Since When Did Saruman Start Reasoning With Madness?!

I just needed to do one more. And there are some gems on the extended edition too.

The Desolation of...

Alright man, here's the freakin deal.

I'm thinking of getting a tattoo. I told some friend's this and one of my friends said, "Oh yeah, death eaters, you and me buddy!" He meant something like this, I'm assuming. Sans the binary.

That's a little too geeky for me. Or let me correct. A little too obviously geeky.

So I've spent a good few hours checking out online what people have. And my god there are some really dumb tattoos. Here are my ideas, really, 2. One is to have something in Gaelic. You know, to honor my Irish heritage and give grandma Irish something to gloat about at the next book-cover-ripper's convention.

But then, there's this:
It's actually a sketch by JRR Tolkien for a possible cover or image on the cover of The Hobbit. It's Smaug.

So this means something to me. Tolkien was kind of a big part of my life growing up. Plus since I'm sort of Chinesey, I could probably pass it off as something along those lines...but...really...it's pretty freaking nerdy. I just don't know man.

I'm looking to get it on the inside of a forearm.

The Road Goes Ever On and On...

I'm ready to go on to morning shift. That's 6 am to noon here, and I'll be trying to wake up at 4:30, to leave the house by 5:30, and have some room for sanity before I go.

But I was reading my sister's blog, and she was talking about hiking around Santa Clarita, and was asking about some of the places around there.

I thought back to where I would go, and what I would do, because I realize now that I used to go sort of wilderness romping quite a lot - something I haven't done nearly as much in the military. I keep talking about it but never really bother to plan to do it.

When I was in elementary school my best friend was Mike Lightner, of the lightner clan, and behind their house was a hill that was too sheer for track homes to crawl up, I guess. It was also too sheer for bikes, generally, so we used to walk up around there. I can't imagine it was very big, but we somehow found places to go. I particularly remember there was some sort of naturally enclosed, sort of "secret garden" place, that found once and couldn't find again. There was also a long, deep drain running down one part, I think it was while they were building houses on top. Mike broke his arm or sprained his wrist or something when we were climbing around in there.

During that time, and after, I'd take my bike behind...I think it was Bouquet Park. It was on the other Wellston. There was always a section in the fence that could be pushed thru to get back to the hills back behind there. I almost guarantee there are track homes there now, but it was all sort of chapparell (or however that's spelled) desert when I went. There we tons of jumps on little trails that someone or other had smashed and dug at some point before I got there.

I remember at least once I was riding or walking on this long horseshoe shaped road on top of one of the hills. It was probably a service road. I got back to the very back of it...the portion furthest from the park, probably at least a mile back (as the crow flies, if you will), and I looked out and there were these hills literally as far as I could see, without any sign of people or buildings on them. I compared it to the Lord of the Rings (in my mind), which I'm also rereading right now. I loved having those seemingly endless swathes of "wilderness" outside my door.

I do miss those places and I know of little that's comparable right here. It probably would be difficult to find a comparison to my child's memory anyway, as these places were undoubtedly far less pristine than I remember, and here everything is bound by roads or farms. Just fly over this place and look at the window. Every square mile is covered with farms...quite literally, in some areas.

But I've resolved to do at least one camping trip this summer, somewhere near here, or else I'm sure I'll regret my homebodyness while I was here. This weekend I'm going back up to duck lake, so we'll see if we can't find some buried treasure this time.

You Are Aware