I got a new job

I got a job. It is a part-time job doing web stuff for a catalog publisher.

One of the guys there said he looked me up on the web and read about all my hiking. Welcome back to the cubicle, he said.

I'm sad my whale job will be ending so soon. Last year we worked until April. This year they think we'll be finished sometime this month. All the whales must have swam far away from the recorders. There was little to listen to this year.

Even though having a seasonal job is stressful because it ends and then you have to find another way to make money, having a part-time job makes it harder to go on a multi-month hike because it isn't seasonal.

I will probably have to find another job after my whale job ends. Or else get more freelance work. The part-time job won't be enough by itself.

The good thing about my new job is I will get to do more programming than I did at my name-brand, high-powered, career-oriented job. I consider it being paid to learn. At my name-brand job, they paid me well but imprisoned me and turned my brain to mush copying and pasting text in files to the point I felt like I would never be able to get another decent job anywhere else. Better to stay learning new things so I can stay mobile and free.

Nettles in my soup

I decided to try eating nettles. They grow as weeds in the garden. They hurt, too. I can see why they take more calories to prepare than they provide.

I wore leather gloves to pick them. I picked only young plants a couple inches high. I tried to pick only the top part of the plant, but sometimes the root came out. I put what I collected into a plastic bag and took it home.

At home, I had to rinse them because of the dirt clinging to the roots. So I put on rubber gloves and pulled off the root part. Then I rinsed what remained and chopped it up.

I have a bunch of squash soup that I made. It's very bland. I usually steam up some vegetables or heat up some other leftovers and add it to the soup. Today I added zucchini, yellow pepper and the nettles, and topped it with feta cheese.

It tasted fine. I couldn't tell you what the nettles taste like. They just taste like greens. They don't sting once they are cooked. Maybe next time I will try them as a side dish.

It's a lot of work, but they're weeds anyway, so why not? It was fun.

The big eye robs me of life

There are a few television shows I like to watch, but not many. So most nights while The Man watches TV I surf the Internet, read or work on various web sites that I'm in charge of.

Except for the few shows that I like, I can't stand TV anymore. Most of the shows are terrible and the commercials irritate me. They symbolize everything I hate about modern life. Even during the shows I like, I can barely tolerate watching TV anymore.

The Man would like to get a bigger TV. One of the flat ones that are all in fashion nowadays. I wish he would save his money instead and throw this one out the window. I'm certain one day I'll come home and a much bigger eye of the evil empire will be staring at me in my living room, dominating our lives.

The worst part of TV is that it robs the life out of you. Last night I went in search of my maps. The Man wanted to know why on earth I wanted to look at maps. I told him I felt like dreaming and scheming my next hike.

We did not hike the weekend before Thanksgiving. We had the time but he didn't feel like it. Instead the big eye of the evil empire stared at us while I looked longingly out the window. I watched the purple moments, the moments when the setting sun turns our mountains purple, with a strong desire to be freezing cold with a hot pot of noodles snuggled in my sleeping bag.

Every weekend seems to fly by like that. I realize that it is a pain to go away for a weekend because you rush around after a busy work week, pack your stuff, barely get enough time to walk around in the wilderness before you have to rush back home. Then you have to clean up, fall asleep exhausted and wake up to go to work the next day. I can understand that The Man doesn't want to waste a weekend on that when he could otherwise relax without stress.

But to substitute it for time spent wasted in front of the big eye bothers me. I think I'm going to have to go out and sleep on the ground by myself if I'm ever going to go again.