Never give up, never surrender!

I was going to do a Corpsman Chronicles for today (yesterday as you read this tomorrow, which if you are reading this and you aren't me, is today). I have a good story (imo) to tell all about Shirley and the first time I ever sutured. But that will wait.

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The u2b Al Gorythm threw this up at me last evening (Friday, January 24).



Now that's funny as hell. Ape-lizards are a hoot. But what is it about the video that made me laugh out loud and watch it several times? Is it simply that a little kid getting the shit beat out of him by a garbage can is funny?

Maybe not. The hilarity of that young whippersnapper's battle doesn't come from the head bashing or the skillful judo lesson the garbage can threw down. The deeply funny part comes with the empathy I feel. I have been that kid on countless occasions, and metaphoric garbage cans continue to kick my ass on a regular basis. After six decades on the ol' blue marble I've learned how to work with the wind rather than against it, but I haven't learned all the lessons, not by a long shot. And some days, like yesterday, I still fight the wind head on, and as usual, the wind triumphs. Every. Single. Time. At least in the physical sense.

The thing that makes me laugh out loud is the sheer pluck, determination, and hard-headedness of the kid. He battles like mad, but the garbage can finally flings him to the ground. It's a clear victory for team Wind and Plastic. Or is it? The little shit springs up, tugs down his shirt, and prepares to get serious.

"Arright motherfiretrucker, you want it hard, we'll do it hard."

There are times when I'm so proud to be an ape-lizard that I can't find the words.

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Today was going to be a light workout day. And it was, for certain values of light and workout. Four point fifteen miles in about 100 minutes. Quite a few challenging slopes, but none of them were that challenging. The best part was that in addition to a reasonably good workout and the warm mental and physical sense of accomplishment that goes with that territory, I also played. I had fun. I had a blast. I got soaked, muddy, cold, and I even tore my pants! What's better than that?



I experimented with the super slo-mo on the phone. These are kind of interesting and very short.







While I'm thinking at the keyboard I need to figure out what the frame size should be in this wide aspect format so I can better fit the videos to the blog frame. I'll tinker with that a bit. If I remember.

Anyway, I set out to glacier crawl in the east canyon of the South Googie. Instead of picking my way to the bottom as usual, I took the opportunity to do a fun snow and ice slide!



One of the first things I did after my first face-plant of the day...

...was make a decision to jump down from a higher glacier shelf to a lower glacier slope. Just to keep it real, these things I keep calling glaciers, aren't. They're all just frozen snow drifts. On the other hand, they fell as snow, transformed into ice, and are in the process of flowing downhill. Pretty much. So, technically...

Now when I jumped I thought I was making a video record with my phone, but I was not. I either didn't hit the little red record button or I frightened the phone so badly it panicked and froze up. Anyway, I jumped down, it was an extremely benign and vanilla experience, and then I crawled under the ice bridge you see in the image and into a cool ice cave. Probably the best bit of video I never shot. Maybe tomorrow. Here is the video I took following the one I didn't took. Not much consolation, but it's better (?!?!) than nothing. As I shot the video I was already thinking stupid thoughts.



But I also wanted to get some uphill stuff done.



Did I mention it was a beautiful day?

The "real workout" behind me, it was time to get my stupid on. But first, Red had a sticker.



Sticker fixed, I felt the need -- the need to bleed!



Let's try something more challenging.



Aaaannnnd, hold the presses!

Okay, I'm going to split this post into two parts. I've just solved some technical technology issues and I'm going to be able to use some videos I didn't think I'd be able to use. Which is cool. I'll blather on about my technical technological prowess in the next installment. You know I will!

Also, dinner with Snow Girl this evening. She had a mushroom-swiss-jalapeno burger.

Me, I had the small portion prime rib, sans pommes. It'll be bikini season soon.

I am so proud of that young woman. There are tiny little snippets of life which are so fantastic that there haven't been good enough words invented yet. Being able to experience such moments is one of the blessings of liberty.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.