Nomad is on Island. I’m composing this in an office in Bellevue, which is an odd
experience… it's disconcerting to see someone you know in a
languorous island context appear all perky and corporate, moving
briskly among cubicles with sheafs of laser-printed arcana, interacting
in a loosely suited hierarchy, and otherwise doing things that seem
utterly foreign. Jeannie dropped into my life via Friendster
a little over a year ago, and since moving to my enclave in the woods
has mysteriously disappeared before dawn five out of every seven days,
only to return exhausted, 14 hours later, in dire need of drink and
dinner (in that order). Of course I have always believed her, in an
abstract sort of way, when she has related harrowing tales of
employment travails; but now I see where she actually goes.
It's another world out there.
For me, venturing off island
has become a big deal (unless it’s for an expedition, in which case
it’s an energizing inhalation… funny bit of psychology, that). Today
the motivation was to appear before the Island County Board of
Equalization, hat in hand, petitioning for a reduction in the assessed
value of a 5-acre piece of forest that has increased over 50% in the
past year with corresponding impact on my property tax bill. I made my
case, pointing out an adjacent “comp” that just sold for just over half
that on a per-acre basis, then moved on… meandering down Whidbey
Island and doing a recon mission to confirm the feasibility of
incorporating a 2-mile kayak portage on an upcoming mini-expedition.
Should be fine… there’s a “neck” on that huge island in the vicinity
of Penn Cove and Coupeville, allowing us to haul out Bubba and sistership at a public tideland, convert to road mode with the Paddleboy
“Heavy Lifter” cart, do an hour or so of hearty schleppage across Libby
Road and into Fort Ebey to camp at the marine trail site, then
re-launch on the western shore and paddle over to Port Townsend.
There's something alluring about amphibian nomadness…
All that
off-island running-about happened to coincide with the annual holiday
dinner shindig where Jeannie works; hence the odd context switch into a
corporate environment. Perversely, while she does adminish things and
development-biz buzzwords muffle their way through padded partitions,
I’m sitting here noting the flaws and details of their drop ceiling.
That’s my next job at Nomadic Research Labs, now that the Wall o'
Laurel is installed, so troffers and tees are very much on my mind. [Microship]