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April began a long string of race weekends for me to work at. I was at to AMA Superbike events, an Indy Car race in Long Beach, and several private car club meets here in Monterey at Laguna Seca. After the two month string of races, I had a weekend off to get all the last minute things I needed done for my mountaineering school trip to the North Cascades in Washington.
I'm working on a completely separate site describing the climbing school. You can find it at: RobAAI. Its only complete through day one right now, but there is a lot of text there to read.
After the climb Brent met me in Seattle. He had arranged for an incredibly nice suite at the Warwick Hotel, in downtown Seattle. We stayed there for four days.I was completely exhausted following the climb so we didn't get much done the first day. I could barely move! Our biggest deal for the day was to go see The Phantom Menace at an enormous movie theater across the street from the hotel called the Cinerama. The theater turned out to be way better than the movie.
Over the next few days we went to Victoria in Canada, visited with a good friend of mine from Seattle, saw the Everest IMAX movie, and went dancing at a very cool club on Capitol Hill called Neighbors. It was 80s night, and even though I was still tired, we had a blast.
Our last day in Seattle was Sunday, a week ago today. The creator of the Everest IMAX movie was giving a lecture that day in Seattle, but we couldn't go because of our flight home. I was soooo bummed. It would have been my first chance to meet someone who had actually climbed Mt. Everest.
When we got home this week, I found out he was signing copies of his new book in San Jose, about 1.5 hours drive from my apartment. I zoomed up to get his autograph on Wednesday, and was the only one there. The store had completely failed to promote the event. I got to sit there with David Breashears for an hour and have a personal conversation about climbing and his movies. (He also filmed for Seven Years in Tibet, Red Flag over Tibet, and Cliff Hanger.) He invited me to come up to a slide show he was giving in Menlo Park. It was a big show, but I got to sit in the front row, and later found out I won the door prize drawing for a $150 "Everest" logo jacket too! Sometimes I can just be the luckiest person I know.
This weekend has been peaceful. I've been cleaning up the mess I left in my apartment over the last two months. I've paid a few bills. I watched the Grand Prix of Canada live this morning. Just a lot of nice quiet time. I should have more days like this. Heck, there was even time to update my journal!
Thursday June 17, 1999
My rats are home. I've got two pet rats, Oreo and Whiskers. They're a bit smelly (OK, my apartment sometimes smells like a pet store!) but lots of fun to watch and play with. They're a lot more interactive than hamsters, if not quite as cute. In any event they're home now. They spent the last two weeks at my friends' Stuart and Carri's house while I was in Washington. It's nice to have the company around the apartment again.
Tonight Brent and I are going on a date.
We're going to have dinner at the Chevy's Mexican restaurant and then go to see The Spy Who Shagged Me. We're looking forward to the movie. Austin Powers the first is one of our favorite movies and we're hoping for more of the same. At
least we're hoping for something better than "The Phantom Menace".
I'll give a short review in my next journalings.
The website covering my mountaineering trip isn't ready yet. I've been putting a good hour into it each day, but its got a ways to go. I've only finished the cover page and the text for day 1.Yesterday I got all the photo scanning done. I'm rather disappointed with the still pictures I took on the trip. To save weight, I carried only a disposable camera, instead of my 35mm. The bright snow overexposed and left other objects underexposed. My Hi8 video turned out much better. Maybe I'll try to do a few video captures for the page. I've never done a video capture before, but it can't be much different from getting a webcam shot which I have experimented with.
Sigh... Another weekend has come and gone. I'm getting that feeling again that my life is going by *way* too fast. Its not that I'm failing to appreciate life as it happens, or getting so caught up in day to day trivialities that I don't take time to live for myself. My problem is there is so much in life I want to do, so much that I can do. I'm working on accomplishing all my goals, but the clock is ticking. I keep having birthdays. I'm going to be old before I'm finished doing all the young person things I want to do.
I started by saying another weekend has come and gone, then complained about a lack of life span to do all the noble and worthy things I want to do. Its related. The problem is I can only do noble and worthy things on the weekend or vacation. My job, which isn't a bad job by work standards, is robbing me of my precious time alive. I feel like I'm wasting 10 hours a day, five days a week. That's a lot of time when you consider I'll almost certainly be dead less than 100 years from now. Think of all the time I'd have to do stuff if I didn't have to sell my life away to someone else by the hour! I need an endowment or a trust fund or something. If I didn't have to work for a living, I would hardly be idle but I certainly wouldn't keep a traditional job making something I could sell. My life goals exist outside my economic position in society. Sigh...
Last Friday night I went over to Brent's house. We watched The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen on DVD. Now there's a character after my own heart. The Baron staunchly denies the mundane and insists on existing in an altogether more fantastic world. I suppose he's very similar to Don Quixote that way. I completely identified with the character.
Saturday and Sunday I went out to Laguna Seca to run an on track event for the Shelby Club of North America. There were lots of vintage Trans Am race cars, Shelby Cobras, and Ford Mustang Cobras. I enjoyed a fun ride in one of the fastest TransAm race cars with my friend and professional driving instructor Ken Dobson. We did about five laps pulling more than 1 G in the corners, averaging over 80mph for the 2.2 miles of the course, and topping out at 130mph in the longest straightaway. I think Ken had fun showing off.
I invited a new race worker out to the track
with me this time. Mark was one of the ski tour guides working for
me this winter and he'd expressed an interest in motor racing too.
He's 22 and working on his college degree, so he has time to come to the track on weekends. Besides being cute, he has become a friend so
I enjoyed the opportunity to share with him the experience of officiating races which I love so much. He seemed to like it too, so I think we'll be seeing more of him at the track in the future.
Sunday night I went to my parent's house to cook a BBQ dinner with my brother in honor of Father's day. The dinner was good, but the conversation seemed to revolve mostly around politics.
Everyone had a strong opinion and no one seemed to agree with another.
Their weren't any arguments because each was so steadfast in their own
opinion they didn't even hear the differing opinion the others were voicing. I hope having the whole family together made my father happy on his day. It was tolerable for me, but not pleasant. I did my duty. Yesterday was my Dad's birthday. I was back at the house for yet another dinner with the family. It was more enjoyable this time. Politics and religion didn't come up.But that's not really what I want to talk about here.
Sigh. Where to begin? I'm in the process of making a new friend, but I don't quite know how to handle him. He was one of the ski tour guides with me over the winter and has been getting involved in racing lately too. I mentioned him briefly in Monday's entry. He's a nice guy who I enjoy having around. Obviously we share some similar interests. Our parents even know one another through their work. He's straight, or at least he's mentioned a past girlfriend once, and I have no idea if he knows I'm not straight or how he might react if I told him. Most of the time when I make new friends my orientation just pops out and is no big deal. A few people its not as easy with.
Here's the real problem. It might be just me, but I can feel a little extra viscosity to our budding friendship. It kind of feels like when you're first dating but you haven't come out to each other so its not being called a date yet. I'm not sure what I'm getting into. Is it just that he's a nice, cute straight guy and I'm misreading his friendship? Could I be starting a friendship with a closet case about to burst forth? If so, is he looking for a gay friend to help him through or does he like me as a potential boyfriend?
I'm already in an exclusive relationship with my boyfriend, Brent. If I were available and looking I would prolly be interested in getting to know Mark more as a date. As things are, I very much like him as a friend, and if he's coming out, I'd like to help him with that. If he's just plain straight, well, then, I think we can have a good friendship. Something just clicks with us. I just can't figure out how to best come out to him without it sounding like I'm coming on to him at the same time. That would be the wrong signal to send in all three cases. I'm clueless as to how to deal with this situation.
You know, I look at those last couple of paragraphs and they seem very high schoolish to me. See what years of denial do! You simply stop growing up at the stage you closeted yourself. I've got to be the oldest 18 year old I know. Damn, I wish I'd lived *my* life all that time instead of someone else's.
What a waste. Does anybody ever read this stuff? I had an unusual weekend. I didn't do much of anything! Most weekends I've got races, or ski trips or something going. This weekend I decided to keep free for myself. Consequently, I didn't do much and loved every minute of it. I'm so busy most of the time, I think I've lost the ability to be bored.
It started on Friday. After work I cleaned up my apartment a bit so I'd have a nice place to enjoy the weekend. Then, around 6:00, I drove over to Brent's house. We had dinner and watched "Elizabeth"
on DVD. The movie was great. Good acting, and photographed very well. I like that kind of story too, because I know that QE will have some struggles in the movie, but eventually she goes on to make history. I hate suspense.
The next morning, I got up and made myself some breakfast (brownies and hot tea) and settled into read for a while. I've started a huge tome called "Dark Sun: the Making of the Hydrogen Bomb". I know that a big piece of historical non-fiction is prolly dull to most people, but its very interesting to me. I spent several hours on it during the morning.
Saturday afternoon I got on my computer and
started web surfing. I eventually landed on a great site for downloading free aircraft upgrades to Microsoft Flight Simulator. During my online time I also ICQed a few people for a while. It was after 8:00 pm when I finally got tired of my computer and went back to my book!
Sunday I got out of bed just as my coffee maker was finishing up making a fresh pot for me. (It has a timer) It was 10:00am and time to watch the French Grand Prix on Fox Sports. I love racing, and Formula One is the pinnacle of motorsport. Watching each of the year's sixteen Grands Prix is important to me the way going to church is important to some others. It turned out to be the most exciting GP so far this year!
I was in a car mood after that, and being
that the weather was so nice, I went over to my parent's house to wash
my car. When I wash my car, I get serious about it. It took 4 hours.
Then I enjoyed their hot tub, and stayed for dinner too. My Mom wasn't
in a terrific mood, but my Dad was doing fine. My Mom is still way
to concerned about the welfare of her two grown children and can't ever
seem to just let go. Perhaps she's stuck at an earlier developmental
stage just as I am.
So, that was the weekend. This week holds a few questions in store. I'm thinking of trying to climb Mt. Shasta next weekend. I'm up for it, but my selected climbing partner, Aric, isn't sure if he'll be ready for a big mountain that soon. I'm starting to think if he doesn't want to go, that I'm going to just drive up there and do a recconassainse on the mountain alone. I'll climb up to the base camp at 10,000ft and stay over night. I may go a little higher the next morning before heading down, but to climb too much higher above Shasta base camp alone would be a little unsafe.
One other note. I sent Mark (the guy who's been puzzling me about exactly what he wants from our friendship) an e mail with my home page listed in the signature file. I couldn't figure out a good way to come out to him, so I'm trying to set him up to 'discover' I'm gay on his own. So far, no response...
Monday June 21, 1999
Thursday, June 24, 1999
Monday, June 28th 1999