Today is thursday and I have been on the boat for 4 days. Overall, I really like my situation here. I am the deckhand in a 6 person crew. The captain, Mike, is a really nice canadian guy in his mid- thirties. Then there is the first mate, also named mike, who I primarily work with in keeping the exterior of the boat clean and working. There are 2 stewardesses, Eda from Hungary and Ashley from Oklahoma, whose job it is to keep the inside of the boat clean and working. Lastly, Alex is the chef. He cooks several courses for every meal. So far I have learned that there are both good and bad parts in living on a yacht. Here they are:
Great Things:

I get hot meals for free every day, made from quality ingredients by a professional chef. If he does not cook for whatever reason, we go out to a nice restaurant with the boat credit card.
Rent is free.
I get to be outside all day every day. So far is has been warm and sunny. This may not always be the case.
the rest of the crew is pretty fun. I think that I can get along with anybody, but it would really suck to get stuck on a boat with crappy people.
We get to travel to where the weather is nice. We will be crusing around Nantucket this weekend and eventually head down to the huge boat show in Fort Lauderdale in October. Unless the boat gets sold.
Free Laundry
Free "Kaleen" clothes- T shirts, a fleece, a raincoat, some dryfit polos, some khaki pants
Mike and I have a shower attached to our room. The shower has an escape hatch. This means I can escape whenever I want.
I don't have to wear shoes ever



Not so great things:
I have a roommate, and we live in a room the size of a porta-potty. Its actually the size of a handicapped porta-potty, but that is still pretty small. My bed is the size of a casket.
Some asshat stole my flipflops off of the dock tuesday night. I left them in the shoe backet on the dock and someone snatched them. It is kind of a funny thing to steal from a $15 million boat.
The yachting community expects good hygiene. This is different from the collegiate and whitewater communities.
We usually start between eight and nine in the morning. This is much earlier than noon.

The boat itself is 130' long and weighs 290 tons. The boat holds 9700 gallons of diesel fuel and 1800 gallons of water. At a cruising speed of around 20 knots, it gets about 1/4 mpg. This means that our carbon footprint is roughly the size of New Hampshire.
I will put some pictures up on the blog once I get paid and can get a new camera.

Tomorrow, the guests will come aboard and we will cruise to Nantucket for a long weekend. I hope everyone is well.

I got a job! 130' Westport motor yacht called Kaleen. Ill be working with 6 other people, one of whom is a good friend from the boat safety/firefighting course that we took in June. I will begin work in Fairhaven on Monday morning. We will spend a month in Nantucket/Martha's Vineyard/Cape Cod area, then head south for a month in Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area and then go to the Caribbean for the winter. It sounds like a really cool crew and a fun itinerary.

In other news, David Wright is in town. Later today, a coupe of girls from Finland are coming into to couchsurf. Other than that, I am preparing to move my life into the small storage area that I will have once aboard.

Anyone wanna help us find some treasure? I made it close until my computer crashed and the puzzle reset. See what you can do

http://four.flash-gear.com/npuz/puz.php?c=v&id=2605971&k=34446581

Today is Tuesday, August 19th. I worked this morning doing provisions for Cocktails, a hundred foot motor yacht. It has been the best boat to work on thus far. I really like the crew and I have been getting fed as well as paid $20-$25/hour. This morning, my job was to goo with the chef to the grocery store to buy food and cleaning supplies for the upcoming week long charter. We spent $1800 in filling 5 shopping carts with a lot of delicious looking food.

This past weekend, my cousin Chris, Jenna and John Warner came into Newport. Chris came from Vermont Law school, Jenna from Manhattan and John from Maine. We went to the beach for some volleyball. On Sunday, we went to Frisbee, swam in the sea at the cliff walk and hung out on the porch and had a porch party. John is going to hang out for at least a week. This weekend, David Wright is going to be around as well, along with 2 Finnish girls from couchsurfing. I think that there are pictures from this weekend on Tony's camera. I will post them up when I get them. Tonight, I'm going to work at the IYAC. Hope all is well everywhere else.

August so far

I haven't written anything for a while. This is because I have been busy, both with work and adventure. It all began when I got a message from couchsurfers wishing to stay in Newport for the weekend. There were four different surfers from three different places. Monica came to town first. I picked her up at the bus station in town and took her back to the house. From there, my roommate Austin, his friend Kelly, Monica and I went to check out the cliff walk by bike ride and tried to find treasure on the way. We succeeded on one search but failed on another. I think that the second one was gone. Damn muggles.

From there we went to downtown to show Monica the nightlife. It was standard Newport insanity. On the way home was when perhaps the most memorable event happened. So there we were. Walking down the street near my house when we see a skunk. Skunks are small woodland creatures that look much like fluffy kittens. They cannot run, but instead waddle along. As a result of these two features, I neglected to respect the facts that skunks do not like to be picked up and they have the capability to create smells far worse than Thai food in the digestive tract. So i picked it up. foolish huh? The thing simultaneously spun in my hands, sprayed and bit me. As a result, I smelled like skunk for a while and learned not to pick up cute animals.

The next day was Friday. Monica and I took a bike ride to see the coast, look for some more treasure and do some snorkeling. We found one of the two caches we were looking for and and found a huge population of hermit crabs in the sandy, rocky bottom at Gooseberry beach.
In the evening, I got a call from our second couchsurfer, Nick, from Nottingham, England. Tony, Monica, Nick and I decided to head over to Flo's clam shack for some good New England seafood. Its calamari, scallops, clam strips, fish, and these clam balls. All of them are fried and delicious. i recommend.

That weekend was Folk Festival. I asked around for some boats to take out the the water front to watch the festival from there. We ended up with a kayak, a canoe and an inflatable walmart raft. We paddled out with Tony, Monica, and I to watch the music. It was a giant floating party for the first part of the day. Then, at around 2 or so, the sky erupted in a maelstrom of chilly rain. we sought respite under the hull of a fishing vessel, but it was incredibly cold and we decided to head into the festival and hop the fence. While we understood that this was illegal, we felt that we could justify searching for shelter. We got out of the rain and met up with Nick, who had a legitimate ticket for the weekend. The weather cleared up and we made it out to the muddy yet still populated stage area for a good Marley Brothers set followed by the Black Crowes. We met up with couch surfers 3 and 4 there as they had driven up for the festival from New York City. The day was great, until we tried to leave to find police waiting for us to get back to the boats. After much reprimand, they made us buy tickets and let us go home.

That night, my 2 roommates, the couchsurfers and I went next door to jimmy's. There was karaoke and a diverse variety of patrons including Bert, who somewhat resembles Mr. T. When asked why he had his sunglasses on in a dark saloon, he replied "The sun never sets on you when you are this cool." Yes!

the next morning was tired frisbee, then back to the folk festival. Marc and Allissa, the couchsurfers from new york, came along for the view from the water. This day was beautiful and police-free as we stayed out on the water. it was interesting, however, when we moved everyone into the canoe so that we could dump the raft and reinflate it. Canoes are top heavy and inherently tippy. We sunk immediately. We lost a few shirts and some sandwiches and Marc's phone is water-logged and potentially deceased.

Everybody stayed another night, but as a result of a busy weekend, we all just hung out at the house.

The next day, Nick, Marc and Allissa left to their respective destinations. Monica, Tony and I drove first to Boston to pick up Tony's best friend Mike. We continued on to northern mass to drop Monica off at home and eat a homemade meal with her family. Couchsurfing is good people.

That night, and for the next as well, we traveled around Massachusetts camping at a couple of different campgrounds, stopped at a couple of cool scenic spots, went fishing(caught a small catfish) and slept in the rain. The next night, we were tired of sleeping in wet conditions so we decided to visit Boston for the nightlife. On the way, we picked up Monica (She was bored at her parents house). Unfortunately there aren't any pictures of this excursion nor the camping as my camera met a watery demise in one of the most ill-fated days of my entire life which was at the jazz Fest the following weekend. See later story. Heres a picture of Turner's Falls

In Boston, we looked at hotels but due to their high cost, we decided to find a cheaper place to stay. Tony and mike were in a fraternity at USF, so we looked for it's Boston counterpart at MIT. They were cool guys, gave us a great room of couches in which to sleep, and showed us some cool bars around town. Salad fingers came to meet us as well.

The next day was Thursday, and I had to work at the IYAC, so dropped Monica off and headed back to Newport. I worked on a boat the next day and hung out that night, looking forward to Jazz fest. While it is normally a 2 day festival, our Saturday day was so eventful that that was it for us. It began with a larger than sensible group for our limited space. The group was Tony, Mike, Salad Fingers and his cousin, Katie and Kim from frisbee and Tony's friend from work, Hillary. She brought her Puggle puppy. She rides in Tony's boat with her dog. Salad, Mike and I ride in the canoe and pull Katie and Phil in the the walmart boat. Kim paddles in his kayak. We make it out there fairly uneventfully, watched some jazz and enjoyed the sunny day. Towards the end of the day, We decide that it is time to head back so Salad and his cousin paddle the canoe, Tony and Hillary pull me, Katie and Mike in the inflatable boat. Because a kayak is not meant to pull a boat with three people, this was hard work for Tony. Instead so discussing a reasonable alternative, a tired tony declares that he is going to swim the half mile back to the beach and demands that I get into the kayak. He tries to get off of the kayak, but instead flings himself, Hillary and her puggle puppy into the sea. So I get into his kayak and we begin again. Tony begins his impossible swim back to shore. He quickly tires and grabs onto Salad's canoe. For a tug. Because this gets a large amount in his mouth, he demands entry into the canoe, Despite pleas by Salad and Phil, Tony pulls himself into the canoe, which immediately begins to sink. The cooler, back packs, sandals and trash scatter in the sea. We spend a few minutes swimming around, gathering all of our belongings that we could and attempting to right the canoe. we get picked up by coast guard and taken to shore. Tony, due to all of the salt water that he has swallowed, spends the trip vomiting off of the side of the coast guard boat. So we all make it back to shore with most of our stuff, minus my camera which slipped out of my bag. Too bad, but its just a thing and can be replaced with a couple of shifts at the bar.

But our story doesn't end here. We load up the boats onto the car and begin organizing our belongings. When it is time to leave, we find that the keys are in the driver seat. This is usually isn't a problem when the doors are unlocked. Today, the doors were not unlocked. We just began laughing, because, what the hell? Not our day. We called AAA and walked over to the seaside park where we found some of our friends throwing a frisbee. We joined them and and got a 4v4 game going. Because this wasn't on a sports field, there were a couple of obstacles on the field. Namely, a large steel grate. Tony was the only one unfortunate enough to find the grate, stuff his toe inside one of the holes, do a front somersault and effectively pull his big toenail up and off of his nail bed. In his pain, he proceeded to chicken dance/walk around the park moaning and muttering. This was the hardest that I have laughed since i moved to Newport and continued to laugh for 25 minutes. Finally AAA came, we unlocked the car and went home. It is two days later, Tony is still in an incredible amount of pain and I am still laughing every time i am reminded of the day that was never meant to be.

Can I see some ID?

Last night was my first night working as a doorman/bouncer at the IYAC bar in downtown Newport. It is a small sailor bar with only a pool table, a couple of tables and bar space. I got the job through Courtney, as she used to bartend here and knows the owners, managers and many of the regulars. The job is really easy; My job is to check IDs at the door and occasionally round up empty glasses and wash them out. At the end of the night, we put up chairs, take out the trash and sweep. The people are mostly all sailors who know each other and have been coming here for quite some time, so some of them looked a little offended when I asked for IDs. I am sure I will know who is who with in a couple of weeks. Here is a 2005 picture of the front of the IYAC on Thames street. It was the only one that I could find of the storefront. Maybe Courtney and Ian are in it?

This weekend is Folk Fest in Newport. This year, the headliners are The Black Crowes, Jimmy Buffett, Gillian Welch, Jakob Dylan, Stephen and Damian Marley and Calexico. It costs 60$ per day to watch it from the festival grounds, but as the stages are positioned facing the water, many people choose to get on a boat and hang out in newport harbor. My roommate has a an ocean kayak. We are going to get a wal-mart boat and paddle into the mayhem this weekend.
Other than that, I am still waiting to hear back about permanent positions aboard yachts. In a month or so, there will be a big change over period when most of the boats up here finish their New England charter seasons and begin to head south to stay with the warmer weather. So until then, I am enjoying my time here. Today I was supposed to get paid to go sailing, but as it is incredibly calm out, I'm going to do laundry and go snorkeling instead

Wisco

After the Appalachian Trail, I came back to Newport with Alex and hung out here for 2 days before flying to Milwaukee. When I flew in, my cousin Chris picked my up at the airport and took me to meet up with my other cousins and sister's boyfriend Rob at a bar in Milwaukee. It was Chris' birthday and ended up being yet another a crazy night of barhopping in Wisconsin. Michael, who was evidently trying to out-celebrate Chris on his birthday and was doing so in the best way he knew how by spilling a large amount
of PBR on himself. Some of the highlights were singing an old German drinking song(Hoch soll sie leben = http://tinyurl.com/6dt34j ) at every bar that we went to, Michael trading the shirt off his back to a stranger on the street, brains everywhere, as well as other unmentionable activities.

In Oconomowoc, I spent the day with them at the farm before heading in to Madison to see all of the Hansen family, who had flown in from all over the country for my grandmother's memorial service. we went to Smokey's, my grandparents favorite steakhouse and checked into our hotel. The service was held at Our Lady Peace, a catholic church at which all of the Hansen kids had been members and the very one that my mother had driven a station wagon through fifty years ago. If anybody has a picture of that article, Id love to put it up. The ceremony was very nice, with many of the sons and daughters recalling all of the happy memories of her life. After, we drove up to Baraboo, Wi. to spend the day catching up on each other's lives, eating some delicious greek food and talking about string theory.

From there, we drove down to Mad-town, where my cousins Chris and Michael had spent the day hanging out with bums. We went to see a sweet bluegrass band for free at the Union, which is a huge student center next to a large lake. Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/trampledbyturtles

The rest of the night was perhaps crazier than the first and involved a brawl with bouncers that left Chris with a huge fat lip. Hopefully he has a picture of it. Both of these nights make for great stories, so ask me next time I see any of you.

The next night, I came back to Rhode Island, where I have had a good week. I have been to a couple of interviews with mixed results. One was for a crew agency called Crew Network that has offices all over the world and is quite good at what they do. they have already sent my resume to a couple of yachts. The other interview was for a 2 week charter aboard the M/Y Silver Seas. That captain was looking for someone with much more experience, so I am not sure why he even called me in for an interview after seeing my CV.

The weekend will be good weather. Newport in the Summer.
according to my uncle, this is what the strings of string theory look like. Actually, here he was describing how to make a negative pressure ping pong ball gun that can shoot through a coke can

The mountains

A lot happened. This post will just be about the hiking. Later I will write about Wisconsin and Rhode Island.

On last Wednesday, I drove up to Boston to catch a cheap bus to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I got there early and spent a few hours hanging out with my friend Salad Fingers in Cambridge. Here is salad fingers : http://www.fat-pie.com/salad2.htm. I caught the bus to Pinkham Notch(around 4 hours), read the book Ender's Game. I recommend it.


I got into Pinkham at 9:30 and wandered up to the visitor's center. I did not have much choice because the only structure at Pinkham notch is the visitor's center. Because you can not camp in the White Mountains(not sure why), the Appalachian mountain club expects hikers to pay 60$-90$ to stay in various huts and lodges in the park. I walked across the highway and put my tent up in the woods. There are two things that i find annoying in life. One is when people try to charge you to sleep outside. The other is when people put nuts in brownies that they bring to a social gathering. Some people don't like nutty brownies, but everyone who likes nutty brownies likes regular ones.

Anyway, I woke up and caught the shuttle at Pinkham notch and took it to Crawford Notch. Alex was waiting there. We began hiking the 48 miles towards Gorham, NH. The hiking was very steep with many seemingly vertical climbs and descents. There were also 30-40 mph winds on the ridges above the tree lines. The first night, we did a work-for-stay at a hut just shy of Mount Washington. This entailed sifting a bit of compost and cleaning a stove top in exchange for a hot meal and a wooden picnic table to sleep on.

The next morning, we left at 6:30 to hike the 2 remaining miles to the summit of Washington. Everything was above the treeline and we were hiking in 40 degree weather and 35 mph winds. It made me wish that I had brought pants. When we got to the top, it was foggy and the visitors center had not opened yet. We hung out for a bit and watched as the cog railway brought it's first group of passengers up to the top. thru-hiking tradition dictates that all thru-hikers moon the
cog-railway, but alex's book warned that violators could be arrested and have their names published in newspapers WORLDWIDE. This is actually what it said. So we moved on.

We continued hiking to Pinkham notch, which would be the halfway point of the 48 mile section. At this time, I was incredibly sore, but was able to keep up with Alex both in hiking speed and in conversation, mostly by grunting at appropriate time. he told me all about his previous 1800 miles of walking, about his snowy, cold nights in the southeast, and his crazy accomplices along the way. Much like hobos, thru-hikers usually get nicknames by which they are known throughout the trail. His was Rat Sandwich. This is because he ate rat that he caught. Some other good names/characters were Neck Beard, Five Bags, and Silver Potato. That night, we decided to hitchhike into Gorham, where we might be able to camp legitimately and get some McDonald's double cheeseburgers. If Alex could, he would eat eleven every day, so he always jumps on a chance to satisfy his perpetual mac attacks. We could have stayed in a 20$ hostel that night, but because neither of us were feeling particularly rich, we sut up our tents behind an elementary school. Nobody noticed that we were there and we left the next morning.

The next 2 days were hiked through really dense forest back toward Pinkham Notch. Everything was covered in thick green moss that seemed to glow in the low light of the dark forest. At one point, we heard a large bustle and saw a flash of the black fur of a good sized bear dart across the trail. Startling at first, but not really scary as it was very apparent that it was terrified of us. We camped stealthily in a clearing about half way between Gorham and Pinkham. The next day was the descent of wildcat mountain, which was the steepest descent that Alex had seen on the trail to that point. It involved crawling/sliding down near vertical faces. I was shocked at the difficulty because I had never pictured the trail as being something that could kill people. A fall there would certainly be bad news. I took a little one and bent my cooking pot in half.

We ended up tired in Pinkham and hitched back to gorham again in order to catch the morning bus back to Boston. This night, it was raining, so instead of staying in tents, we began looking for alternatives. The lady at Burger King wouldn't let us sleep in the ball pit, so we walked back toward the school. There, we found 15 buses parked in the parking lot. We were wet and tired, so we found an open one and hopped on for the night. Its summer, they wont be using them until August, right? The next morning, we awoke to some surprised cleaning ladies and an uppity principal who demanded that we remain where we were while the police were called. We didn't have anywhere to run in the small town of Gorham and had a bus to catch within the hour, so we did as we were told. Luckily the cop was sympathetic to our situation and let us go. We caught the bus back to Boston, stopped by Salad's house and then Alex came with me to Newport for a couple of days.

All in all, the White Mountians were the most beautiful as well as most difficult hiking that I have ever done. Alex agreed on both points. I really enjoyed getting out into nature and hiking with someone that knew what he was doing. My previous hike was with some friends from home, one of whom brought his stuff in a Macy's bag. Enjoy the pictures