Snowshoeing on the last day of the first month of a new era

Hehe, I hope you enjoyed the title. Just having a little fun.

Today I went snowshoeing on Mt Spokane. I didn't know anything about the mountain, but it really is beautiful when covered in snow. I went with EPIC adventures, which is an outdoor program students can use for cheap at my uni. It was a blast. Maybe a two and a half hour hike total, up hill (both ways of course)



I had a long talk with a lot of cool people.


This is the little lodge on the mountain where we started. There were tons of cross country skiers there. It seemed like most of them were little kids, they were pretty cute.

This is the view right outside the lodge.

On the trail, it looks like something fell on a bug, haha.
The group on the path, I had to get on the side a bit to appreciate the trees, and this was a good picture opportunity


Isn't this weird? Apparently it just catches on the lichen and just sticks there.

It looks like somebody saying hi, haha. Maybe a dinosaur or something.

Such a pretty hike



If you look close at this one, you can see the big, dead tree, and next to it you see the baby tree growth. It's looking at its future.


From the summit. Wow.

Somebody made an igloo, hahaha.
It was really cool. We had a lot of fun inside.
This is a picture from where I was laying down. It was a great spot.
Epic provided a meal, and we all sat down and chatted. The couple had done some traveling in Montana, so we had a pretty good discussion about where we've been

I had a lot of this mix. It tasted really good, but mom would never believe it, haha. (I actually finished this off).


This is the victory shot. We started out at 11 am, and got back at 5 pm. What a day.


It was a great adventure, I'm definitely going to do it again, and they've got a sunset/moonlight snowshoe trip set up for the 14th (Valentines day, hmmm)
The trip leaders told me about getting a job in EPIC, and it sounds like a good gig. I'll look into it. But the guy in blue is a head man at the library, and said he would try to get me a job in the spring. We'll see how it all turns out on the job front.

A Language Against Itself

There is something I find sad within this country. The English language is greatly divided against itself. The vernacular is in grave danger. I became aware in a class earlier today that there is a great prejudice in the country against the residents of the South. But not specifically southerners. As Americans I hope that, while we have differences in religion and politics, we can still respect each other as fellows. But I appear to be wrong. The thing is that, when it all boils down to it, the thing separating us is the way we speak.

I'm not really talking about Spanish or German, this is almost specifically about the English. People don't realize it, but there are several distinct dialects of English. British English and American English are the most obvious. But getting deeper into American English we see the West Coast, North East, and Southern dialects. Those are gross generalizations, of course. There are variations in the east (like Maine and "Chicago") and many in the south, maybe for every state. But the point is, Americans tend to mock other regions for the way they talk.

What was disturbing about this was the immediate assumptions made after hearing the plight of South Carolina, all people would focus on was the vernacular of South Carolina. There was laughter at the way they said simple things. Just as we would say "hello" they said "hey y'all" but it was met by derision. I feel that to take away the beautiful and unique speech pattern from any people, is to commit a genocide against culture. It is an example of Fascism in a powerful state.

In his masterpiece Vernacular Values, Ivan Illich covers the, well, values of vernacular languages. The roll it plays in society, and the dangers of removing and replacing it. The Spanish language was was established by the same queen who ok'd Columbus, but was convinced by another lord to synthesize the it in order to replace vernacular languages, for the sake of controlling what they remember (for instance, the great things the queen has done), what they think of, even what they want.

If those who look down upon a vernacular and favor the synthesis want to know what our world would look like with their prescription, maybe they should read some Orwell. 1984's doublethink is the direction we may be going.

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My (sort of) first blog

I've jumped around from a few blogs, and never really got into it. I've got a couple out there with two or three posts, and then nothing after that. This time I'll do better. Some ideas, thoughts, and also pictures. So I'm just gonna jump right into it.