Blog: Murphy’s Law

Blog Entry — January 28, 2009

Today, I decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro this summer.

Mount Kilimanjaro took two tries to spell — both ending in red, squiggly lines — before I ended up typing it into Google, writing “Mount_Kil” and letting it auto-finish.

I always feel **** when I mess up and get the Did you mean: mount kilimanjaro.

It’s so demeaning.

I feel more smarter when I make Google think I knew the spelling all along and just decided to cut a corner by letting it complete the words itself.

Way more smarterer.

Anyway, Mount Kilimanjaro — not Kilamanjaro — popped up and they actually gave a Google Maps preview.

The preview is a green block: check it.

Even when you click for a bigger map, you only see more green space, except for a little tiny road in the bottom-left corner.

That’s pretty helpful in locating the largest peak in Africa.

My church is doing the trip and something really made me want to go, even though I’ve only gone rock climbing once other than that time in an R.E.I. store.

And that time inside R.E.I. only happened once. So that makes two times for my career. I haven’t made Wikipedia for rock climbing yet.

But the opportunity is there, our summer work schedule is light, and pending DigitalSports-granted vacation I’m seriously considering giving it a go.

Since my soccer career ended playing left bench for Lake Braddock in 2004, I’ve maintained peak physical condition. I can handle this.

My cardio routine consists of: walking to my mailbox, pacing while my eggs cook every morning, riding a stationary bike while playing F.I.F.A.

I mean, I walked up Old Rag when I was in sixth grade. A 20,000-foot mountain in Tanzania is obviously my next challenge.

The group of 26 is doing a weekend trip to Mount Whitney, Calif., the highest peak in the continental U.S., in April to warm-up for the big trip in late June. Which is like saying, “I haven’t played tackle football since B.R.Y.C., so to prep for my try-out with the Ravens, I’ll hit up a few full-contact practices at Oklahoma.”

I thought 26 was a random number. Twenty-five makes more sense. Maybe they don’t plan on me making it back.

I don’t blame them.

I needed two suitcases to pack for a four-day, flag football trip to Tampa earlier this month. How in the world — I don’t really say “in the world,” but that’s what happens when I get edited — am I supposed to pack for a 16-day trip to TANZANIA and carry everything I packed up one of the Seven Summits?

Anything I’m too **** to know without searching Google, I’ll hyperlink. I don’t front.

Google also taught me that, though the base of the mountain is a jungle, there is a volcano about 17,000 feet up and equatorial snow the rest of the way. Figure that out.

Quick aside: I’m multi-tasking right now. Because that sounds so much better than procrastinating.

Friends of mine are getting married on February 15, two people I’ve known since sixth grade. Cute, I know.

So I click on their wedding registry and all that’s left to buy is Vera Wang stuff — absurdly expensive. I’m getting them like two things, because two hundy is enough to thank them for making me feel miserable on the day after Valentine’s Day about being single, with no marital prospects in sight.

That’s all FINE. It’s fine, really. But isn’t it weird to wish them a life of happiness together with a toaster and four engraved spoons??

It was either the spoons or this post-modern welcome mat.

The welcome mat at my townhouse is a pumpkin that has been frozen and unfrozen too many times since it was set on my porch in mid-October.

Screw it. I’m going with the spoons.

Happy life together.

This would normally be the part where I get back on track about Kilimanjaro. I’d keep taking pot-shots at myself for the planned 25-mile hike/climb in Africa in the middle of summer when I can’t jog to my car from the front of a grocery store without stopping.

But I’m tired, I played too much pool tonight at Q-Ball.

I have to love a job where I can play pool all night during the week and have to be up by 6 p.m. the next day.

It’s a job I love so much, I’m willing to leave it this summer. When I fly to Africa to die. In the heat, jungle and snow.

In a faded green square on Google Maps.