Issue 94. Volume 14. Chapter 6.
I love to babble, at least to my friends, on certain topics. I don’t think most people listen, and if they do, they realize soon enough that I throw in so much sarcasm and jokes that they have no idea what facts, what are exaggerations, and why bother. However, I don’t need a captive audience. I’m my audience, and I make jokes that I laugh at myself. It might seem lonely from the outside, but as long as I have enough fun, who cares? I argue and chat with myself a ton when I do things by myself – I think it is odd, and maybe a bit problematic, if people aren’t having internal conversations. Just quiet for the rest of your life? Perhaps you think the internal voice is God, and if you do, at least talk to them. I’m sure they are happy to hear. Anyway, talking to myself isn’t bad except I wouldn’t remember everything, and as I grow older, I do wonder what I was thinking. I kept journals, pictures, and notes over the years, but it is not an essay. Essays are something I love to do. Most people hate to write, and for some reason, especially researchers. I guess most people like to just do it, and once they find something, walk away. Well, I enjoyed writing, I remember the last few months of graduate school, I locked myself in the apartment, and alternated between writing pages and playing Overwatch, all while listening to chiptunes. It was a joyous time…
A long, long time ago, I thought of creating my own website, a time when I could have gotten an even shorter URL. Anyway, I did buy and maintain this domain for at least ten years, but I have been sporadic when it comes to updating. I have SO many ideas and things to write down, but I get lazy, demotivated, or simply busy and walk on. I also had the thought of writing things down so that some other people who read it got something out of it. That’s kind of contrary to how I take pictures, because I almost always only take pictures I like, and I mostly don’t care to improve on the craft. So there was a divergent – a website that was meant as a guide for who knows, but pictures that express my taste. I feel like maybe that’s why I was also kind of lazy to write, but still keen on photography, since I set such a high bar for others, whereas everything goes for myself.
Then, as 2024 comes to a close, I got even more epic trips in, I got out of some huge responsibilities (you know, when life gives you a lemon, and you tell life to go away, and find the cookie you always had, and just eat your cookie). I have hundreds, if not thousands of things I can write about. Then, November 2024 came, and something clicked. I needed to get out of all of it – the constant news reading would not make me feel better, and I had better fish to fry in the world. I met some cool people on Blue Sky, who have long-form guides on where they have been, and that sparked my interest in writing since I can write as well. But the hammer that hits the nail’s head is a random Reddit post that I read. I cannot recall what I read, but I remember one of the responses dropped a link to otherhand.org, and many people responded by saying they had missed meals. Missed meals? What the heck is that interesting? And so, I clicked on it, and just blown through two huge stories that Tom wrote. Huge as in, this guy was in academia, and you can tell, because he also can talk (or write), and his long-form essays are ridiculous in length, with lots of funny jokes, and lots of chapters. And that’s it. For now, I found the raison d’être of this website (Probably not my life, but we shall see). I’m going to use my website, yes this website, to just write and write about a certain topic, or trip.
WHO IS GOING TO STOP ME?
So, I just came back from my first-ever solo multi-day backpack trip on Catalina Island. And I’ve assigned this topic as Issue 94. Internal categorizing – there might be some time when I will have all 94 issues out, but for now, this is assigned as issue 94. If there are any readers out there who wanna see everything in this issue, use the search function for “issue94”. Maybe someday I’ll print them out in a book, or send out a report. For now, the blog will suffice. Oh, I’ve named this issue after 26 Miles. Usually, I choose random phrasses based on music albums, but in this case, 26 Miles is a popular song in the 50s by the band The Four Preps, about the Catalina Island. It was supposed to be the distance of Catalina from mainland California, except… it is only 22 miles. I thought it was funny, and decided to use that name.
For Issue 94, here are the pages:
Channel Islands National Park
Getty and Getty, but not that Getty
Behind Trans-Catalina Trail
Trans-Catalina Trail
Stranded on an Island
A very Long Beach