nostalgia: part 16

This was a herculean effort, but I've finally gotten the last of the Korea pics ready. What follows is pretty long. You've been warned.

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from 1:58PM to 3:56PM: 6 miles, 35 pounds

Today's walk was the shakedown cruise for my brand spanking new Gregory Whitney 95 backpack. I wrestled with it a few minutes, then took it for a walk to Riverside Park (Mile 1 on the trail) and back-- six miles. So how was the pack? Two words: very nice. Like Colin Fletcher, I have a soft spot for the Gregory brand.

I had stuffed the pack with laundry, two sacks of flour, and various items I had bought during my trip to REI yesterday (bear spray, sunblock, flashlight, etc.). What a contrast with the Eddie Bauer 2-strap pack! I had 35 pounds in the Gregory, and with the hip and sternum belts firmly cinched, I felt almost no weight at all on my shoulders. There were long periods during today's brisk walk where I actually forgot I was wearing a pack!

The pack itself was easy to figure out, partly because my previous pack was also a Gregory I-frame (internal frames pretty much dominate the market now; E-frames are a lot harder to find than they used to be), and partly because the design is sensible in its own right. One cool feature of the new pack is the strip of material that partitions the upper and lower halves of the main chamber. This means you can place heavier items in the pack's upper half and remain confident that the items won't sink lower as the miles roll by.*

They say you absolutely have to love your pack and your footwear before you head off on a long trek. By that standard, the pack stays. The only discomfort I felt was gravity-related: I did feel the weight of my pack's contents when going uphill. That's not the pack's fault, however.

Shout-out to Tim of REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) for his kind help in fitting me for a pack yesterday. His sage advice has been taken to heart. Good luck, Tim, on your trans-Atlantic voyage.

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*Purists will sneer that proper packing also solves the weight-shifting problem. I tend to agree, but I also think that, if a piece of technology makes your life easier and doesn't prevent you from doing things the way you're used to doing them, you'd do well not to sneer.


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thanks, Jelly!

In the comments to one post, friend and blogger Jelly provided the link to this site, A Journey for 9/11, which describes a New York-to-Los Angeles walk being done by former NY Giants star George Martin on behalf of the fire and rescue crews who worked at Ground Zero on 9/11. His goal is to raise at least 10 million dollars on behalf of the Ground Zero workers. It's a great cause.

I wonder if all this walking amounts to some sort of movement (if you'll pardon the inadvertent-- and lame-- pun). If only "a few hundred" people have walked across the United States since the country began, we must be seeing a real wave of long-distance walkers these days; they seem to be all over the news. I can't count myself as one of them until I actually start my own walk, of course, but I find the current teleambulatory phenomenon strange and exciting.

In a non-sexual way, of course.


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a teaser

Speaking of unkept promises (mentioned here), I haven't had the time (or, to be honest, the energy) to blog my gigantic series of walk photos, despite having said that I would. Resizing the photos and saving them in Web-friendly formats can take time, especially when the pics number in the dozens. Doing this while groggy and achy isn't good policy.

But here's a teaser of what you'll be seeing. This pic shows my turn-around point: the Mile 13 marker of the George Washington Parkway bike path. Because the start of the bike path is exactly two miles from my house, this is actually Mile 15, and it's where I turned wearily around and began the long trek back home. I offer it as evidence that, yes, I did indeed walk as far as I claimed. When you see the entire series, you'll have a much better idea of what my walk is usually like.

Without further ado:

And here's something else to tide you over: a hilarious interview with William Shatner.


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mistaken for Hispanic! again!

Being half-Korean often means being mistaken for another ethnicity. In my case, some people in the DC-Metro area think I'm Hispanic, and they'll start rattling off questions in Spanish to me. What complicates matters is that I do, in fact, speak a very small amount of Spanish (¡pero no puedo hacer el tiempo pasado!), and my reflexive reply-- usually in Spanish-- begins with, "I'm sorry, but my Spanish isn't very good..."

On Friday, after I'd performed a few errands, I stopped in Old Town Alexandria to drop off a deposit at my bank branch's ATM. While walking back to my car, a Hispanic gent in his pickup leaned out his window and asked me in Spanish, "How do I get to Route 1 from here?" I told him my Spanish wasn't very good (he simply took this in stride with a nod), then I said he needed to "go that way to go to Route 1, but if it's direct or not, I don't know." This was a question I could have handled with little trouble in English, French, or even Korean (my worst of the three languages I speak above a basic level), but I was caught off-guard and didn't have the vocabulary to give the man better directions. I feel for the guy: it sucks when a local citizen can only muster a "you gotta go that way." I've been on the receiving end of such directions before, so I know how it feels.

At the same time, it's weird to find myself suddenly (and only randomly) included in an ethnic brotherhood with which I have so little experience. I often wish I knew more Spanish.


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"Twenty miles a day with full gear and a weapon is a forced march!"

Wise words from my dad, uttered early this afternoon. He and Mom are worried about how badly yesterday's walk wiped me out. I came home stiff and sore, with blisters on both feet and a lovely sunburn on my face, neck, and forearms. This morning Dad noted that, when I flopped into bed last night and when he saw me again at 6:30AM, I hadn't changed positions once while I slept. I admit that thirty miles was pushing matters, but I needed to know whether such a walk was possible. Turns out that it was.

I'm off on some errands right now; photos later this evening, and a possible reunion with friends this weekend-- the only time I'll have to see them before I shove off.


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another walk of note

Reader and blogger Daeguowl (i.e., the owl in Daegu, as he's not from Daegu) sent an email linking to this article about a kid in the UK who's on a 6000-mile sponsored walk of repentance to make up for a misdeed that cost the UK public 20,000 pounds. Per the article:

Seb Green, 18, was 15 when he and a friend stole a rigid inflatable boat from a harbour. They rowed out to sea but became grounded in a lagoon and when they clambered out they got stuck in deep mud.

A passer-by heard their calls for help and two helicopters, two land-based coastguard teams and two lifeboats, comprising dozens of rescuers, went to their aid.

The boy was prosecuted and he was sentenced to a supervision order but Seb decided to go further and raise £20,000 to "pay back the community".

He decided to spend nearly a year walking 5,821 miles (9,367km) around Britain with his border collie Flash.

He has now covered 1,000 miles but said wryly: "I've realised the country is bigger than it looks."

It's a great story (despite the article's inconsistent US/UK punctuation), and I wish Seb and Flash the best as they continue their journey.

Of particular interest to me is the meta-issue of media coverage. I've noted it before, but it bears repeating here: most of these treks don't get much coverage at all until the trekkers have gone a significant distance. Note that Seb's case didn't reach the international news until after he had already gone a thousand miles. I expect much the same to be true for me, just as it was true for Steve Vaught (see The Fat Man Walking, on the sidebar), and was true for Curan Wright, who's been cycling backward across the US for various humanitarian causes (thanks, Tom, for alerting me to him).

I suppose this only makes sense: a person who promises to do something won't always follow through with his promise. Americans believe the proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof, so it makes more sense to cover the story of a dude who's already a thousand miles into his trip as opposed to covering a dude who merely proposes something grandiose, then falls flat on his face at the get-go.


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for the first time ever... but not for long

My Smoo pension payment came, so I've got over $10,000 in my bank account. I'm expecting another $500 from the accounting office of my old job in Kangnam (you'll recall that the National Pension Office washed its hands of the problem), so for a brief moment I'll be enjoying what it feels like to be the proud owner of a five-digit sum.

After I finish buying supplies, this will dwindle to four digits (about $9000), and that's what I'll be left with for the rest of my walk. That's not much: if we include the $1000 I currently have in PayPal, I have enough for a ten-month walk. I'm either going to have to earn money along the way, or will need more contributions to keep on going. In theory, the walk can be completed in ten months' time, but in reality I expect it to take longer, hence the need for more money.

One possible mitigating factor is that I've tried to include a $400 buffer every month to allow for expenses incurred en chemin. Because of my scholastic debt, I know I'll be spending at least $600 per month. Because I've budgeted $1000/month, the remaining $400 will cover things like the occasional food purchase, the very occasional hotel/motel stay, cell phone usage, equipment and medicine/vitamin replacement (unless some kind souls are willing to toss me hand-me-downs), and so on. I'm walking on a tightrope, here: $400/month is enough to anticipate mundane occurrences, but the entire budget goes out the window if I'm seriously injured or laid low by by a nasty illness.

This is a journey based on faith, though, so let's keep our fingers and tentacles crossed, think positively, and hope for the best. I won't be trying any adventure hiking and have no desire to take any risks of any sort along the way, which I'm betting will minimize the dangers in which I might find myself. Once I'm hooked up with a decent phone that offers access to GPS and weather forecasts, I'll be even better prepared for what's out there. I hope.

People are encouraged to help out by buying my book or other Walk-related CafePress products (the list of products continues to grow, so check back now and again)... I'll be much obliged if you do. Donations are also welcome; see the PayPal button on the sidebar.

[NB: Some people are uncomfortable using PayPal. If you're one of them and prefer to do things old-school, I'll be renting a PO Box in the next few days and will publicize that address when I have it. You can then send a check or money order there. I wouldn't advise sending cash through the mail.]


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a bit over 30 miles... achy but alive

Thirty miles. The walk took a long time and suffered a few delays, but I did it.

I finally got blisters today-- one on the heel of my left foot and another on my right pinky toe. My feet and knees, while not screaming, are nonetheless relieved that I'm sitting.

Results: the walk went from 7:37AM to 6:41PM, just a little over 11 hours for over thirty miles. It might have been closer to 31 miles (I detoured to pick up a tent from a fellow church member), but I need to check. Right now, I'm chafed, sunburned, and tired, so I'll save further details for tomorrow, when I'll be able to concentrate harder and calculate distances on Google Earth more accurately than I can in my current woozy state.

One thing I'll note now, though: the jump from 20 miles to 30 miles is harder than the jump from 10 miles to 20 miles. I suspect this is because the distance takes me to my current limits (keep in mind I've got a long way to go before I can even think about declaring myself in "good shape"), and also because comfortably walking 30 miles in a day is near the upper limit for almost everyone except those at marathon and ultramarathon levels of fitness.

More later. I took photos to prove I did the distance, so you'll see those-- mixed in with earlier photos of the bike trail-- tomorrow.


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sorry for the delay

Was unable to access Blogger for the past several hours. Apologies for the lack of updates. One is coming.


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say again?

IMPORTANT: Those of you who have emailed or left comments with kind offers to lodge me during my walk are hereby asked to email me with your names and addresses so I can plot your locations on a map and see whether a coherent path can be made out of all this information. Quite a few of you will very likely be excluded (no matter what path I walk through the Lower Forty-eight, I'm going to miss 99.9999% of the country!), and I apologize for that in advance.

After much thought, I've decided that opening the Walk up to individuals as well as to religious communities is only appropriate. One reason is that individuals in a private setting might feel more comfortable saying what they really feel one-on-one, away from the possible pressure of a group setting. Another, more selfish, reason is that it's far easier for me to make room-and-board arrangements with an individual than with a church, temple, etc. Because I'm allowing this option, the dots in my "connect the dots" tour can be closer together than they might be otherwise.

So send me your address if you're a reader and are willing to have me shack up at your place for a night or two (keep in mind that I might be there longer if we have nasty weather!). Also: if you know people along the probable path of my walk, people who would also be interested in talking religion with me, let them know about this blog and see if you can't persuade them either to get personally involved or to get their local church, mosque, temple, synagogue, etc., involved.

By the way, it would help if your house were equipped not only with a computer, but with one that has Google Earth. I've come to rely heavily on this amazing tool, and see no reason to tough things out old-school when something this handy is available. Being able to see the terrain I'll be walking through is incalculably beneficial to me. Thanks!

In other news...

Tomorrow I attempt my first thirty-mile walk, unencumbered. I view this walk with a bit of trepidation, but I'm confident I can do it, if for no other reason than that the terrain will be even smoother once I'm in Old Town Alexandria. The halfway point for a 30-mile walk that starts from my house is right around National Airport; I saw this today when driving Dad home from Walter Reed Medical Center (no worries; Dad simply got an injection to help with a persistent back problem). Having biked beyond the airport before, I know the bike path remains fairly smooth even after Old Town.

The only real question is whether my armpits will be able to withstand the chafing involved in a 30-mile walk; having solved the crotch problem with decent Spandex pants, I know I'll need something similar for my upper body. Come to think of it, I also need new shoes: my current pair, already a couple years old, have started to wear out thanks to the pounding they've received over the past three weeks.

Anyway, write to kevinswalk [at] gmail [dot] com, and put "ADDRESS" in the subject line so I know what your mail's about and can sort it accordingly. Feel free to leave other remarks as well.


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a word about yesterday's "alien" post

As Carl Sagan said in his book The Demon-Haunted World, the question "Do you believe in UFOs?" misses the point. The existence of UFOs and aliens isn't a matter of belief; if they exist, their existence is a matter of fact. The method by which the question is explored can only be empirical, not spiritual. Just as you can't expect prayer to answer questions about the amount of water on the moon, you shouldn't expect divine intervention to provide answers to questions about alien life.


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hooray for the Vatican!

It's OK to believe in aliens, according to the Holy See. Whew... I'm glad that's been sorted out.

You might think that aliens and religion don't mix, but in truth they mix all the time. Plenty of folks who claim to be religious also claim to have some interest in (or even experience with!) aliens. Let's focus on fundamentalist Christians for a moment. I think a major problem for scriptural literalists is the "only begotten Son" question. If there are many worlds with intelligent life, is there only one savior for all of them? If it's one savior per world, doesn't this contradict the "only begotten Son" notion, or the "no one comes before the Father but by me" notion? If there's only one savior-- Jesus-- is it incumbent on us to spread the gospel to other worlds? While I'm not particularly interested in this question as a serious topic for discussion, I'd be curious to know what scriptures, if any, have been interpreted by some Christians as references to alien life. At a guess: apocalyptic imagery and certain miracles (e.g., Christ's ascension).

A different article about the Vatican's claim offers this:

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.

The interview, headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," covered a variety of topics including the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological implications of the existence of alien life.

Funes said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion, touching on a theme of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made exploring the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.

The Bible "is not a science book," Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.

Referring to an extraterrestrial as one's "brother" might score rhetorical points, but the term "brother," while often used in a metaphorical manner, is fundamentally a statement about a biological relationship, one that entails masculinity and femininity. What if we find aliens that come in a variety of sexes-- say, five or six distinct genders? What if these aliens aren't born in a manner we understand? What sorts of terms would the aliens themselves use to describe their familial(?) relationships? Well, I suppose "the extraterrestrial is my xargh-ka'iii" is a phrase we could get used to.

As you can tell, I'm merely playing with this topic, but back when I was a little kid, I was truly bothered by it, especially by the "only begotten Son" problem. Nowadays, the thing I notice is that religious themes almost always find their way into science fiction, which has become one of the most popular carriers of the religious meme. The Matrix films, for example, are less cyberpunk than a religious "Where's Waldo?", with Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Gnostic, Platonic, and messianic themes haphazardly interwoven. The Battlestar Galactica series is driven in large measure by the religious tensions between human polytheism and Cylon monotheism; the 1970s series' original dramatic structure owes much to Mormon theology, strong echoes of which remain in the rebooted series. The Star Wars movies contain Manichaean ethical dualism, hints of philosophical Taoism, a good load of Buddhism, and some not-so-subtle references to Abrahamic religion. Science fiction is a major vehicle for religion.

Like all phenomena, religions change.* A modern religious worldview has to consider what we now know (and can guess) about the nature and sheer vastness of the cosmos. Many traditions are at least trying to rise to that challenge. In Christianity, for example, there are strains of ecotheology that take the primordial notion of stewardship and apply it to how we should treat the environment. The more we learn about the fundamental nature of matter, the more we hear from Buddhists and Taoists to the effect that science's findings are consistent with ancient intuitions about being as process and interconnection, not as an agglomeration of discrete monads. Reality is less particle, more flow, and there's vanishingly small room for old notions like "soul" and "self" (though process theology, a modern form of theism that borrows heavily from the thinking of process philosopher AN Whitehead, thinks it has a response to this).

I'm no longer all that interested in what the existence of aliens may imply, theologically speaking, but I was amused when I saw this article and thought I'd chew on it for a bit. If you find a link to the Vatican astronomer's interview (I checked the Osservatore Romano section of the Vatican website and found only a one-page PDF that did not contain the interview), please let me know.

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*This change isn't always for the better.


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from 7:19AM to 2:29PM: 21.36 miles

My unencumbered walk of 21.36 miles took longer than it did last time-- 7 hours and 10 minutes this time around, which puts me under 3mph: 2.98mph. Double plus ungood, that.

The baby-pushers and dog-walkers were back today, though only tentatively. I've begun to notice that women who jog alone won't greet me when I nod their way, but women who have a running companion, a child, or a dog have no trouble saying hello. Makes me wonder whether a certain sector of American womandom still cleaves to the ridiculous paleofeminist mindset-- you know: all men are potential rapists, so watch out! I'm a Camille Paglia feminist, which is to say a post-feminist, and I don't subscribe to the puckered-orifice attitude of the Gloria Steinems of the world. Men and women are on equal footing, as far as I'm concerned; paleofeminists need to realize that you can't mix an ideology of empowerment with an ideology of victimhood and expect the combination to make sense or be in any way helpful.

Luckily, there don't appear to be too many paleofeminists on the bike path, and the occasional lone female jogger will surprise me by offering a confident smile and greeting. (One older lady, a truly outgoing soul, delights in greeting me each morning I see her.)

Only one part of the path was still submerged when I passed it twice this morning: a short section next to the road that leads to the tiny marina by the Dyke Marsh Preserve. Everything else was perfectly walkable, despite the preponderance of fallen branches. By the time I was headed back from Old Town, the Park Service crews were out with their mowers and blowers, taking advantage of the sun's heat to chop and blow away both deadfall and, for lack of a better word, livefall-- the green wood and leaves blown down by our several days of rain.

Why did the walk take 13 minutes longer this time around? I did stop a few times to grab water from some of the water fountains, but I did that last time, too. I wasn't feeling particularly achy or tired (though my right armpit is chafed as hell), and experienced no special pains.* So, what slowed me down? I have no clue, but it's annoying that today wasn't as good as last Saturday.

I'm thinking about-- just thinking about-- scout-marching parts of the walk, i.e., alternatively running for X paces, then walking X paces. I have no intention of running the entire distance; I'm not even remotely in good enough shape to try something that drastic, and I worry that a run would, at this stage, do more harm than good. I might try running significant distances (by "significant," I mean, uh, 3 miles) later on, though, once I'm much thinner.

I also need to bring my camera along again to photograph the mile markers I pass on my way to Old Town. Send me a reminder, eh?

OK... time to shower and rest a bit, then I have to go shopping.


UPDATE: My brother sends me an article about a woman who remotely accessed her stolen Macintosh and took a photograph of the person who stole it. The man and his accomplice were arrested and her Mac was recovered. If that's not uplifting enough for you, here's another news article that proves there is justice in the world. No man who loves his fellow man will ever-- ever-- wear a Speedo in public.

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*I marvel at the fact that, after several weeks' walking, I haven't developed a single foot blister. (Knock on wood.)


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off I go

We're done with our record rainfall. I'm hoping the roads aren't closed and that the bike path hasn't been severely damaged, because off I go on another 21-plus-mile walk.


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nostalgia: part 15

There goes the neighborhood! Some pics of the construction in my old neighborhood in downtown Seoul. Almost all the buildings around my dorm were being torn down and rebuilt. One photo shows a spanking new building; it sits right next to my dorm. The noise of construction was becoming nearly constant by the time I left Korea; I wonder how it is for our dorm's current residents.

[NOTE TO READERS: I have to apologize for the image that was here previously. My brother David quietly got onto Photoshop and, uh, added a certain feature to the image I'd intended to publish. I didn't know he had done this when I uploaded the picture, so from last night to just now (4PM on Tuesday the 13th), you've had to stare at something that shouldn't have been there. David will be shot and eaten this evening for his crime, but ultimate responsibility for this blog devolves to me, so I take all blame for having foisted an unsavory image upon you. My sincerest apologies.]




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pension woes revisited

What would a walk across America be without setbacks, eh? This week, I'll be receiving the pension payout from my recent job at Smoo, and it promises to be disappointingly small.

I had originally hoped to receive about $7200 based on a rough calculation: I was paying about $100/month into my pension plan, and Smoo was matching it. 36 months at $200/month comes out to $7200, right? Seemed like a fair assumption, anyway. When I found out I had actually paid almost $4400 into my plan, I briefly thought I might be getting $8800.

But, no: consistent with its history, Smoo has kicked me in the head one final time. As noted earlier, Smoo's pension plan doesn't pay an equal share into my fund, so I was told a few weeks back that I would be receiving about $6200 (W6.2 million won). The email that arrived today, however, said (1) my net pension (what the hell is net pension? no one mentioned any deductions!) would be only 6,060,000 won, and because of the weakening won, I would be getting only $5752 before wire transfer deductons. So: from lofty (albeit brief) hopes of receiving $8800, we've come tumbling down to a reality of around $5700. Quite a fall.

I'm tempted to say that the moral of the story is Game the system. When in Korea, teach a ton of illegal private lessons and charge exorbitant hourly rates, because that's the only way to ensure you're paid fairly. The more practical moral, however, is Be prepared to be screwed, because you can't prepare for a specific screwing: you can only prepare yourself for the fact that somehow, somewhere, it'll happen. If you think I'm feeling frustrated right now, you're right.


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nostalgia: part 14

Here are some pics from my April 18 Pronunciation Clinic jjong-party. They were much better attendees than the ladies in my previous pronunciation class.

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holidaze

Getting back in touch with the American rhythm of life entails losing touch, to some extent, with the Korean rhythm. We just celebrated Mother's Day here in the States, and it was Pentecost for most of us Christians ("the church's birthday," as our new pastor called it), but I forgot that May 12-- today-- is the day that Koreans celebrate the Buddha's birthday. "Merry Buddhamas," as the Marmot, a Buddhist, says.

To all Buddhists, then: Seong-bul hashipshiyo! May you attain buddhahood!

Today, I'm playing catch-up on several personal projects that have needed doing for a while. More later.


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a wet end to Mother's Day

We took Mom out to a restaurant near the Tyson's Corner area called 2941 (it's named after the street address number of the building in which it's located). We had fantastically decadent French food served in giant plates and bite-sized portions, but the experience was worth it to see Mom's happy face.

Alas, the night ended on a sour note when we discovered flooding in our basement. Water had been seeping through the walls of my old subterranean bedroom (now a storage area for the past few years); my brother David was the one who discovered the problem. He and Dad set to cleaning the mess up right away; I arrived a bit late on the scene and began helping by taking out cardboard boxes full of old knickknacks and paperwork, and by prepping our old dehumidifier fo the job of its life.

David and Dad used a "shop vac" to suck most of the wetness out of the room's carpet, which had become a marshland. Water extended three feet into the room from the wall opposite the room's entrance. We conjectured that this must have been happening for hours; readers who aren't in the Alexandria area might not be aware that we've had constant rain for a while, and the ground has been thoroughly saturated.

Late last night, probably around 1:00AM, we went outside and got some shovels. David and Dad scraped away at a shallow depression into which water had become trapped; David succeeded in widening the trench and allowing the water to flow out of the pool it had formed. David's theory-- the only theory we had-- was that the lack of water flow had allowed the collected water to begin to soak into the ground near the corner by the parents' bedroom (which sits atop my old basement bedroom), hence the seepage we had seen inside my old room.

As of this morning, there seems to be no new wetness. The dehumidifier has been working madly all night, and the room's carpet is still moist but no longer soaked. All the vacuuming must have paid off. We can only hope the rain will taper off soon and give us time for a breather. Dad tried to drive Mom to work this morning, but both Route 1 and the GW Parkway have been closed off at the usual access points, so they came back home and Mom has called in to the office to tell them she won't be there today.

In the meantime, we eat a quiet breakfast and await better weather.


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for mothers everywhere

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