Although today is a really nice day, the 5 day forecast says to expect snow tomorrow and Saturday. How much, I'm not sure. Yesterday, I stopped at the store after work and stocked up on groceries. Not insanely so, like a man preparing for the Apocalypse, but I made sure to get a full load of the things I was needing. After a full month, from mid-December to mid-January, of not being able to fully drive up and down my mountain, I've learned to respect the snow and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.
For about a week now, I've been able to drive all the way up and down my mountain (forwards and not in reverse) without having to hike through the woods either to my car or to my cabin. Although there are a couple areas of extreme mud now that are threatening the continuation of this liberty, it seems that snow trekking through the woods is a memory that I can now reflect on nostalgically; at least my first spell of it...we'll see what tomorrow and Saturday bring. The following is a list of some of these experiences that I hope to remember:
1. "I see you got your pizza...Merry Christmas." (Still makes me laugh out loud. Only family knows what this means and can fully appreciate it.)
2. My first hike to the car after the Winter Storm. There was still over a foot of snow on the ground and it came to the top of the river wader boots that I was wearing. They don't protect well from the cold and I got some snow down the left one. By the time I got back to the cabin my feet were nearly frozen, especially the left.
3. My first pre-dawn hike in the pitch black. I recited aloud Psalms and prayers to try to steel my nerves. I couldn't stop thinking about bears and mountains lions being that I was yards away from the spot where I was once charged by a bear and I was in the exact area where I had seen a bear cub since. Also, I'm not use to trekking around alone in the middle of the woods in the pitch black.
4. The pre-dawn hike in which an unknown animal followed me down the trail, just on the other side of the tree-line. When I stopped, it stopped. When I proceeded, it proceeded. The night before I had watched a program on TV about surviving in the snow that said to always remember the potential presence of mountain lions who continue to hunt in the snow and are present throughout the United States. I found one in my North Carolina wildlife guide. That morning I was convinced I was being stalked by one. More Psalms and prayers.
5. The pre-dawn hike when I startled a large animal just off the trail. Huge crash and commotion that almost stopped my heart, but then it just stayed there. I had to yell in its direction before it went barreling away through the foliage. Praise and Thanksgiving followed by Psalms and prayers. Couldn't find mountain gorilla in my North Carolina wildlife guide.
6. Shoveling snow in the dark and helping the Cruz family up the mountain. Company, homemade soup, and a break from Arctic isolation.
7. Hiking down the mountain in 25mph winds in zero degree temperature. Fairly comfortable. First realization of how much I was adapting to the cold.
8. Rushing up the mountain from its base with Armando and Evan carrying guns, clothes, sleds and groceries, trying to beat nightfall.
9. Hiking in 30 degree temperature with a windbreaker and realizing I wasn't cold. Pretty good for a Florida boy who migrated to Los Angeles, California. Maybe I'm becoming a mountain man after all.
10. Sledding with Evan. We only took a few rides each, but it was like we were kids again, playing outside and totally content to just enjoy play in each others company.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Avalons on Ice
My troubles didn't stop after The Great Reverse that I talked about in my last post. That very same day I ran into more upon returning home from work. They started again where they had left off; on my mountain.
The day had stayed quite cold and there was just as much ice and snow on our dirt road as there had been that morning. I was apprehensive, but spurred on by the fact that I would be driving forwards this time, although it would be uphill instead of down.
The drive up our mountain begins with an initial decline that levels out around a couple of turns before you begin your climb. The first incline is a moderate turn up around a corner, after which it levels out again for a ways before you truly start your climb. I wasn't anticipating any difficulties this early in the game so I was completely caught off guard when my car stalled, tires spinning to no avail, halfway around the turn. "Well, I almost made it up. I just need to hit it with a little more speed." I reversed several yards back onto the level trail and hit the turn with a little more speed, stalling at the exact same place. Despite the dangers of speeding on ice it was apparent I would have to hit this turn as fast as I possibly could. I reversed again, said a little prayer, then absolutely floored it. I made it past my original stall point only to stall out six feet from the next bit of level ground. As my tires spun wildly I threw my body forward and began yelling at the car and the mountain just in case it was the lack of verbal coaxing that kept me just shy of success. I tried this top speed approach four more times to the same result. I finally accepted that I would have to reverse to a pull-off on the initial decline and abandon my car.
Halfway to the pull-off my car stalled again. "You've got to be kidding me." I pulled forwards a ways then reversed up the hill a little faster. No luck. Once again, top speed would be absolutely necessary, only this time in reverse. I tried several times, falling just short every time. I decided to go try my luck again driving forwards on the other hill. Seven tries. Seven failures. This was bad. I couldn't just abandon my car where it was on this one lane road because I'd be blocking my handful of neighbors who have 4-wheel drive trucks...and low tolerance for silly, hopeless Californians that "mess" everything up. I had to get to that pull-off.
Flying up this icy hill in reverse was a very tense scenario. The mountain dropped off on my left side and if I slipped off the right side I'd get stuck in a ditch. The ditch was the better of two evils, but more than once I debated just driving off the edge of the mountain and being done with it all. Each attempt forced me to drive about 30 yards forward around a curve to find a flat stretch that I could build up some speed on as I flew in reverse around the turn and up the hill. It took me somewhere between 13 and 20 attempts before I finally made the pull-off. I abandoned my car and began the long hike through the ice and snow from the bottom of the mountain to the top; a hike that would see me climbing 2800 ft. A hike that from that day forward would become very commonplace; up and down, day and night, good weather and bad.
If I'd known then just how much snow trekking the future held for me, I probably would have invested in a sled team and some muck-lucks.
The day had stayed quite cold and there was just as much ice and snow on our dirt road as there had been that morning. I was apprehensive, but spurred on by the fact that I would be driving forwards this time, although it would be uphill instead of down.
The drive up our mountain begins with an initial decline that levels out around a couple of turns before you begin your climb. The first incline is a moderate turn up around a corner, after which it levels out again for a ways before you truly start your climb. I wasn't anticipating any difficulties this early in the game so I was completely caught off guard when my car stalled, tires spinning to no avail, halfway around the turn. "Well, I almost made it up. I just need to hit it with a little more speed." I reversed several yards back onto the level trail and hit the turn with a little more speed, stalling at the exact same place. Despite the dangers of speeding on ice it was apparent I would have to hit this turn as fast as I possibly could. I reversed again, said a little prayer, then absolutely floored it. I made it past my original stall point only to stall out six feet from the next bit of level ground. As my tires spun wildly I threw my body forward and began yelling at the car and the mountain just in case it was the lack of verbal coaxing that kept me just shy of success. I tried this top speed approach four more times to the same result. I finally accepted that I would have to reverse to a pull-off on the initial decline and abandon my car.
Halfway to the pull-off my car stalled again. "You've got to be kidding me." I pulled forwards a ways then reversed up the hill a little faster. No luck. Once again, top speed would be absolutely necessary, only this time in reverse. I tried several times, falling just short every time. I decided to go try my luck again driving forwards on the other hill. Seven tries. Seven failures. This was bad. I couldn't just abandon my car where it was on this one lane road because I'd be blocking my handful of neighbors who have 4-wheel drive trucks...and low tolerance for silly, hopeless Californians that "mess" everything up. I had to get to that pull-off.
Flying up this icy hill in reverse was a very tense scenario. The mountain dropped off on my left side and if I slipped off the right side I'd get stuck in a ditch. The ditch was the better of two evils, but more than once I debated just driving off the edge of the mountain and being done with it all. Each attempt forced me to drive about 30 yards forward around a curve to find a flat stretch that I could build up some speed on as I flew in reverse around the turn and up the hill. It took me somewhere between 13 and 20 attempts before I finally made the pull-off. I abandoned my car and began the long hike through the ice and snow from the bottom of the mountain to the top; a hike that would see me climbing 2800 ft. A hike that from that day forward would become very commonplace; up and down, day and night, good weather and bad.
If I'd known then just how much snow trekking the future held for me, I probably would have invested in a sled team and some muck-lucks.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Back that Av up.
After the Winter Storm I spent the next week and a half patiently watching the snow level drop from over a foot to about four inches. I couldn't afford to miss any more work and unless I got some food in town I would soon be forced to shoot something myself. I had no choice but to attempt a trip off the mountain no matter how precarious it seemed.
My work calls for me to be in fairly early, so at 4:45am I began the quarter-mile hike through the snow to the point where I had ditched my car. It was pitch black save for the light from my flashlight. I found my car covered from front to back with a massive shell of icy snow that stuck to it as though it was part of the car itself. We're not talking about a layer of frost here. I spent several minutes clawing and punching the snow on the back windshield until I finally had it cleared. The front windshield proved to be more difficult, and I had to settle for a small cleared area just larger than a basketball on the driver's side. The hood, roof, and trunk would have to remain as they were. There was more snow than vehicle. I was driving into town in a rolling igloo with a window in the back.
Now my car was left facing uphill on a one-lane dirt road and the closest place where I could get turned around was at the top of the mountain. I quickly discovered that my car was just as stuck as the day I abandoned it. There was no way it would climb the mountain with four inches of snow still on the trail. I was, however, able to reverse down the mountain, using gravity in my favor as opposed to fighting against it. The thing was, I would have to reverse half way down the mountain, in the pitch black, on this drop off hugging, one lane, bumpy dirt road before I'd have the opportunity to get turned around. The fact that this road was covered in snow and ice made the task even more daunting than it otherwise would have been. To make matters worse, it was too dark to see out my back windshield, so I had to hang half my body out the driver's side window, contorting the upper half 180 degrees so that it was facing downhill, while the lower half of my body faced forward and drove the car. Try that on your next driver's test.
When I eventually made it to the point where I thought I could get turned around I found that there was so much unpacked snow that I risked getting stuck if I veered off the trail in the slightest. The realization set in that I would have to continue in reverse all the way to the main road, meaning I still had half a mountain to go. I reversed through the creek and continued on my way. This is also about the point that my neck really started to crick up.
I pushed on despite the growing discomfort and not long after is when it hit me. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, I was slammed with an overwhelming feeling of nausea and dehydration. I had drunk a large glass of water right before leaving the house. I'm not the kind of guy that gets tense and throws up. Sure this was an intense and difficult drive, but why was I suddenly severely cotton-mouthed and about to vomit? I'm not as young as I use to be, but my body wouldn't abandon me that quickly would it?
I debated stopping right there so that I could throw up and then lie down in the snow to die in relative peace, but I had covered so much ground and was so close to the main road. My body was already hanging out the window anyway if I did throw up. I pushed through the ever increasing nausea, covered more ground, gunned my car up a final, icy hill and shot out onto the main road, bracing in case I was slammed by any oncoming traffic.
I thought again about getting out and throwing up, but I was already late for work. If I did vomit all over myself at least it would be while facing forwards and driving forward. As I drove to work I had a revelation concerning the cause of my nausea and dehydration. Since I was hanging out my window facing backwards while driving in reverse at a slow speed in a car that was fighting to perform, it meant that I was breathing my exhaust the entire way. And this was a long, slow drive. "Oh, of course! I was poisoning myself. That's why I almost threw up and passed out."
It's these precious nuggets of wisdom I take with me. These precious nuggets that money can't buy and that make it all worthwhile. I now know that every 30 feet you stop, bring your body back in the vehicle and take a few deep breaths of fresh air before you contort back out the window and proceed.
My work calls for me to be in fairly early, so at 4:45am I began the quarter-mile hike through the snow to the point where I had ditched my car. It was pitch black save for the light from my flashlight. I found my car covered from front to back with a massive shell of icy snow that stuck to it as though it was part of the car itself. We're not talking about a layer of frost here. I spent several minutes clawing and punching the snow on the back windshield until I finally had it cleared. The front windshield proved to be more difficult, and I had to settle for a small cleared area just larger than a basketball on the driver's side. The hood, roof, and trunk would have to remain as they were. There was more snow than vehicle. I was driving into town in a rolling igloo with a window in the back.
Now my car was left facing uphill on a one-lane dirt road and the closest place where I could get turned around was at the top of the mountain. I quickly discovered that my car was just as stuck as the day I abandoned it. There was no way it would climb the mountain with four inches of snow still on the trail. I was, however, able to reverse down the mountain, using gravity in my favor as opposed to fighting against it. The thing was, I would have to reverse half way down the mountain, in the pitch black, on this drop off hugging, one lane, bumpy dirt road before I'd have the opportunity to get turned around. The fact that this road was covered in snow and ice made the task even more daunting than it otherwise would have been. To make matters worse, it was too dark to see out my back windshield, so I had to hang half my body out the driver's side window, contorting the upper half 180 degrees so that it was facing downhill, while the lower half of my body faced forward and drove the car. Try that on your next driver's test.
When I eventually made it to the point where I thought I could get turned around I found that there was so much unpacked snow that I risked getting stuck if I veered off the trail in the slightest. The realization set in that I would have to continue in reverse all the way to the main road, meaning I still had half a mountain to go. I reversed through the creek and continued on my way. This is also about the point that my neck really started to crick up.
I pushed on despite the growing discomfort and not long after is when it hit me. Suddenly, and out of nowhere, I was slammed with an overwhelming feeling of nausea and dehydration. I had drunk a large glass of water right before leaving the house. I'm not the kind of guy that gets tense and throws up. Sure this was an intense and difficult drive, but why was I suddenly severely cotton-mouthed and about to vomit? I'm not as young as I use to be, but my body wouldn't abandon me that quickly would it?
I debated stopping right there so that I could throw up and then lie down in the snow to die in relative peace, but I had covered so much ground and was so close to the main road. My body was already hanging out the window anyway if I did throw up. I pushed through the ever increasing nausea, covered more ground, gunned my car up a final, icy hill and shot out onto the main road, bracing in case I was slammed by any oncoming traffic.
I thought again about getting out and throwing up, but I was already late for work. If I did vomit all over myself at least it would be while facing forwards and driving forward. As I drove to work I had a revelation concerning the cause of my nausea and dehydration. Since I was hanging out my window facing backwards while driving in reverse at a slow speed in a car that was fighting to perform, it meant that I was breathing my exhaust the entire way. And this was a long, slow drive. "Oh, of course! I was poisoning myself. That's why I almost threw up and passed out."
It's these precious nuggets of wisdom I take with me. These precious nuggets that money can't buy and that make it all worthwhile. I now know that every 30 feet you stop, bring your body back in the vehicle and take a few deep breaths of fresh air before you contort back out the window and proceed.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Mateo Supertramp
I can't remember if it was one or two days after the great computer crash (maybe more), but I awoke at 3:50am to get ready for work and the TV was already warning of a "Winter Storm" that would hit us that day. I remember I was still fairly shell shocked about my recent loss and was struggling to start the day with optimism and positive thoughts. I hoped the reports would be wrong or that at least the snow wouldn't start until later in the afternoon so that I wouldn't have to drive home on snow and ice, or worse yet, get stuck in town all together.
By 7:00am it had already started snowing, and it was coming down hard, thick and steady. Almost immediately one of my coworkers was sent home early since he lives one city over on the Interstate. I guess the one thing worse than getting stuck in town during a snow storm is getting stuck in someone else's town. I didn't blame him for taking off so quickly, but the act of it made me more anxious about the driving conditions than I already was. The thought of all the hills and mountains I have to climb to get back to my cabin and the fact that I've never driven on snow or ice before, coupled with this image of the locals running for cover was anything, but comforting. I tried to push the thought out of my head though as I finished sorting hanging items on the trailer dock, watching the snow fall with increasing intensity.
At 8:15 my supervisor approached me and cleared me to go home early as well. I was next on the list since I live on top of a mountain. Lucky for me, Phase 2 of the snowstorm dismissal roster is hillbillies and mountain folk. I felt guilty leaving early with lots of work still to do, but I had failed to put a flask of whiskey in my glove box that morning and I wasn't prepared to spend the night in my vehicle if I ended up stuck in a ditch in the middle of the woods. I thanked my supervisor, gathered my belongings, and headed out into the storm.
When I got to my car I threw a few belongings in the backseat and then got in the front. As I prepared to start the vehicle I suddenly noticed that I had brought about three shovel fulls of snow in with me. I'm still not sure quite how I managed to do that, but there were these massive piles of snow that threatened to soak the entire interior of my vehicle when it melted. I leaned across the car and opened the back passenger door in an attempt to shovel one of these piles out with my hands, but so much snow started blowing inside that it proved to be a fruitless effort. I would be forced to do my first ice driving in a rolling snow cone.
I slowly made my way through the parking lot and onto the main road which was busy with people like myself who were scrambling to get back home while they could. I drove at about 10 mph below the speed limit, thankful that I still have a California license plate. Californians can't drive in the rain (make that a drizzle) let alone a massive snow storm so I figured people would keep their distance and not expect too much out of me. I was both extremely tense and overconfident all at the same time. (An insight I now have as I've gained more experience driving in snow and ice.) Less than 5 minutes from work I passed a car accident where one car had slid into the back of another. Both cars had North Carolina plates which made me feel better. "Hey, I'm doing better than the locals."
As I headed further out of town I became the only car on the road which initially relaxed me somewhat. There was less pressure to perform and I could go as slow as I needed to. I soon realized though that less cars also meant more ice and snow on the roads. I rounded one corner at a slow and cautious speed and even still almost slid into a cow pasture. "Sorry sir. It appears I've killed one of your livestock and looks as though I'll be needing a place to stay this evening...Yes sir, that is a California license plate...No sir, I'm not a homosexual."
I was forced to slow my speed even more, but eventually made it through the flatlands and into the hills. Each hill was a little harder to crest than the one before, but I managed to make it to the steep and winding hill that leads to my mountain. It was the steepest of them all and I just barely made it up to my dirt road. If I had left work 10-15 minutes later than I did I don't think I would have made it up the hill. Now that I was off the paved roads I no longer was worried about slick asphalt, but I was now climbing to 28oo ft. above the town I'd come from and the trail already had two to three inches of snow on it. As I fought to climb uphill my car weaved back and forth across the thin trail as I jerked the wheel back and forth like a chimpanzee to counter the movement. I got three quarters of the way up my mountain, before my car stopped climbing. I fought to continue forward, but my engine started to overheat. There was no way my car could continue. I had to ditch it where it was and hike the last quarter of a mile up the mountain in the snowstorm.
It continued to snow all day and through the night dropping well over a foot onto my mountain and the community below. My car was buried and wasn't going anywhere. The snow was almost knee deep. Fortunately, I had just gone to the grocery store so I had food to eat. I ended up being completely trapped on my mountain for about a week and a half; the last portion of which I began rationing food. To this day I'm still partially snowed in, but with effort I can get into town when I absolutely have to. Things are getting better, but this Winter has been all about survival. It's like I'm having a Chris McCandless experience 15 miles from a thriving community. Fortunately, I maintained electricity and had satellite TV, but without Internet, at times I felt as though I might as well have been living up here in a bus.
By 7:00am it had already started snowing, and it was coming down hard, thick and steady. Almost immediately one of my coworkers was sent home early since he lives one city over on the Interstate. I guess the one thing worse than getting stuck in town during a snow storm is getting stuck in someone else's town. I didn't blame him for taking off so quickly, but the act of it made me more anxious about the driving conditions than I already was. The thought of all the hills and mountains I have to climb to get back to my cabin and the fact that I've never driven on snow or ice before, coupled with this image of the locals running for cover was anything, but comforting. I tried to push the thought out of my head though as I finished sorting hanging items on the trailer dock, watching the snow fall with increasing intensity.
At 8:15 my supervisor approached me and cleared me to go home early as well. I was next on the list since I live on top of a mountain. Lucky for me, Phase 2 of the snowstorm dismissal roster is hillbillies and mountain folk. I felt guilty leaving early with lots of work still to do, but I had failed to put a flask of whiskey in my glove box that morning and I wasn't prepared to spend the night in my vehicle if I ended up stuck in a ditch in the middle of the woods. I thanked my supervisor, gathered my belongings, and headed out into the storm.
When I got to my car I threw a few belongings in the backseat and then got in the front. As I prepared to start the vehicle I suddenly noticed that I had brought about three shovel fulls of snow in with me. I'm still not sure quite how I managed to do that, but there were these massive piles of snow that threatened to soak the entire interior of my vehicle when it melted. I leaned across the car and opened the back passenger door in an attempt to shovel one of these piles out with my hands, but so much snow started blowing inside that it proved to be a fruitless effort. I would be forced to do my first ice driving in a rolling snow cone.
I slowly made my way through the parking lot and onto the main road which was busy with people like myself who were scrambling to get back home while they could. I drove at about 10 mph below the speed limit, thankful that I still have a California license plate. Californians can't drive in the rain (make that a drizzle) let alone a massive snow storm so I figured people would keep their distance and not expect too much out of me. I was both extremely tense and overconfident all at the same time. (An insight I now have as I've gained more experience driving in snow and ice.) Less than 5 minutes from work I passed a car accident where one car had slid into the back of another. Both cars had North Carolina plates which made me feel better. "Hey, I'm doing better than the locals."
As I headed further out of town I became the only car on the road which initially relaxed me somewhat. There was less pressure to perform and I could go as slow as I needed to. I soon realized though that less cars also meant more ice and snow on the roads. I rounded one corner at a slow and cautious speed and even still almost slid into a cow pasture. "Sorry sir. It appears I've killed one of your livestock and looks as though I'll be needing a place to stay this evening...Yes sir, that is a California license plate...No sir, I'm not a homosexual."
I was forced to slow my speed even more, but eventually made it through the flatlands and into the hills. Each hill was a little harder to crest than the one before, but I managed to make it to the steep and winding hill that leads to my mountain. It was the steepest of them all and I just barely made it up to my dirt road. If I had left work 10-15 minutes later than I did I don't think I would have made it up the hill. Now that I was off the paved roads I no longer was worried about slick asphalt, but I was now climbing to 28oo ft. above the town I'd come from and the trail already had two to three inches of snow on it. As I fought to climb uphill my car weaved back and forth across the thin trail as I jerked the wheel back and forth like a chimpanzee to counter the movement. I got three quarters of the way up my mountain, before my car stopped climbing. I fought to continue forward, but my engine started to overheat. There was no way my car could continue. I had to ditch it where it was and hike the last quarter of a mile up the mountain in the snowstorm.
It continued to snow all day and through the night dropping well over a foot onto my mountain and the community below. My car was buried and wasn't going anywhere. The snow was almost knee deep. Fortunately, I had just gone to the grocery store so I had food to eat. I ended up being completely trapped on my mountain for about a week and a half; the last portion of which I began rationing food. To this day I'm still partially snowed in, but with effort I can get into town when I absolutely have to. Things are getting better, but this Winter has been all about survival. It's like I'm having a Chris McCandless experience 15 miles from a thriving community. Fortunately, I maintained electricity and had satellite TV, but without Internet, at times I felt as though I might as well have been living up here in a bus.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
A crippling virus and a foot of snow.
Wow. I didn't expect to be derailed so thoroughly and so soon. From a marketing standpoint I'm not sure that it could have happened at a worse time. It's almost the perfect example of what not to do when trying to develop readership on a new blog: Advertise in advance all over your other websites (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.) and create a buzz. Come out with a bang, guns blazin' and boldly tell the world there's a new sheriff in town. Write a long, detailed commitment promising your new readers to post regularly and without fail. Follow that up with a single post and then disappear for weeks without a word like a thief in the night, to never be heard from again. What have you stolen? Their trust, respect, attention, time and any chance they'll continue to follow you. Maybe I'll write a service piece called, "How to Kill a Blog Before It Learns to Walk."
My derailment was the result of a crippling computer virus that I contracted on Facebook, rendering my entire laptop completely useless. This was the H1N1 of computer viruses; devastating. On top of that, a day or so later, a major winter storm pummeled my area with a foot of snow and trapped me on top of my mountain completely preventing me from pursuing computer access elsewhere or seeking help for my critically ill laptop. I'm still partially snowed in to this day, but I'll talk about that and my recent snow adventures in a future post.
One thing, among many, that made contracting this virus so frustrating was that it was an honest and innocent mistake. When you catch a virus while surfing porn sites you're slightly more prepared when the bad news hits. Sure it still sucks, but you knew you were playing with fire. No one wants to get attacked by a 20 ft. crocodile while swimming in a river in Africa, but the reality of the attack is easier to accept than when it occurs while swimming in a lake in Indiana. It's the difference between being told you got AIDS from your one-night stand in college and being told you got it from your bowl of cheerios that morning. I feel bad for both recipients, but it sucks even more for the cereal guy.
Despite my "innocence", however, my carelessness and foolishness are partially to blame. I guess my guard was down. I use to get 7 -12 invites a day on MySpace from half-naked women asking me to come check out their websites. I would delete invitations without a second thought. My eye was so well trained that I could spot the impostor even if the picture was of a fully clothed girl next door simply seeking "friendship". I could smell a rat.
It's been months though, maybe a year, since I've gotten any friend requests period on MySpace and every friend request I'd ever gotten on Facebook had been legitimate. Things have been so good for so long that I just stopped locking my door. Sure I didn't know this girl and we had no friends in common, but she wasn't dressed that slutty. Maybe she was the distant, slightly slutty friend of a distant, slightly slutty friend. Stranger things have happened. I was skeptical, don't get me wrong, but Facebook had never let an impostor through to me. Maybe their was something to it. In my limited computer knowledge I thought that I was safe to examine her link (which didn't show any signs of porn in the URL) as long as I didn't click anything within that link if it turned out to be illegitimate. I didn't know that you could contract a virus through the link itself and I trusted my McAfee virus protection to guard me otherwise. With hesitation I clicked the link and sure enough a porn page popped up. "Well son of a gun", I thought as I quickly closed the page, feeling confident since I did so immediately without clicking any links. No sooner had I exited the page than my computer went completely nuts. The only way the ambush could have been any worse would have been if my laptop had burst into flames right then and there. I struggled fruitlessly for awhile to save my sinking ship, but this wasn't a boat with a hole in the bottom. This one had been blasted to smithereens by a torpedo. I was floundering in the water for pieces of wreckage to grab onto as opposed to bailing out water with a bucket while the orchestra played.
Although I know it's dramatic and shows that my perspective needed adjusting I actually put my head in my hands and casually stated to the empty room that my life was over. I had the same grief stricken, partially shell shocked response of someone who's just lost a limb. It seemed like so much of my life and communication was wrapped up in that laptop and the immediate, daily Internet access that it provided.
Over the next few weeks on the rare occasions that weather permitted me to barely escape my mountain or for a friend to barely get to me I sought the computer skills of friends and family. I owe it to this team of "doctors" that I'm writing this post on my laptop today. I can't say thank you enough to Steve, Evan, Big Chris, and Clint. They brought my computer back to life in stages, each time bringing it a little closer to full recovery and building on the restoration done by the person before them. I think my troubles are over, but I don't want to be too quick to promise as my computer is still doing something a little different at times when I try to shut down. On top of that, I'm still at the mercy of the winter weather here and things have been more about survival lately than anything else.
I'd like to kick the door open and confidently exclaim, "I'm back b****es!" but I've recently learned just how much that is ultimately out of my control. Maybe I'll leave it at, "I hope I'm back...we'll see."
My derailment was the result of a crippling computer virus that I contracted on Facebook, rendering my entire laptop completely useless. This was the H1N1 of computer viruses; devastating. On top of that, a day or so later, a major winter storm pummeled my area with a foot of snow and trapped me on top of my mountain completely preventing me from pursuing computer access elsewhere or seeking help for my critically ill laptop. I'm still partially snowed in to this day, but I'll talk about that and my recent snow adventures in a future post.
One thing, among many, that made contracting this virus so frustrating was that it was an honest and innocent mistake. When you catch a virus while surfing porn sites you're slightly more prepared when the bad news hits. Sure it still sucks, but you knew you were playing with fire. No one wants to get attacked by a 20 ft. crocodile while swimming in a river in Africa, but the reality of the attack is easier to accept than when it occurs while swimming in a lake in Indiana. It's the difference between being told you got AIDS from your one-night stand in college and being told you got it from your bowl of cheerios that morning. I feel bad for both recipients, but it sucks even more for the cereal guy.
Despite my "innocence", however, my carelessness and foolishness are partially to blame. I guess my guard was down. I use to get 7 -12 invites a day on MySpace from half-naked women asking me to come check out their websites. I would delete invitations without a second thought. My eye was so well trained that I could spot the impostor even if the picture was of a fully clothed girl next door simply seeking "friendship". I could smell a rat.
It's been months though, maybe a year, since I've gotten any friend requests period on MySpace and every friend request I'd ever gotten on Facebook had been legitimate. Things have been so good for so long that I just stopped locking my door. Sure I didn't know this girl and we had no friends in common, but she wasn't dressed that slutty. Maybe she was the distant, slightly slutty friend of a distant, slightly slutty friend. Stranger things have happened. I was skeptical, don't get me wrong, but Facebook had never let an impostor through to me. Maybe their was something to it. In my limited computer knowledge I thought that I was safe to examine her link (which didn't show any signs of porn in the URL) as long as I didn't click anything within that link if it turned out to be illegitimate. I didn't know that you could contract a virus through the link itself and I trusted my McAfee virus protection to guard me otherwise. With hesitation I clicked the link and sure enough a porn page popped up. "Well son of a gun", I thought as I quickly closed the page, feeling confident since I did so immediately without clicking any links. No sooner had I exited the page than my computer went completely nuts. The only way the ambush could have been any worse would have been if my laptop had burst into flames right then and there. I struggled fruitlessly for awhile to save my sinking ship, but this wasn't a boat with a hole in the bottom. This one had been blasted to smithereens by a torpedo. I was floundering in the water for pieces of wreckage to grab onto as opposed to bailing out water with a bucket while the orchestra played.
Although I know it's dramatic and shows that my perspective needed adjusting I actually put my head in my hands and casually stated to the empty room that my life was over. I had the same grief stricken, partially shell shocked response of someone who's just lost a limb. It seemed like so much of my life and communication was wrapped up in that laptop and the immediate, daily Internet access that it provided.
Over the next few weeks on the rare occasions that weather permitted me to barely escape my mountain or for a friend to barely get to me I sought the computer skills of friends and family. I owe it to this team of "doctors" that I'm writing this post on my laptop today. I can't say thank you enough to Steve, Evan, Big Chris, and Clint. They brought my computer back to life in stages, each time bringing it a little closer to full recovery and building on the restoration done by the person before them. I think my troubles are over, but I don't want to be too quick to promise as my computer is still doing something a little different at times when I try to shut down. On top of that, I'm still at the mercy of the winter weather here and things have been more about survival lately than anything else.
I'd like to kick the door open and confidently exclaim, "I'm back b****es!" but I've recently learned just how much that is ultimately out of my control. Maybe I'll leave it at, "I hope I'm back...we'll see."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)