A New Color for the Bards
Friday, June 21st, 2002 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flwydVarious of my pagan friends decided that we'd do our solstice celebration at 10:30 tomorrow rather than dawn, so I had to one up them. What follows is a rambling excessively detailed recount of my morning.
Though I'd planned to stay up all night, I got real tired after midnight, so I managed to catch 2 hours or so before waking up at 3:30, half an hour before my alarm. Arising at 4 I prepared to sally forth and be a good little pagan on Summer Solstice. I wish more road-blocking utility work happened at 4am. I also wish it was just a little chilly at 4:20am riding downhill in shorts, but there aren't many horses around.
Arriving at settlers park at quarter to five, the sky was already beginning to lighten up. The whole western half was light midnight blue and the eastern half was getting a little lighter. The mountains were a bit hazy with smoke from the Hayman Fire, but no resperatory problems or anything. I headed up the path, spotted a high rock structure and, with some prudent climbing decisions I reached the saddle... only to realize that, on two hours of sleep, I'd elected to sit behind a large rock to watch the sunrise. That wouldn't do, so I scrambled down, headed to the next rock over, and scrambled up that one, reaching a good sitting spot at 5am. I wasn't born in the year of the (mountain) goat for nothing. Tossing off my backpack, which was a bit heavier than it should have been, and stepping out of my clothes, I celebrated my ascent, which left me surprisingly sweaty and out of breath, with a Journey Birch Beer. After overlooking Boulder for a while, spotting the familiar landmarks of Will Vill, the Engineering Center, JILA, Gamow, Folsom Field, Baseline Reservoir, Arapaho Reservoir, the power plant, a few intersections, Longmont, and the stream of cars coming in from U.S. 36, I sat down with The Count of Monte Cristo in the pale morning light. The patch of way-high cirrus clouds were a pretty ocean wave strawberry ice cream while the Hayman Haze was pronounced out east, nearly obscuring the due east horizon. The Camera said that sunrise was at 5:35am, but when the moment came, I couldn't even see the sun poking over the horizon. "Maybe by 'sunrise' they mean some critical candela rating of sky brightness and I'll see the sun in a bit." After standing exposed in the light breeze for a while, finishing my chapter, and otherwise waiting about until 6:05, I saw the sun finally emerge from the covers of the smoke. It was a good 10° above the horizon, was chinese lantern red, and not painful to see with the naked eye (or body), though I was smart enough to put on sunglasses once I saw it. After about three minutes it was completely covered by smoke again. Go forest service agent.
So after enrobing I discovered that my rock was easily accessible by a footpath with just 5 feet of easy scrambling. So much for my 50 foot ascent in semi-dark. Heading back into the town I'd just watched wake up, I grabbed a donut and went to Soma (an electronica night club) to watch the second half of the U.S. vs. Germany game. There were about 10 fans with indistinct European accents, plus a couple bouncers waking up on couches, all watching ESPN on a digitally projected 72" screen. The resolution was pretty crappy; (digital projection combined with TV, which probably isn't calibrated with 72" in mind)--. After a disappointing loss, featuring a divine fiat and an unlucky shot against the U.S., I made two rudimentary observations. The fanatacism that football inspires may be partially explainable by the 90 minutes of intense play punctuated very rarely by orgasm, with several near misses which cause one to jump up, but not dance around wildly. Also, even though soccer is probably the sport most played by U.S. youths (the term "baseball mom" is not in common usage), it will never "catch on" because it can't be milked for TV advertisements. Baseball, Football, Hockey, and Basketball all have a couple minutes for ads every couple minutes. Soccer doesn't even stop the clock when there's a penalty, teams can't call time out, (and, what gets me, they only get 3 substitutions all game!). So the best they can do is stick corporate logos atop the screen, but that doesn't fly too well with The Juggernaut of American Advertising. Someone ought to talk PBS into covering world football.
So what does one do at 7:30am in Boulder when one's just been riled up by the World Cup? I managed to spend 20 minutes riding back and forth in a three block area before I got myself a fresh loaf of cinnamon raisin bread and a Colorady Daily and sat down and dabbled my feet (the one part that hadn't been nekkid yet) in the Boulder Creek. Surprising how cold the water was, given that I wasn't even chilly standing fully exposed in the breeze at sunup.
So. It's 9:40am and I've been up for over 6 hours already. Damn. Don't think I've ever said that before. I better get some sleep before I see Colcannon. And hey, maybe I'll head back to Soma for Spain vs. South Korea.
Though I'd planned to stay up all night, I got real tired after midnight, so I managed to catch 2 hours or so before waking up at 3:30, half an hour before my alarm. Arising at 4 I prepared to sally forth and be a good little pagan on Summer Solstice. I wish more road-blocking utility work happened at 4am. I also wish it was just a little chilly at 4:20am riding downhill in shorts, but there aren't many horses around.
Arriving at settlers park at quarter to five, the sky was already beginning to lighten up. The whole western half was light midnight blue and the eastern half was getting a little lighter. The mountains were a bit hazy with smoke from the Hayman Fire, but no resperatory problems or anything. I headed up the path, spotted a high rock structure and, with some prudent climbing decisions I reached the saddle... only to realize that, on two hours of sleep, I'd elected to sit behind a large rock to watch the sunrise. That wouldn't do, so I scrambled down, headed to the next rock over, and scrambled up that one, reaching a good sitting spot at 5am. I wasn't born in the year of the (mountain) goat for nothing. Tossing off my backpack, which was a bit heavier than it should have been, and stepping out of my clothes, I celebrated my ascent, which left me surprisingly sweaty and out of breath, with a Journey Birch Beer. After overlooking Boulder for a while, spotting the familiar landmarks of Will Vill, the Engineering Center, JILA, Gamow, Folsom Field, Baseline Reservoir, Arapaho Reservoir, the power plant, a few intersections, Longmont, and the stream of cars coming in from U.S. 36, I sat down with The Count of Monte Cristo in the pale morning light. The patch of way-high cirrus clouds were a pretty ocean wave strawberry ice cream while the Hayman Haze was pronounced out east, nearly obscuring the due east horizon. The Camera said that sunrise was at 5:35am, but when the moment came, I couldn't even see the sun poking over the horizon. "Maybe by 'sunrise' they mean some critical candela rating of sky brightness and I'll see the sun in a bit." After standing exposed in the light breeze for a while, finishing my chapter, and otherwise waiting about until 6:05, I saw the sun finally emerge from the covers of the smoke. It was a good 10° above the horizon, was chinese lantern red, and not painful to see with the naked eye (or body), though I was smart enough to put on sunglasses once I saw it. After about three minutes it was completely covered by smoke again. Go forest service agent.
So after enrobing I discovered that my rock was easily accessible by a footpath with just 5 feet of easy scrambling. So much for my 50 foot ascent in semi-dark. Heading back into the town I'd just watched wake up, I grabbed a donut and went to Soma (an electronica night club) to watch the second half of the U.S. vs. Germany game. There were about 10 fans with indistinct European accents, plus a couple bouncers waking up on couches, all watching ESPN on a digitally projected 72" screen. The resolution was pretty crappy; (digital projection combined with TV, which probably isn't calibrated with 72" in mind)--. After a disappointing loss, featuring a divine fiat and an unlucky shot against the U.S., I made two rudimentary observations. The fanatacism that football inspires may be partially explainable by the 90 minutes of intense play punctuated very rarely by orgasm, with several near misses which cause one to jump up, but not dance around wildly. Also, even though soccer is probably the sport most played by U.S. youths (the term "baseball mom" is not in common usage), it will never "catch on" because it can't be milked for TV advertisements. Baseball, Football, Hockey, and Basketball all have a couple minutes for ads every couple minutes. Soccer doesn't even stop the clock when there's a penalty, teams can't call time out, (and, what gets me, they only get 3 substitutions all game!). So the best they can do is stick corporate logos atop the screen, but that doesn't fly too well with The Juggernaut of American Advertising. Someone ought to talk PBS into covering world football.
So what does one do at 7:30am in Boulder when one's just been riled up by the World Cup? I managed to spend 20 minutes riding back and forth in a three block area before I got myself a fresh loaf of cinnamon raisin bread and a Colorady Daily and sat down and dabbled my feet (the one part that hadn't been nekkid yet) in the Boulder Creek. Surprising how cold the water was, given that I wasn't even chilly standing fully exposed in the breeze at sunup.
So. It's 9:40am and I've been up for over 6 hours already. Damn. Don't think I've ever said that before. I better get some sleep before I see Colcannon. And hey, maybe I'll head back to Soma for Spain vs. South Korea.
