible misconceptions about just about everything.
I Thou shalt not allow the camera do decide its own exposure settings.
II Thou shalt expend sweat and blood in the making of your photographs.
III Thou shalt give consideration to not only your subject, but also your foreground, background, and anything else in your frame.
IV Thou shalt not upload photographs of zoo animals, and thou shalt not upload more than a few images of your pet(s).
V Thou shalt not labor under the impression that any great photographer accepted the images as his camera took them, rather than as he saw them, therefore thou shalt not write "not edited" under a poor image and expect praise because it's "pure"
VI If thou knoweth thy image is of low quality, thou shalt not upload it, thou shalt instead find images of similar subjects that worked, inquire about the artist's technique if necessary, and learn from that.
VII Thou shalt not take photographs that consist solely of clouds, and sunsets shalt only enhance your subject, not replace it.
VIII Thou shalt spend time reading the information available at your local library or on the internet regarding composition, technique, processing, etc, BEFORE attempting to make your own photographs.
IX Thou shalt not post photographs of animals you ALMOST got in focus.
X Thou shalt not abuse photoshop.
Update and Thanks
Outraged
Rant
Amazed
), thanks to everybody who voted for it and especially 
