at the 'brary

I'm writing this post from Cascade Locks's City Hall, which doubles (triples?) as a public library and gym. You sign up for a half-hour of computer time and if no one else comes, you can sign up for another half-hour, etc. The 'brary's open from 10AM to 3PM.

My campground turned into a dead zone for data exchange, so I was completely unable to surf from the BlackBerry yesterday afternoon and evening. Now that I've relocated a mile down the road to the library... just a sec... checking... I appear to be having the same problem. You'll recall that I had this problem on my previous BlackBerry as well. I had thought the problem was with signal strength or some other issue external to my handheld, but now I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't something about my device that's overly finicky. The message I keep getting, when I try to surf to a given site, is "A problem occurred while trying to render the page." This usually pops up after the progress bar has been loading for a few seconds, followed by the Twirling Hourglass of Death. The message appears with a friendly "OK" prompt; I click "OK" and that's that. This is why it's dangerous to cathect your BlackBerry.

There's a burger joint up the street that everyone flocks to, and even though I've been in this town a few days, I haven't visited it yet (nor have I visited the massive Char Burger at the "front" end of town). When my time runs out on this computer around 11AM, I plan to lumber over to the burger joint before there's a crowd and find out what the fuss is all about. The place also sells ice cream, so this might be a burger-and-ice-cream sort of lunch.

While doing laundry early this morning (I went to sleep very early, then woke at 5:30AM with a cramp in my neck), I found myself staring at a map of the US. I traced my progress downward from White Rock, BC to Portland, OR, then eastward to Cascade Locks, and saw how little progress I've made in two months (Sunday was the 2-month anniversary). I've crossed one state and am crossing it again, in a sense, by following its southern border eastward. Or maybe you could say I'm crossing two states at once since Washington and Oregon share this particular border. Anyway, it's humbling to realize how far I have to go.

Burger break now. When I get back, I'll get on Google Maps and really figure out how long that recent walk was.


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