5/31/02, 2:06 am

I'm just about packed. Tomorrow I leave for South America. Here's the message that went out to the travels list:

Dear friends,

I'm getting on a big ol' jet airliner this Friday bound for Lima, Peru.
This time, it's a family affair.

Packed into the plane with me will be my mom, our family friend Patty,
my guitar and various other travel knick-knacks. We'll be making a
pitstop in Atlanta to pick up my brother Will, and then later catching a
plane from Lima to La Paz, Bolivia to meet up with our travel guide for
the trip, my sister Jessica. Jess has been studying in Bolivia this
spring semester, and we'll be traveling with her through La Paz, Lake
Titicaca and La Isla Del Sol, into Peru to Cusco and Macchu Piccu and
then back to Lima.

I'm hoping it's a good recipe for adventure and I plan on sending a
story or two from the road back to this list. If you want to
unsubscribe, or subscribe with a different address, you can follow the
instructions in the header of this message or at
http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/travels.

And, for those of you wondering... Yes, the rubber ducky and the camera
are both coming on the trip.

Adios amigos,
Luke

5/28/02, 12:51 am

Update from today's mountain biking expedition: my ass hurts.

Seriously, though, it was a fun trip on part of the Greenbelt trail. We did a loop called Stillwell that was pretty intense (by Long Island standards anyway...) and then went south from there. Thirteen-and-a-half miles overall, and they were definitely physically challenging. My stepdad and his neighbor Kenny were good teachers and didn't admonish me for recklessly attempting (and, thankfully, being successful at) obstacles inappropriate for a beginner like myself. I look forward to doing it again.

Ed gave me a a cordless mouse for the PC that he was given gratis by Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield. If you happen to receive one of these, you'll notice that the scroll wheel is preprogrammed to got to Empire's website on click. This wasn't optimal behavior for me, and so I changed the site to a more desirable URL. If you find yourself needing to do the same, here are the Windows registry keys that you should change:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\KYE\NetScroll\CurrentVersion\Settings\RollerButtonWeb
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\KYE\NetScroll\CurrentVersion\Settings\RollerButtonWeb

I was hoping to be able to use it as a remote control for iTunes on my Mac... Maybe I'll point the RollerButton at a URL on my Mac that will trigger an osascript command to tell iTunes to stop or start.... Maybe tomorrow. Maybe when I get back from South America.

5/26/02, 11:02 pm

First place. I like the sound of that.

I played "grab bag fours" beach volleyball today on the south shore of Long Island in an East End Volleyball tournament. You get assigned randomly to a team. Today, with clouds keeping things a little chilly and rain making empty threats all day, there were five teams. Format was every team plays every other team twice in games to 11. The top three teams advance to the playoffs. 2 plays 3, and the winner plays 1.

And we won. We didn't lose a game all day actually. Our setter, Martin, was great (and a little crazy -- he went for a swim in the ice-cold ocean after the tournament!), and Aaron, a recent New York emigre from most recently from Austin is strong left-handed hitter. I had fun hitting power side and getting ample practice on my beach digs. After the last playoff game, someone told us we had won the first place prize of $120. It ended up not being true, but we did each get a nifty backpack.

The backpack (one of the trendy kinds with one strap... or maybe they're not so trendy anymore... trendiness tends to escape me) sat proudly on my back tonight on my trip uptown to have dinner with Judy and Ed. Pretty neat!

Speaking of Ed, the play he's in, "16 Wounded," has been extended a week. It's at the Cherry Lane Theater in the West Village through nest Saturday. If you're in New York, enjoy good theater, and interested at all in the Palistinean-Israeli conflict, I'd highly recommend going to see it.

Yesterday, I spent the day at Point Pleasant Beach on the Jersey Shore. I'd intended on playing in a tournament there with Matt, but missed the train and got there too late to sign up.

Tomorrow, I change gears to mountain biking (get it? change gears...) on Long Island with my stepdad, Michael. By the time dinner rolls around, I'm going to be mighty hungry for some of mom's cooking.

5/26/02, 12:19 am

The beach. The beach.

I love the beach.

I want to live in New York City but with a beach and a great smooth bikepath where I could rollerblade and watch the surfers. And urban skate culture and beach skate culture could be merged into a new thing.

And all of New York's songwriters would have another thing to inspire them.