Future plans and changes

Whenever a door closes, a window opens. Or something like that.

I've been very busy working and watching Battlestar Galactica -- on tape of course. A friend sent me the pilot and every show but the season finale, which hadn't come out yet. (He's sending that one some time this week.) I expected not to like the show, but I was wrong, very wrong. I am having a little trouble with the actor who plays Gaius Baltar because he also played Bridget Jones's gay friend, but he is very interesting and a little manic (you have to know what's happening to him to understand). I sort of understand my friend's interest in #6, but after watching the sixth episode I wonder a little because she's very violent. And I do mean VIOLENT. Mafia style, hands on, flat out VIOLENT. The plots are believable, the characters complex and interest and minutely drawn, and the show is a real treat. If you haven't seen it prepare for some changes: Starbuck is a woman and so is Boomer this time around. Apollo, Starbuck, Boomer, Hotdog, etc. are now callsigns instead of their names (the characters have regular names just like us). The cylons are no longer walking toasters and the females are definitely not the type to get headaches--they might cause a few, but they won't get them. It's a very good show and it's well worth the time to tape and watch or just sit down and watch every week. I mean really, with Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell leading the cast, how could it go wrong? The new show takes all the best from the original series and adds a very real and interesting sensibility that will hook you if you have any brains and taste at all. So go watch.

In between watching BSG and chatting with John I have found more than a little time to work on operative notes and discharge summaries and all things medical and hospital, but I have also managed to sneak out from time to time to go to the library and fuel a growing interest in hiking and backpacking, also courtesy of my BSG tape making friend. I've always dreamed of packing a few belongings in a sack or backpack and just walking off into the horizon. The fact that I can also take my ham radio rig (a very small one) with me is also a plus, but just getting away from civilization and cars and pressure and the like is seductive. We've been talking about some day hikes to get me seasoned and ready for weekend hikes that will get me seasoned and ready for week long hikes and eventually something bigger and more challenging, like the Appalachian Trail, Colorado Trail, and the like. Grandma Gatewood began hiking for the first time in her 50s and she even did the Missouri Trail, the one that starts in Independence and ends on the West Coast, the one pioneers traveled to open the west, and she did it in less time. She wasn't hauling her household goods in a wagon or driving a team of horses or oxen, just walking, but she still did it and she was in her 60s or 70s at the time. Fifty seems like a good age to begin doing all the things I haven't had the time, the money, or the physical chops to do. I still have another hundred years to go yet and I want to make the next fifty as interesting as the last fifty, but not quite so traumatic. A walk along hidden wonders, beside burbling streams and silent lakes and tarns that mirror nothing but the sky, trees, and surroundings is preferable to the sound of boat motors, camping families with screaming kids, and campers parked cheek by jowl next to improved cabins, showers, and tent sites. There is something mystical and spiritual in walking through a silent countryside that few people venture near because of its seeming inaccessibility.

On top of all that, I finally received my copy (and the check) for an anthology of true ghost stories about friends and relatives. It's about time. The good news isn't the book or the check, but that the local library wants to buy copies and keep them on the shelves. And the librarian who buys all their books has asked me, because of my own personal interest in all things science fiction, fantasy, and horror, to suggest books they should buy. I have a list that every library should stock. It pays to be a book reviewer.

I have heard that certain friends are planning their own excursions to sunny tropical settings where the nearly equatorial sun beats down on clear blue water and the surf pounds the sands and lulls you to sleep. To each his/her own, but it does feel like change is in the air and people are reaching for their dreams for a change instead of allowing their seemingly insurmountable problems get them down and keep them cowed and lonely. So here's to the future and reaching for dreams and happiness.