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This was before the fire that left a scar throughout the mountains where I grew up in New Mexico.

Flaming Mike

Got some slides from Halloween night scanned finally. Here they are:

htt://www.wdlabs.com/gnr/public/halloween04

phone woke me up. reporter daily star. "it's three o'clock morning" i moaned. parts of speach difficult. photographer. desire photographs taken. for interview. vaguely remember reporter from yesterday. mitch gitman. acknowledge affirmative. roll out of bed. stagger bathroom, drench self healing power of hot water. My eyes begin to see objects a little more distinctly and my memory is coming back on line. Yesterday a reporter had interviewed me about the Dorm network "ResComp" or as I like to refer to it "ResInComp." I turn the water off and start to towel off. I had directed him in the direction of an acquaintance Fydor and my friend Tyler, because they were like minded Internet Dorm Dwellers. Mitch had just called me up to ask if they could photograph me using the Internet.

I wonder why he called me up this early as I walk back into my room, when I notice that it is awfully bright in my room for 3:00am. I squint at my alarm clock and hit it with a clenched fist. It changes to 8:14am, which I assume means it is actually 8:04am, since I always set the thing ten minutes fast.

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it rained last night, dispatching the bulk of the fire
up here.  i understand from the news there are some
south of here still.  the skies really cleared up today,
making today the best beach day i've had out here.  we
hiked up the skillion, basically this big chunk of earth
thrust up in complete contempt for gravity at the edge
of the ocean.  i wished i had brought my camera up
there, as the contrasting colors, dark blue ocean,
golden yellow beaches, blue-green australian overgrowth
and light blue sky were worth beholding.  maybe it was
just as well, because film, be it virtual or no, doesn't
seem to do the real thing justice, you know?
 
i hope you had a good vacation (or is it not over yet?).
how is life in america?  i will shortly have to
readjust to it.  i will give you a call from chicago, in
case my flight is delayed.  happy after now and good
future years.

I wrote that on January 8, 2002 from Gosford, Australia. Fires seem to happen in places which I call home, and there were some bad ones near Gosford at the time. When the rain cleared some of the smoke and I could see the blue skies for the first time in days, I had this perfect moment (maybe it was a moment of total clarity, whatever that is) at the top of the Skillion, and I had to share it with someone. My heart told me that I should tell this girl I liked back in the states. Thus the e-mail. Later I would find out that she had a boyfriend. It feels like it has been so long since I had a moment like that. I'm not even sure who I would tell if I did have another such experience.

Anyway, that's not a very happy thought. I'm headed off to Maine tomorrow, for the National Folk Festival and probably to do some hiking. I'm going to stop in New Hampshire to visit a friend who has left The Company to study patent law and get a degree. I will be sure to take lots of pictures and hopefully post some of them here. I will need all my low light skills to capture some interesting moments at the festival.