Come on now.

I thought Chicken Little was only a fable. 

(Thank goodness Wikipedia went un-dark.)

It was just a week ago I gave you a heads-up (pun very much intended) that something called a Phobos Grunt was falling out of the sky and dropping to earth at some undisclosed location.

Well, if you’re not dead, I guess it missed you.

I don’t know about you, but the reason you haven’t heard from me for the past week was a) I was hunkered down in a bunker, deep underground that lacked a wifi hotspot, and b) with Wikipedia going dark how did you expect me to look up anything?

Just as I took a peek outside, there is news that,

“A huge sunspot unleashed a blob of charged plasma Thursday that space weather watchers predict will blast the Earth.”

"Our simulations show potential to pack a good punch to Earth’s near-space environment," said Antti Pulkkinen of the Space Weather Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.”

(Note: I am not sure I would trust anything in writing from some place or someone called Goddard’s anything.)

I do appreciate when the scientists can stay calm and explain things in a clear manner,

“At their most intense, solar discharges — known as "coronal mass ejections" — can disrupt satellites, radio communications and the power grid, and force airlines to reroute transcontinental flights.”

But according to that story in the Washington Post, apparently, their first reaction was,

“Oh my God!”

Ain’t that reassuring?!?

It makes me wonder what kind of people work at those space centers.

That was just until I read that they have someone called a “Chief Space Junk Watcher”

While they should be handing out rolls of aluminum foil so we can protect ourselves in the great outdoors, they are more interested in watching junk burn up.

‘Heightened solar activity has a more tangible benefit: It cleans up space junk.”

While I’m worrying that this “Oh, my God” solar flare will melt my skin, those Goddard folks are all excited that the space trash, which I might add, they put there, will get vaporized.

Maybe I’ll come back out in another week.

It appears that the reported upcoming end of the world is getting a head start, at least if the weather is any indication.

While the ski resorts of the western United States are more brown and dry than white and fluffy, small towns in Alaska are sagging under the weight of mega storms that have left towering snow dumps 50 feet in height.

I’m packing for a trip from sunny California to the Wasatch mountains of Utah, which typically have some of the best skiing on the planet this time of the year.

Instead of ski boots and a parka, I’m packing sandals and sunblock.

It’s not that I haven’t been doing my part to prompt the snow gods to open the skies and coat the ski slopes with something other than dust. I’ve been looking skyward, just hoping for a hint of winter to finally fall.

And then I heard from the highest authority that basic cable has to offer that something called a phobos grunt is supposed to be falling to earth today.

Something about a fourteen-ton Russian spacecraft with 11 tons of toxic rocket fuel on board.

And to make things really interesting,

“Experts admit they have no idea when and where it will hit.”

 

What the hell?!? Is this what the beginning of the end looks like?

Well, at least that is what Stephen Colbert is telling us…

Maybe we should all just stay inside and catch the football playoff games du jour.

Or, at least, don’t look up.

The beautiful blond flirtatiously pulled her flowing locks away from her face. She spoke with rapture of rogues and freaks, thus immediately capturing my full attention.

After I quickly dabbed a slight bit of drool resultant from my nap, I realized that she was only on the television.

But, I could see that she similarly caught the eye of Jon Stewart. I wasn’t the only one drooling.

The alluring lady had an obvious penchant for good looking, athletic, manly-men…just like Stewart and me.

It’s a shame that the rogues and freaks she was enamored with were mammoth waves, and the good looking guy she was obsessing about was neither Stewart nor myself, but rather the Poseidon-like Laird Hamilton, arguably the most accomplished, yet beyond a doubt, insane big wave rider.

Apparently, it was something about the image of a stark, naked Hamilton hot-wiring a jet ski with iPod headphones, while in the middle of a tumultuous sea, in order to save the life of a fellow surfer.

The woman I was captivated by was Susan Casey, who was being interviewed by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show to promote her latest book, “The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean.”

“Part science lesson and part adrenaline rush, The Wave is an intense thrill ride that manages to take a broad look at oversized, potentially devastating waves. This dangerous water includes rogue waves south of Africa, storm-born giants near Hawaii, and the biggest wave ever recorded, a 1,740 foot-high wall of water.”

“The pioneer of extreme surfing is the legendary Laird Hamilton, who, with a group of friends in Hawaii, figured out how to board suicidally large waves of 70 and 80 feet. Also interviews [with] scientists exploring the danger that global warming will bring us more and larger waves.”

While this fantastic read had been sitting amidst my almost insurmountable stack of books I have accumulated, my timing to have just read it was somewhat prescient, as it’s show time over at Mavericks, the über surf site along the central California coast.

To quote those highly educated, eloquent journalists over at the Huffington Post,

“Cowabunga, dudes!”

In more understandable terms,

“The biggest, most exclusive surfing event in the Bay Area — and arguably America — has officially opened its contest window.”

Another site promised,

“The 2012 Mavericks Surf Contest expects giant Pacific swell. The best big wave surfers of the planet may be called at anytime to take off on the giant sets that will invade Half Moon Bay, California.”

Given that this competition is by invitation only, you might as well stay home and just check out the happenings posted over the interwebs. Websites are providing real-time surf conditions, webcam views, and offering long-range forecasts.

In years past, you might have ventured down to the nearby beach to watch the event along with the cowabunga dudes and dudettes, but due to a previous Charley Foxtrot, not this year.

“Dozens of onlookers were injured on the beach during [the last] event after behemoth waves surged onto the crowd. As a result, this year’s audience will no longer be allowed to watch the competition from its site.”

But, if you still have an undeniable urge to head down to catch sight of a surf-god, in person, the organizers have a not-quite-the-same-as-being-there option.

“Instead, interested parties must gather at a nearby hotel for a live video feed.”

As I have already attempted to drown myself out in the open ocean, if I am going to get wet and wild over this event it will probably be at the local brewpub, which even offers a brew with an appropriate moniker.

While I might not quite have the physique of that Laird dude,

I can still dream of waves that I might be able to someday conquer.

Finally, here’s a semi-secret shout-out to Susan Casey:

Hey, Susan, meet me next week at N37°38’81” W122°38’45”

Hopefully, the wife-person won’t mind my…ah…academic interest in her. Otherwise, the “impact zone” that Casey and Stewart discussed will be the side of my head and the “bleeding out” they mentioned will be my life’s blood emptying out onto the bar floor, while I weakly whimper,

“cowabunga, cowabunga, cowabunga…”

Being of the male variety of the human species I get easily distracted.

You know, the “Oh look, shiny object” syndrome.

Of course the term “shiny object” is just a metaphor for a whole manner of visual diversions that will draw me off course; some of which might involve the female variety of the human species, which I will leave at that, given the wife person may be lurking on the interwebs.

But, it is not just the stuff I might happen to see that causes me to lose track of my intended activity.

If I get a good whiff of any of the three major food groups in the vicinity, it’s off to the races I go.

This would include pizza, chocolate, and beer.

There aren’t many auditory amusements that will stop me in my tracks any faster than the sound—and often a visceral sensation in the chest—of a substantially-sized, booming drum circle.

I admit it. I am a percussion fanatic.

Since I would make a lousy Blue Man Group groupie (no, I’m not going to take a bath in blue dye) I love me a good drum circle.

Luckily, the annual Whole Earth Festival on the U.C. Davis campus always has one, or more, drum circles that go on day and night.

By my count, it is made up of the 99%, hippies—young and old—that is.

But, that is not until May, so what to do in the meantime?

Well, if you want to go to one of my favorite places on the planet, aim your sights for San Sebastian, in the heart of the Basque region of northern Spain.

They are celebrating La Tamborrada on January 20th, which is advertised to be a midnight-to-midnight drum session in honor of San Sebastian’s patron saint. Also, there is mention of an homage to 19th –century maids who tapped on buckets while at the city’s well.

One YouTube video I found was a bunch of white guys wearing white outfits and tall white hats. Thank goodness they were not of the pointy variety. But, that is one helluva knife the bandleader is waving around.

If the drumming finally gets to be too much (blasphemy), the Lonely Planet announcement of this festival mentions,

“After two long and loud nights, you’ll probably appreciate some quiet time on the city beaches of La Concha, which are among the best in Europe.”

By “best,” might they be referring to what the women are wearing on those beaches…or not wearing?

Makes me wonder if this is one of the Lonely Planet guidebooks by that Leif Pettersen dude.

Now what was I supposed to be doing? Damn those shiny objects…

I “had to” play bartender at our house for Christmas dinner. Yeah I know, tough job, but…

And before that, this friend of mine gave me a virgin fruit cake about a month ago, with the only instruction being,

“Just add rum.”

“Lots of it.”

But, I’m thinking I just might have overdone it. A lot overdone it. You see, after the first fifth, the excess kept running out the sides of the damn thing, until…

I was hoping to grab the beast as it floated by and was about to donate it to some poor street urchin—you know, in the holiday spirit, and all. Lots of holiday spirit, as it were.

But, then I caught a story about a 70-year old fruitcake that just sold to an Arizona man for $525, supposedly as an investment.

“We were a little surprised to learn bids for the fruitcake made by the Cincinnati-based Kroger Co. came in from all over the globe, including Japan, Australia and England.”

As the cake was reported to have been soaked in alcohol, maybe the guy figured he was investing in rum futures.

In a mostly unrelated story that deals with the subject of how our society seems to have a propensity to “go big,” I read a recent report that the United States Coast Guard is changing the rules for ferries.

“Coast Guard vessel stability rules that took effect nationwide Dec. 1 raised the estimated weight of the average adult passenger to 185 pounds from the previous 160 pounds, based on population information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

“During the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in obesity in the United States and about one-third of American adults are now considered obese.”

The intended result was to greatly reduce the number of passengers that a license ferry could transport with the goal,

“With that many passengers, the ferry wouldn’t tip over even if everyone ran to the side at the same time to look at a pod of killer whales.”

Or, possibly a rum-soaked fruitcake floating by.

Enjoy your New Year’s food and drink extravaganza. Just remember…that floater is all mine.

Happy Trails and see you next year.

“On TV, Dr Oz said that to reach inner peace we should always finish things we start.

We all could use more calm in our lives during the hectic Holiday season.

I looked around my house to find things I’d started and hadn’t finished;

So I finished off a bottle of Merlot, 

a bottle of Chardonnay,

a bodle of Baileys,

a butle of wum,

tha mainder of Valiuminun scriptins,

an a box a chocletz.

Yu haf no idr how fablus I feel rite now.

Sned this to all who need inner piss.

An telum u luvum.”

Season’s greetings to everyone of us.

Cheers.

Just over three months ago, official government climatologists with the United States of America issued a full-blown La Niña winter advisory.

But, here it is, just about Christmas and I’m seeing a lot more bare ski slopes than oodles of fluffy, wonderful white pow, as the hardcore skiers and boarders call it. (The “pow” part, not so much with the “oodles of fluff” description.)

Even the small-town newspaper where I live headed a story on the subject with,

“A year after epic skiing, Tahoe is dry.”

(For the record, the slopes are sans snow; the lake has not dried up, at least yet.)

The story went on to say,

“By this time last year, more than 7 feet of snow had fallen.”

Wasn’t it just last month when I excitedly mentioned movies which extolled last year’s truly epic season, with almost 70 feet of dumpage? In other words, oodles and oodles of fluff on top of more fluff.

That is the stuff that dreams—and Warren Miller movies—are made of.

Imagine my disappointment with the headlines last week that read, “Winter Forecast: Cloudy,” when just three months ago it was (in essence), RUN FOR YOUR LIVES—or at least, to the nearest tropical beach—IT IS FIXIN’ TO SNOW LIKE A BITCH. (I did say, “in essence.”)

If this keeps going, we may be told to run for our lives, but for an entirely different reason. A late breaking news story on a local television channel is informing us that a wildfire is burning just west of Lake Tahoe.

When you get the largest state wildfire agency in the country reporting a brush or timber fire in the middle of winter, well, it can’t be a good sign for skiing or boarding.

Wha’ happened, you ask.

O.K…I asked.

Leave it to the gov’ment to razzle-dazzle us with a bunch of scientific mumbo-jumbo—and graphs, and stuff—like,

“A negative Arctic oscillation, which pushed bitter northern cold into the United States, and a periodic cooling of the North Pacific, known as the negative phase of the Pacific decadal oscillation, which amplifies a La Niña effect.”

But, they go on to use a little less nerd-alert meteorological language by telling us,

"It’s been a strange La Niña. [It] is tamer than last year.”

Ya think?!? I mean, if it goes much longer, my skiing will look like this:

Of course, after a beer, or two, these weather dudes and dudettes will break it down in even simpler terms by telling us,

“The weather pattern’s been kind of screwy.”

Not surprisingly, they conclude that all of this is just one more sign of the impending doom that manmade climate change is harboring.

In other words…it’s all your fault.

Happy Hanukah and if I don’t catch you again before Sunday, have a Merry Christmas.

The byline for the recent film festival of extreme outdoor activities read,

“The next best thing to doin’ it.”

This, of course, is a lie.

It is nothing at all like “doing it.”

Which—for me—is exactly why I would rather be watching a movie while sitting in a heated auditorium, holding an adult beverage, rather than being with the almost frozen-to-death guys I am watching, as they attempt to climb some obscure 8,000 meter peak in Pakistan. Oh, and it was in the middle of winter.

The movie, by the name “Cold,” which could not have been named anything more understating the conditions, documented the ascent of Mt. Gasherbrum II. Calling the climb brutal would be yet another gross understatement.

Similar to the adrenaline-generating genre of the Banff Mountain Film Festival offerings, which I have attended and reported on, the recent Tahoe Adventure Film Festival provided plenty of presentations to promote extreme outdoor endeavors, which will either scare the shit out of you, or your mother if she finds out what you are attempting to do out there.

Think, going downhill on winding, paved roads at 70 miles per hour on a skateboard. Yeah, that would do it.

That was almost as threatening as the dope-slap the wife person applied when she caught me staring and drooling—just a bit—over the well-sculpted dancers gyrating provocatively in skimpy outfits and platform boots that greeted us as we entered the MontBleu casino theater at Stateline, South Lake Tahoe.

After the last film reel was spent, while the youthful crowd departed the showroom on their way to the after-show dance party, with the snowboarding Hatchett brothers’ 80′s metal band Fortress providing the tunes, the wife person informed me that it was time to go.

To quote Christopher Hitchens before his most untimely death yesterday,

albeit addressing more serious exits,

"It will happen to all of us that at some point, you get tapped on the shoulder and told not just that the party’s over, but slightly worse: The party’s going on, but you have to leave."

 

Which is kind of what the wife person was telling me as she was tapping me on the shoulder, while herding me to the nearest exit.

With the weather prediction of early morning temps around 10ºF who wouldn’t want to load up the night before on medicinal anti-freeze?

Mine happened to come in a bottle labeled Tahoe Moonshine whiskey, a local product.

And the best place to do that was that the annual Ullr’s Night of Sacrifice at a local casino. As I’m sure all my thousands of readers will recall, last year I reported on my pilgrimage to the place where we pray for massive amounts of snow dumpage for our outside winter obsessions, e.g. downhill sliding—or as practiced by more competent people than myself—downhill skiing.

As it was, spirits from the local micro-distillery was not the only adult beverage flowing in great quantities.

The Official Girls of Grand Marnier were there offering Shot-Skis.

(For those unfamiliar with that device, eHow offers instructions on constructing and using yet another alcohol delivery system.)

Not surprisingly, the GM Girls begged to take a picture with me.

“Oh, alright, if you must,” I said. “Maybe we should stand closer. Much closer.”

The photographic evidence notwithstanding, my hand was NOT on her…ah…lower, backside area.

What the picture does not show is the wife-person standing about four feet away, with her mostly empty glass of Marker’s Mark and Diet Coke, in the fully cocked—and ready to fling at my head—position.

But, I digress. I was up there to view the lunar eclipse in the crystal clear clarity of the high elevation sierra sky.

At about 5:00 A.M. (for some reason, my eyes could not focus on the time) we put on 12 layers of winter clothing and packed up the necessary survival gear, and by necessary, I mean, a thermos of hot chocolate and 90-proof Ullr peppermint cinnamon schnapps.

We crossed into Nevada and drove along the east side of Lake Tahoe to a beach called Logan Shoals.

After a short walk with minimal stumbling over the rocks in the pitch darkness, we waited and watched and waited (thank goodness for our thermos of body warming and numbing magic potion) until I was able to capture the picture, below, of the full lunar eclipse over the west shore of Lake Tahoe.

Originally, we planned on hanging around to catch the selenelion and syzygy, the rare condition when both the sun and the fully eclipsed moon can be seen at the same time, where,

“the sun and moon are exactly 180 degrees apart in the sky; so in a perfect alignment like this, such an observation would seem impossible because if the sun is above the horizon, the moon must be below the horizon and completely out of sight (or vice versa).

But, since our “provisions” were consumed and our feet were frozen, we did not hang around and decided to head back to California and the warmth of the great indoors. I’ll take their word that it did happen.

After the night before and the morning of, I can summarize the story by saying; a good nap was had by all.

Sometimes seeing red is not a bad thing.

Set your alarm for dark-thirty Saturday morning, grab a cup of coffee—or, if you’re like me, a flask of 100 proof Rumple Minze (hey, a guy’s gotta stay warm out there)—and go find a place to watch the moon set.

You will treat yourself to a deep red full lunar eclipse.

It is supposed to be spectacular, at least according to the rocket scientists over at NASA.

The video, at the end of this blog post, gives the particulars, explains the “why” and answers the age old question, “why is the moon so much bigger when it first rises in the evening?” (Note: the answer may surprise you.)

If my camera functions properly and I don’t consume too much schnapps prior to the maximum penumbral phase, expect to see some photos come next week.

If I were you, I would go out and see it for yourself. I would be the first person to say, I can’t be trusted.

Especially when I get my hands on a full flask of the strong stuff.