OrnothLand II

OrnothLand II
But if you know what life is worth, you will look for yours on earth.

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Newsprint - January-March 2008

OrnothLand Archives

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	Orny founded the longest-running electronic zine on the Internet. DZ prints fantasy fiction from aspiring writers.
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	Orny's cycling pages and the Pan-Mass Challenge cancer charity ride.
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	Ornoth's online journal, which contains longer writeups than can appear in these pages.
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	Orny's former roommate: Puggle di Mipp.
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3/23: Massive all-day team boating expedition around the British Virgin Islands, including the Batholiths at Virgin Gorda, snorkeling and lunch at Marina Cay off Tortola, and then drinks and a swim on the beach on Jost Van Dyke.

3/22: Finally said goodbye to the Best Western Emerald Beach and moved into our new oceanfront condo, which is way over on the East End of St. Thomas, near Red Hook.

3/20: Picked up a plum-colored Nikon S210 point-and-shoot digital camera to replace the S51 that I destroyed on the last Waverunner expedition. This is starting to get expensive, and I guess I should have just bought the underwater housing for my old S200 after all...

3/18: Literally barely survived a nightmarish flight from San Juan to St. Thomas on an American Eagle ATR-72. Never again! Read the gory details here.

3/17: Got to spend St. Patricks Day in Boston, and caught my grammar school buddy Scott Joy as he was a featured guest on the Internet radio webcast of the Stupid Cancer Show.

3/11: With all this travel I've been doing, I took some of my bonus money and ordered a travel bike that'll fold down into a standard airline sized suitcase. So in a month or two look for pictures of me in some exotic destination with a new Bike Friday Pocket Rocket!

3/9: Pushed my body even further by going across to St. John and hiking six miles over a big ridge from Lameshur to Reef Bay, where we had the whole beach and bay to ourselves, except for some stingrays, cuttlefish, and a barracuda which we saw while snorking it up. We also came across our first wild sharks of the trip, which was pretty breathtaking!

3/8: What a day! Took a pounding by spending an hour in the huge surf off Shark Island on a rented WaveRunner, and broke my second point-and-shoot camera in the process. Then we took a three-hour kayak, hiking, an snorkeling expedition out to Cas Cay with VI EcoTours. At one point I climbed to a rocky crag out in the surf, but got completely soaked when a big wave crashed over the outcropping I was on. After all that activity, I was pretty sore!

3/7: Snagged the PMCrider.com domain, and promptly set up a forward for myself using the subdomain ornoth.PMCrider.com. Now I can offer PMCrider.com subdomains to my fellow Pan-Mass Challenge riders!

2/26: I wisely opted out of beach football, but then I had to sub in when one of our guys sprained his ankle. Apparently I hadn't recovered from last week's game, because in separate plays I managed to pull both my left hamstring and right inner thigh adductor. Owie!

2/25: Picked up a new Nikon S51 point-and-shoot camera to replace the S200 that I dropped a couple days before at Sapphire Beach. The cameras are pretty similar, so no big deal here, really.

2/24: Drove up to Coki Beach and enjoyed some amazing snorking. In addition to flocks of very tame tropical fish, I came upon a beast-mother barracuda, We threw a few rocks at it, but it mostly ignored us, and we stayed a respectful distance away. The thing was probably four or five feet long, and looked mean as hell. Wow!

2/23: Spent the afternoon at Sapphire Beach, where four of us rented WaveRunners and and tore it up for half an hour in the heavy four-foot swells. But I also dropped my Nikon S200 point-and-shoot camera.

2/22: Financial "perfect storm". Not only was it payday, but I got a comp adjustment, back pay from the backdated adjustment, a big expense check, plus annual bonus. Happy day!

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Nurses 2/20: What a day! Beach football after work. Full lunar eclipse at Duffy's Love Shack. Hung out with a dozen nurses. We crossed the streams, but I opted out of the adolescent drama that ensued.

2/17: Ran into and greeted Pan-Mass Challenge founder and executive director Billy Starr on the street in Charlotte Amalie. He and his wife were on St. Thomas on a day trip from St. Croix. Small world!

2/16: Went to the beach at Magens Bay, which didn't live up to its rep. Hard sand, mediocre snorking, and a Jersey shore crowd density. It was still nice, but there are much better places on the island.

2/14: Vacation's over, but the endless summer isn't; flew back to the Caribbean again and reported for work back in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.

2/12: Inna and I had a final morning on Seven Mile Beach before hopping onto an airplane for our flights back to our respective homes after a nice, relaxing week on Grand Cayman Island. Remember, in the event of a water landing, jump five feet in the air like a freakin' maniac with your hands in the air!

2/11: On our last full day on Grand Cayman, I convinced a reluctant Inna to go check out the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, where she taunted the iguanas and stood underneath the ultra-toxic manchineel tree, followed by a great dinner at Deckers.

2/10: After a good swim, Inna and I rented Waverunner personal watercraft. It was a first for both of us, and a longtime dream of mine. It was really pricey, but a complete blast! Followed that up with a very good meal at Yoshi Sushi.

2/8: Spent much of the day in George Town, checking out the disappointing tourist shopping spots before a sunset dinner at Breezes, overlooking Grand Cayman's two official pirate ships, the Jolly Roger and the Anne Bonny.

Inna's butterfly 2/7: Inna and I spent yet another morning lounging at the beach, then we were off to the Butterfly Farm, plus some general sightseeing.

2/6: After spending the morning at world-renowned Seven Mile Beach, we drove all the way around Grand Cayman, taking in the surf at Breakers, the quaint East End, and the island's Mardi Gras celebration at Rum Point, which included a reggae band called Locomotion.

2/5: After returning from St. Thomas, turned around and left again to meet up with Inna for a long-planned week's vacation on Grand Cayman Island. We met up for the connecting flight in Charlotte, then took in the looming set of cruise ships in George Town harbor as we arrived.

2/4: Boston and the cycling world lost one of its most personable, approachable, well-respected, and beloved father figures, the esteemed Sheldon Brown of Harris Cyclery. His technical knowledge will be sorely missed, but I'll especially miss his calming influence in the too-contentious local bike advocacy scene.

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1/27: Took a nice ferry ride over to St. John and snorked around Lameshur Bay and Salt Pond Bay. I got a little sunburned, but saw stingrays, a turtle, cuttlefish, parrot fish, needle fish, a huge starfish, and a ton of other sea life.

1/26: Bought myself some snorkel gear and got back to the hotel in time for a quick snork around Lindbergh Bay. Snorking really hasn't appealed to me since elementary school, but I can see the value in owning a mask and a set of flippers.

1/25: After commuting back and forth from Boston each week, I kicked off my first full weekend stay in St. Thomas by getting into a dock party put on by the crew of Rising Sun, the fifth largest yacht in the world, co-owned by Larry Ellison and David Geffen. Followed that up by playing a round of Truth or Dare with a client!

1/22: Oops. It's okay, it's a rental.

1/19: Needing something light to read for a change, I decided to re-read Frank Herbert's "Dune", plus National Lampoon's parody "Doon", and the 1984 movie featuring Sting and Kyle MacLachlan. The book was okay, but the movie was just one immense failure. It really needed a laugh track...

1/15: Went to my very first strip club while down in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands for work. It was everything I'd expected: tacky, boring, hostile, and dangerous. I utterly fail to see the allure.

1/14: Sat for six hours inside a 757 watching seven inches of snow fall on Boston before they finally released our four-hour flight to St. Thomas for week two of the project in paradise.

1/9: Received the 2007 Pan-Mass Challenge Yearbook, the annual print publication that highlights why we ride and how much we�ve accomplished, both in the past year as well as over the 28-year history of the event. Check the PDF out here.

1/7: Left Boston's 7-degree temperatures behind and flew down to St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands, for the beginning of a new project at work. In addition to realizing the consultant's dream of spending the winter on a job in the Caribbean, Eric and I got to sit on the pilot's shoulder in a tiny little Cessna 402 for the flight from San Juan to St. Thomas.

1/1: Ushered in the new year with six hours of sitting, walking, and chanting meditation at CIMC.