New Orleans

'The whole damn city is under water'

I'm fighting a terrible summer cold, so all I've done since Sunday is watch Katrina coverage, non-stop. Being sick has added an nonordinary state of reality to this nonordinary hurricane event and the subsequent media freak-out that is going on. It's not good to watch so much of that. You need a psyche break from massive destruction every now and then. It is depressing, and being sick while watching all this has completely sapped my will to write lately. I hate to see people suffering from something totally out of their control--and this Katrina situation certainly is out of control on so many levels it is mind-boggling.

I used to wonder why the Southern states seemed so beat down and third-world. Now I understand. They have wrestled with HUGE demons since the area was first settled--giant storms that, in the old days, would take decades of recovery, if any recovery was even possible. Now I get it.

I was talking to my husband not two weeks ago about going to N.O. this winter; my mother-in-law bought a condo there last year. I couldn't wait to see it because it was in an old mansion somewhere on St. Charles. My sister is moving to Florida next month, and I was telling her that we could meet in N.O. this winter and hang out since we have a place to stay. Now I'm kind of bummed...looks like N.O. will be a big NO while the clean-up is going on. My MIL will be going down when she can to assess the damage. She was resigned. "That's what insurance is for..." Who knows if the building is even still standing. It's probably standing in water, at the very least, today.

Then last night, my husband looks and me says, "You still want to go to N.O. this winter?"

I said yes. Of course I do. What an adventure that would be--a weird, historic, probably extremely surreal kind of adventure. This kind of trip would be up our adventure-addict alley, to be sure.

"Maybe we'll stay a couple of weeks," he added.

I can only hope. We'll see what the winter months bring for us, and for New Orleans.

Goodbye, Mr. Trips.

The Wailing Wall of the Freak Kingdom

In what was arguably Aspen's hottest party invite of the year, the cremated remains of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson were shot into the air yesterday in a pyrotechnic display of more than 30 fireworks missles. Johnny Depp footed the oh-dear-god $2.5 million bill racked up by the booze-saturated memorial, which included guests John Kerry and Bill Murray. Then there's this guy:

'John Zoren flew in Friday night from Los Angeles, rented a car in Denver and drove 200 miles to Woody Creek without gaining access to the official festivities.

"Hunter would storm the gates," Zoren said. "He wouldn't stand for these greedheads. It's the Hollywood celebrities who have taken over his legacy and locked people out." '

Right on, dude.

If I had enough money to spend $2.5 million on a friend's memorial service, I most certainly would have included nude dancing girls in cages, giant lizards on leashes, and hundreds of bats released at dusk, terrorizing the party-goers as they swooped and scratched at their hair and eyes.

Nice things happen.

A nice thing happened to me tonight. I was going for a walk, and decided to drop by a friend's house to check in on some plans for this weekend. The friend was not there...he was camping. But his roommate was there, a seasonal park ranger, and he was firing up the grill. I stopped and said hello.

He had a beer, and had some music cranked up. What kind of music? Why, Dish channel 6017, the Jam Band channel. Today, it was all Garcia and Grateful Dead, in honor of the 10th anniversary of Jerry's death. He took a telephone call so I sat on the front porch in a rocking chair, drinking Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, enjoying the view of the cliffs, listening to an epic Dead jam, and suddenly it crystallized into "Franklin's Tower." I have not heard that song in years...years. I had a smile on my face a mile wide. The scenery, the music, the beer...all gentle reminders of days gone by, happier times with less responsibility. It warmed my heart.

This was totally unexpected. I was just going for an evening walk and it turned into something quite surprising, and very nice. You find Dead Heads in the most unusual places, although a park ranger as a former Dead Head is not too far out of the realm of possibility. We chatted about shows and parking lots and parties and all the other stuff that went on. It was a great stroll down memory lane. I was surprised that this all unfolded the way it did, as if the Dead were calling to me on some unknown frequency. I took the call.

Yes, it really is me.

Here is a picture of me hiking about two weeks ago. I just wanted to try out this new photo feature Blogger offers and I thought that this would be a good pic. If anyone reads me regularly, you now have an author's photo. This is scary, sort of. All my friends, non-friends, and neighbors will know who writes this...that is if they even know what a blog is, which would really surprise me if they did.

That was a really good day, and a killer hike. We were in this canyon and all these tiny frogs were constantly in the path. They were SO cute! I was charmed silly by them. The weather was perfect, lunch was great, and the company was delightful. Should I mention that this is my office now? Yep, I was working in this picture. You would need some luck finding that smile from a cubicle-bound worker. No panty hose, no make-up, no high heels, no problem.

Please, do not alert "What Not to Wear."

Trailer w/ocean vu, $1 million obo

Chicago Tribune | For sale: Trailer w/ocean vu, $1 million obo

Real estate has just gone crazy, especially in California. If I had known five years ago, about the time I moved here, that I could have moved to Malibu, bought a crummy trailer home for $150K, fixed it up a little, and sold it for close to $1 million today, I would have done that in a heartbeat! Oh my god!

What's even more surprising about this story is that somebody is actually lending money on these trailers; where I live, you can't get a loan on a trailer. We subscribe to Dwell magazine, which is this really cool architectural mag, and there are usually all kinds of interesting, mod, prefab homes featured in it every few months, so the idea of prefab housing is coming into a new era, to be sure. But just refinishing a crummy trailer and getting $1 million? Oh my god! I have to say it again.

I also have to say I now firmly believe that there is a real estate bubble. People have been coy about this topic. Some claim the burst is just around the corner, while others have made spectacular amounts of money. Just down the road from me, Las Vegas has gone plumb crazy, too. If we had moved there instead of here, we'd be super wealthy without having to do anything but own a home! Of course, in order to make money in this real estate deal, you have to sell. Most people don't like that idea, buying a house and selling it just for the money, especially women. We're all caught up in the idea of a home. But since my home is also a business, I am ready to sell at this point, and damn happy to do it so I can build a home somewhere else and own it outright. I just hope this all happens before the big bubble POPS!

My secret love is real estate, and I mean anywhere. If I was extremely wealthy, that's all I would want to buy. If, in my rich life, my husband bought me some expensive piece of jewelry or a new car, I would take it back, get the money, and go buy some land or a house somewhere. If I had big money in the form of a $1 million California home, I would be selling TODAY. Then, I would go and buy a house outright somewhere else, or buy a farm or a small town house, perhaps in a lot of different cities, pay my taxes and just travel. Because when that market correction comes, it isn't going to be pretty. The end will come when nobody on the bottom of this buying pyramid in California can afford to buy a house anymore. Without new buyers for the homes at the bottom of the prices, no one can move up, so to speak, and the bubble bursts. And then it will spread, very slowly I think, throughout the rest of the country. This day is coming; I have heard rumors that it will come within the next year. And by rumors I don't mean watching market shows on TV, I mean I've heard from someone in my family that works for a big company with a big real estate division that is just biding its time and waiting for the California burst to move in and buy up land. Last winter they gave this exuberance 18 months. Could they be wrong? I don't know, but I would be surprised if they were. We'll see in a year's time, I suppose.

Outdoor Retailer '05

I've been awake since 4 a.m. and decided I just needed to get up and get out of bed and do something. Damn, I hate insomnia.

Outdoor Retailer, that gigantic gear extravaganza for all outdoor nerds, quickly approaches. I am not anticipating the torture of endless, mindless rows of backpacks and their sales people this year, nor am I looking forward to the big-name fortresses that shut out the little people. And I can certainly do without all the gear dudes that are so much cooler than the average human. Yes, they are so much cooler than you or I, bro, or "brah," as the really cool ones would say. I am anticipating the return of the band Cowboy Mouth for the after-show free beer party. Last year, this beer bash was held outside of the Salt Palace, which is in downtown SLC just in the shadow of the LDS Temple. Anyway, the lead singer of Cowboy Mouth gets on the mic and starts going off with "Hey you fuckers..." And he went on...and on...It was loud, too. I was very pleased. So I can't wait for that. If you are a beer drinker, well, this is your kind of convention, because most of the gear purveyors have cases on ice or a whole freakin' keg. I'll be moderating my beverage intake...it makes for bad business decisions if you don't watch that.

There is a slim chance of running into my neighbor at this convention. He's kind of creepy, for a lot of reasons that would fill this blog for at least two weeks. He bought a gear store here two years ago and still has no idea what he is doing. Still. He thinks he owns a store in Boulder, Colorado for some reason, not the middle-of-nowhere, Utah. He is just a mean-spirited rich guy that would rather have friends he buys than earns. I hate those kind of people, you know, the ones that have money and the ones that would hang out and say anything or do anything to hang out with the ones that have money. Both are foul and repugnant. Well I am rambling...lack of sleep you know...I can do without seeing him at ALL, and I think the gods will smile on me and I won't bump into him and have to make banal small talk. I'm not into kissing rich people's asses, so I don't see him that much here, mercifully.

Then there is the prospect of being really excited to see the next cool thing in outdoor gear. I remember when the JetBoil stove came out...wow, that was cool. Or the MSR Missing Link tent. Cool. Or anything at Go-Lite. Ultra cool. There are the little treasures you find at Outdoor Retailer that make the whole pilgrimage to Salt Lake worthwhile. Last year, we crashed the "Life is Good" party at Wasatch Brewery. They had rented out this whole place, private party, groovy rock band, giant food buffet...and we happened to go because we stood in line for lunch at the right place earlier in the day and stood next to one of the "Life is Good" guys. It was delightful to see a company and its customers so damn happy about t-shirts with a stick figure doing some outdoor thing and the words "Life is Good." Damn. Why didn't I think of that? When I see stuff like that, I know I live in a great country. I will be sure to swing by the "Life is Good" booth and, uh...find out if they are having a party again this year.

It is finally 7 a.m. here and I am fully awake now. I even made coffee. I guess I'll try to nap later on, since I have been really struggling to sleep through a night lately. We went on this huge hike a few days ago, an 11-mile epic, and I almost fell asleep during a break in the middle of it. I don't know what is going on with this sleep thing, but it's starting to really bug me. Outdoor Retailer is less than two weeks away, and it already bugs me. Maybe I need a career change. Yes, that's it. I'm ready for a new adventure that will not regularly include the word "brah."