
Ambition – despair.com

Ambition – despair.com
Former SNL funnyman Chris Elliot has just published a new book called “Into Hot Air: Mounting Mount Everest,” a send-up of Outside Editor at Large Jon Krakauer’s famous work of nearly the same name. The book imagines it wasn’t Hillary and Tenzing Norgay who first bagged Everest’s summit, but Elliot’s adventurous and stone-crazy Great Uncle Percy Brackett Elliott, who subsequently disappeared. Hoping to solve the mystery, Elliot the younger sets off to hike the mountain with a cast of characters including Michael Moore, Martin Sheen, Kirsten Dunst and Tony Danza.

If this happened to you, are you prepared? Take the quiz: How to survive a polar bear attack.

Happily, hiking is one of life’s joys you can do your entire life, body willing.
My life to-trek list is still very long.

(via Bloglines)
Not much of a thru-hiking story, none the less I recommend this light-hearted, comic adventure.
Kintaro Walks Japan is a documentary film produced and directed by Tyler MacNiven. It is an account of MacNiven’s journey walking and backpacking the entire length of Japan from KyÅ«shÅ« to HokkaidÅ, more than 2000 miles in 145 days.
MacNiven cited three reasons for the journey. On his first trip to Japan in 2002, he fell in love with the country. It was on this trip that a friend nicknamed him “Kintaro,” which means “Golden Boy,” because of his blond hair. Occasionally accompanying him on the trip was his girlfriend, Ayumi Meegan, whose father, George Meegan, completed the longest unbroken walk in recorded history – a nearly 7 year sojourn from the southern tip of Argentina to the northern tip of Alaska. Inspired by their story, MacNiven conceived of the task after learning that his father, whose parents were foreign missionaries, was born in an unknown location in HokkaidÅ. Armed with a desire to impress Ayumi and find his father’s birthplace, as well as an interest in Japanese culture, MacNiven set sail to Japan. …
Kintaro Walks Japan – Wikipedia
You can watch the movie for free on Google Video (67min). Or buy it on Tyler’s official website .
Here’s a very short sample …

Kintaro Walks Japan – official website
(via Jaman)
Oct 15 is Blog Action Day. Bloggers are asked to post something to do with the environment…
GREEN is GOOD !!!
You see … I learned from TreeHugger.com that putting the word “Eco” in a blog post title brings in the readers. Don’t feel duped. Reading this post shows you care about the environment.
Remember, GREEN is GOOD.

screenshot
This blog produced with 100% recycled pixels.
Yes, the ecology is a good cause. Hikers are great advocates for wilderness.
But this is one blogger who has ECO-fatigue.
My latest tirade against branding with the word ECO are the EcoTaxis in Mexico. They drive around, empty, harassing tourists that conspicuously do not want a cab at the moment. A mobile oxymoron.
The real Ecotaxis are in Rome.
… you start seeing vistas like this:

It’s the vision of German airbrush-wielding photorealistic fantasy artist H.P. Kolb. His most popular creation.
hpkolb-gallery.de – the world of fantasy – Bestseller – Magic Mountain
Do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

Right Brain v Left Brain | Herald Sun
Stare long enough at the bottom foot with a half-dazed, drooling drooling facial expression, and she will switch direction.
(Via Gymnastics Coaching.)
Surfing a wave created by a calving glacier on the Copper River in Cordova, Alaska.
I don’t need this explained.

video on THE GOAT – Backcountry.com