Chopstork

I went on my first backpacking trip a few weekends ago with a bunch of veterans to show me the ropes—Luke, DP, Eli, Hattie, and DeLaura. Good times. Of course one of my pre-camping fears was, “I hope pooing in the woods isn’t too hard.” I’ve had difficulties trying to squat in public restrooms in Japan before—burning quads, trying not to fall, etc. This time I quickly discovered how easy it is if you just squat all the way down. How did I learn this beautiful technique? From the elevating porta potty video, previously posted here. See, you can learn things from TV…and Chopstork.

I got back and expressed the joy of my discovery to the others. Which surprisingly led to a discussion of different techniques. You mean it’s not standard-issue?

Today’s lesson: Methods for pooing in the woods.*

The Full Squat. Surprisingly easy. Discovered by girls (and Asians) long ago; shunned by the white man. No stamina required in the legs because you’re already all the way down. Actually leaves plenty of clearance between droppings and dropped pants. May require (minimal) practice to maintain balance.

The Half Squat. A futile farce to keep far from feces. Makes the quads burn. Takes a strong man to maintain. Maybe degrades gracefully into the Full Squat.

The Overbite. Mental comfort of being in a familiar physical position. Must invest time searching for that perfect log or rock (preferably with a view). Risk of tumbling backward if improperly sized object used.

The Middleman. Similar to the Overbite. Eliminates risk of falling over backward, but must find two objects adequately spaced. A well balanced option, though butt-cheek contact with foriegn surfaces appears necessary.

Lean Cuisine. A nice compromise between the Overbite and Middleman. Uses the cheek-lean technique on a single object, eliminating both tumble risk and two-object requirement. May be slightly more difficult to maintain over long periods than the parent methods.

The Whomping Willow. Similar to the Half Squat, but offloads the legs with some additional support. Must find a a tree with appropriately low and flexible branches. Risk of falling into the pile if the branch lacks adequate strength. If you’ve found the right tree, there should already be a hole for you.

*I haven’t tried most of these. The experts can comment on their personal favorites.

Update: Vote for your favorite method over in the sidebar! (Thanks to The Prophet for the suggestion)

There were two used tapes from the confessional booth Sunday morning. I thought that was weird since there were only two new tapes left out of a five-pack. Hmm… We watched the two tapes, and they each only had 2 minutes on them. Someone took one of the tapes. What a dick move!

Oh wait, nooow I remember—I switched the first tape, and I hid it. Don’t worry, I found it eventually. You’ll get to see the clips…some day. How many more things do I not remember from the party?

Ran down to the corner during the beer run, got tired, and lay down on the sidewalk to take a nap. Check. Thanks, Janelle for waking me up.

Started the feud with Eli—he said, “180 degrees … or pi radians,” in reference to flippy cups. So I punched him. Check. I could have sworn he started it with his head butting. In the end Red Strawberry beat me up as his proxy.

Break danced in the foyer. Check.

Wrastled Zach. Actually that one I did remember. I did it because Laura told me to. Then she told me to stop. Cuz she didn’t want him to get hurt.

And of course everyone remembers the biggest game of beer bump ever. Congratulations to Mr. Cross—the new Beer Bump Champion of the Universe.

Friends,

I got a very special email this Tuesday. Or rather, my namesake the senior manager in Bethesda, Maryland got it and eventually forwarded it to me. We had been cordially invited to a new event in the festivities of Peterman Going Away Week 2006. It was to be a farewell lunch, and invitees were to dress in Petermanesque attire. I knew right away that this was a big deal. There were going to be prizes, and I HAD TO WIN THEM. But, it wouldn’t be easy. There were going to be dozens of people in that Chipotle dressed like Peterman. Clever, creative people who have so much free time that they mod-out big-wheels and race them around the office. Just think of the competition I would be up against: business-casual Peterman, drunken Peterman, just-got-out-of-bed Peterman, and the biggest threat of all: just-got-out-of-bed-drunken-business-casual Peterman. So, I fretted until Wednesday came. I donned my best Polo shirt. I brushed off my threadbarest khaki’s. I forewent contacts for glasses. I combed my hair forward. I practiced lip-pouting. I may have prepared a speech. I knew I was close, but still, it wasn’t going to be enough. And that’s when I thought of an edge: I would carry a printout of Peterman’s MS Outlook calendar. The Peter-plan. Sheer. Utter. Brilliance.

I don’t want to brag, so let’s just say I smoked the competition.

Yours,
Steve Costansen

Ah, just like last year, I finished this thing wondering, “What the hell is going on? Where the hell is everyone? My phone’s broken.” Chaos. I know there were lots of farmers and farm animals with me and the barn when we got to the water (the ocean is a lot smaller than I thought). I also know that all of a sudden they were gone. Big Bird was trying to get into the black party bus, I went to see if I read the 36th Ave sign correctly, and then he was gone too. I tried to get on the bus, “Is there a tall corn in there? The corn’s our friend,” but they said no. Then I decided I had to find our cow in Speedway Meadows, while the Red Strawberry—and Laura on the phone before it shorted out in the rain—told me I should just go home. I put our broken barn in the cart, plus a basketball hoop, and started backtracking to the cow. Red Strawberry and her friend must have gotten sick of babysitting me, cuz at some point I ran across the street chasing something and when I turned around they were walking away.

I ended up in some field and ran into some SFSU girls that fed me drinks off a cart they’d pillaged. I think they were Annie, Trashley, Mai, and a redhead that had at least three red-head-related nicknames that I don’t remember…Miranda might have been one of them. She liked to call me Bunny Foo Foo and sing the song. We hung out and played kickball. It’s a shame I didn’t remember to run back across the street and get the basketball hoop I’d found. Some weird dude in long johns was there too. Never mind that I was dressed as a bunny rabbit. Eventually we walked across the park, through a deserted Polo Fields, and onto Lincoln where Trashley and Miranda were waiting in their car (when did they leave to get their car???), and they went home.

Finding myself alone in the Sunset, I figured I’d walk to Naan ‘n’ Curry (yummy) and hail a cab if one came. After no cabs came, it dawned on me that Paneer Tikka Masala is not worth walking 20 blocks in pink Uggs. Heading back into the park, I had a 10 minute conversation with a nice lady walking her dog so she could explain to me over and over how to get to Speedway Meadows. Which I did find, finally. But the cow was not there. Wet, cold, with sore feet and a broken phone, I finally gave up and hailed a cab on Fulton. And when the cabbie woke me up, I was home.

Turns out Big Bird was on the bus after all—they dropped him off at KFC and he brought chicken home for everyone. The first field, where I met the SF State girls, was either right next to Speedway Meadows or it was Speedway Meadows. And the cow cart had been left somewhere else in the park anyway. I love Bay to Breakers!

Oh yeah, here are my Bay to Breakers pictures, Courtney’s pictures, and Andy’s pictures.

Pictures from the Bird’s party supporting their support of the AFSP.

Hi everyone,

We wanted to thank you all for supporting Adrienne, Jeanette and I by coming to our party and/or donating to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to support our overnight AWARENESS walk. One of the main reasons we are participating in this event is to raise awareness in our community about depression and suicide. Your donations will benefit the AFSP, to fund research, education, survivor and awareness programs - both to prevent suicide and to assist those affected by suicide. If you would like to take a larger role, it is not too late to sign up for the walk or to volunteer to support it. Check out http://www.theovernight.org/. Spread the word - tell your friends and family about it. There is another walk in Chicago in August too! From your generosity we raised nearly $1500 so thank you very much!

Best wishes,

Linden & Jeanette

So besides the pictures, this post has little to do about this backpacking trip. Basically, I wanted to tryout the flickr blogging features. I have to say flickr pretty much rocks. You can checkout my flickr photos here or on flickr.

It’s been a couple months since anything has been added to the site. That’s because we had to update the site after getting mildly hacked, and it’s not all updated yet. Screw it, we switched to WordPress.

Anyway, a little update for now: Here are some new Urban Iditarod pictures. This year we went with a SF Fire Dept theme, with dalmatians of course, as Engine 51. I’ll have to put the movies up later.

• my pictures (on Flickr for now) If you log in to Flickr you can comment and add notes - pretty neat.
• some movies
• Eric’s pictures
• Julie’s pictures
• “Official” set by UI Staff photographer Joe Reifer
• Other teams’ pictures listed on the Laughing Squid