Statesward Bound
So my laptop was a lost cause and I returned to the island empty handed. My luck has failed to improve since… so much for karma. I’m presently trying to claim the computer and camera on my travel insurance, but I place about as much faith in insurers as I do pixie dust and unicorns. The downside of not having a computer is pretty much everything. My t-shirt designs and writing are on hold, I can’t sort through any pictures I’ll take in the meantime and it was the only form of entertainment at my house. I have no TV nor dvd player, no stereo, nada. The upside to all this, which is always good to look for, is that I’ve started reading more. A lot more. I’ve downed 4 books in 10 days because when I’m not diving I hardly have anything else to do.
First I read Into Thin Air for no particular reason. It is the firsthand account by Jon Krakauer of the disaster that unfolded around him on Mt. Everest in 1996. Quite incredible. Then I read a stinker called Last Light, some thriller about a hired mercenary in Panama. To make up for I then read the very tiring Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. Actually I’m still reading it in the background of all the others because its taking me so long. So far he has some incredible things to say on many subjects, but curiously a few points of striking ignorance as well. “I have lived some 30 years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of value or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing and probably cannot tell me anything”, he says. Bullshit says I. The verdict is still out on Walden, what I have read is much more good than bad, but I can understand where Bill Bryson is coming from when he calls Thoreau “inestimably priggish and tiresome” in the next book I picked up: A Walk in the Woods. This is Bryson’s comical and throughly entertaining account of his attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. Its also peppered with lots of trail history, botany and the life; not really my bag, but the rest is grand and I would recommend it. Thus concludes this episode of the Tyler Capps book club.
Another up/downside of my smashed laptop is that I have to actually “write.” You know, with a pencil and this old stuff people are calling “paper.” I bought myself a little notepad to write my entries (or whatever you want to call them) and record thoughts and things that pop up whenever and that’s nice. I can foresee it becoming just as indispensable as my camera, but the problem is this: My typing is nearly fast enough to keep pace with my thinking, but my handwriting is utterly hopeless. My hand has to scribble as fast as it possibly can to keep up with my head and I still have to stop and let it catch up. This leads to my speedy scribbles being hard for even myself to transcribe unless what I have just written is still fresh in my mind. God forbid anyone else ever has to try to read this notebook.
With the loss of my computer and my ever-dwindling money supply the time has come for me to return to the States, if only for a while. With the slow season on the island approaching many people are leaving and I could probably walk into a job pretty much anywhere, but it is so slow that I wouldn’t be able to sustain myself regardless. With the riots in Bangkok making international headlines people, sheepish as they are, are canceling their trips to Thailand. 90%, in fact, of the people traveling to Thailand have canceled and this is going to amplify the quietness here until things fall eerily silent on the island. The sad part is that Bangkok is completely traversable with hardly any other areas of the country being affected. Why must people in the modern world let the media hold such sway over their fears?
I have to say, though, I’m rather looking forward to going back at this point. I miss my family, I miss cold weather and mountains and snow. I’d like to stay over the winter and save as much money as I can, do some hiking and skiing with my brother and perhaps make a trip out West for some real skiing before I depart on my next adventure. What that adventure will be, I’m not too sure yet. Right now my thinking points me towards South America. All of it.
-Tyler