Return to the Joshua Tree... Or Very Nearly

Last year, Lady Jaye and I got our passports renewed in preparation for a family cruise to Alaska that took place in July. Ironically, we didn't disembark for the port visit to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. So, with our anniversary approaching, Lady Jaye began looking into potential trips to Canada that we could take in order to use our new passports.

She failed... Or did she?

As she was searching for accommodations, she stumbled across a listing for La Luna Cabin outside Yucca Valley, California. Immediately, I told her that this would be a great idea for an anniversary vacation. So, she booked it, and a few weeks later, we flew from our home to Las Vegas, rented a car, and got on the road.

I've occasionally mentioned my history with the Mojave Desert, near the edge of which one can find Yucca Valley. In February of 2006, I applied for a job at Fort Irwin with Raytheon, was hired, and relocated to Barstow to work as professional OPFOR in Army training exercises. I was classified as a "Civilian on the Battlefield" and even featured - very briefly - in a 2008 documentary. You can also read about a 2008 BBC podcast covering the training at Fort Irwin here, and you can actually listen to it here.

I had originally intended to stay for between three and five years, but a variety of factors led me to seek other opportunities, and I left for Virginia after little more than fourteen months. While I had been back to California twice since leaving, July of 2023 marked sixteen years since I had set foot in the Mojave Desert. So, I thought a trip back to my old stomping grounds was a great idea!

So, we flew into Las Vegas, picked up our rental car, got something to eat, and got on the road. As I mentioned, I lived in Barstow, and the initial leg of our trip took us from Vegas to Barstow along the route I had taken several times in years past, when I was flying out of Vegas to visit home. Interstate 15 from Vegas to Barstow is quite the stretch of territory, with a mixture of failed and struggling settlements, and no shortage of dessicated detritus littering the desert. Additionally, a long stretch of the highway runs along the southwest quarter of Fort Irwin, affording me occasional glances into the training area, as well as repeated glances at Tiefort Mountain. In 2006, when I first arrived at Irwin, one of my co-workers repeatedly told me - literally, about six times during a two minute-long lecture - that "Tiefort Mountain is the biggest sumbitch out here, so if you ever get lost, you just sight in on Tiefort, and you can find your way home." I snapped a photo, sent it to some of my former co-workers, and we kept moving.

I had only ever driven past the settlement of Baker. On this trip, we stopped so that Lady Jaye could witness the glory of the World's Tallest Thermometer, and a nearly defunct TCBY location. On our way back, we ate at the legendary Mad Greek restaurant.

When we arrived in Barstow, I gave Lady Jaye a quick tour, showing her where I'd lived, where I'd bought groceries, where I'd gone drinking with my co-workers, and the main drag through town. With that over - honestly, Barstow didn't seem much different than it had been when I left, but I don't know that I'd exposed myself to much of the city during my residence there - we got on the road to Yucca Valley. During my brief season in Barstow, I had driven the routes from Barstow to Vegas (I-15), Laughlin (I-40), and back home to Oregon (US-395). I think I may have taken California State Route 247 south of Barstow for a mile or two, but never as far as Lucerne Valley, and certainly never as far as Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, or Twentynine Palms. On the advice of a neighbor, I had deliberately avoided Joshua Tree National Park. I thoroughly enjoyed the drive, which felt like a mix of familiar terrain and unexplored territory.

Aside from a memorable dinner at The Copper Room (where our waiter looked like a young David Koresh) and two lovely dinners at Yucca Kabob, we bought groceries and made a lot of our own meals. Lady Jaye went on a lot of walks around the cabin, and I joined her for several of those. The cabin itself featured twin soaking tubs on the back deck, of which we made copious use.

Our big adventure was two mornings spent in Joshua Tree National Park. Lady Jaye read online that the best place to take sunrise photos in the park was at the Cholla Cactus Garden, where the Mojave Desert transitions into the Sonoran Desert. Mea culpa: tasked with navigation, I took a wrong turn on the first morning, and we nearly ended up driving out the northwest entry gate toward the city of Joshua Tree, instead of arriving at our planned destination. Lady Jaye was furious, and the situation was tense. We ended up driving back to our original destination to confirm the route for the next morning, then doing a bit of hiking at the Arch Rock trail, taking in both Arch Rock and Heart Rock. (A couple of months later, I happened to see Arch Rock as the Windows welcome screen!) We drove around a bit more, then enjoyed breakfast at Crossroads Cafe in Joshua Tree.

The next morning, we made it with time to spare, and got situated a few minutes early. Our goal of taking sunrise photos was partially foiled by a massive cloud that blocked the sunrise, but the cloud eventually shifted enough to allow for some great shots of the faint glow of the cacti in the morning light. From there, we went to do some hiking at the Hall of Horrors, and later at the Barker Dam Trail. Between those two hikes, we drove up to the Keys View overlook point, which was - for me - one of the highlights of the trip.

Of course, our adventures in the park led to some Googling, which revealed a great website Cali49, which boasts a lot of features on the park (including the defunct Golden Bee Mine, overlooking the Cholla Cactus Garden). It joins Tom Mahood's OtherHand website, and the Wonderhussy Ghost Town Living YouTube channels, in fueling both my fascination with the Mojave Desert, and my regret at having explored so little of it during my brief tenure as a resident therein.

For these, and other reasons, I want to figure out a way to spend a bit more time there. Will it happen? Who knows. How will I make it happen? An even better question... But, as Wilfred Thesiger so rightly noted:

"The desert had already claimed me, though I did not know it yet."

So... More on that to come, I suppose.

Changing Fluids

I've lived in the United Kingdom twice, and in the Middle East once. The United Kingdom introduced me to tea, and refined my taste in alcohol. The Middle East was basically devoid of alcohol - Kuwait being a dry country, and my travels elsewhere in the region being fairly limited - but further ingrained tea culture into my system. A year in Scotland left me with a taste for a dram of twelve-year-old Highland Park Scotch whisky, and time spent in West Sussex and Kuwait eventually led me to prefer Ahmad Tea's loose leaf Earl Grey - oh, and Rakkasan Tea's Himalayan Black Dragon oolong.

Recently, I've had occasion to discover a new variety of grain alcohol that I've been enjoying, and a new tea that I'm trying out. So, I figured I'd share.

On a recent trip to Portland, I visited the Oregon Afghan Halal Market, and purchased a bag of Afghan style Saffroni Dholla green tea. I've had a few cups of it, typically with a couple of teaspoons of sugar in an attempt to replicate the Afghan style. Quite honestly, I find it fascinating that only a single website on the Internet shows any indication that this stuff exists, but whatever, right? By the way, the only reason I knew to look for a special Afghan green tea was because of a Veterans Day marketing E-mail from Rakkasan Tea.

On a side note: if you're in Portland, you should swing by the Oregon Afghan Halal Market and buy something. If you're anywhere where you can support Afghan refugees in America, you should do what you can.

Anyway, at some point in either February or early March, I had occasion to grab a bottle at my local liquor store to take to a buddy. I found a cheap bottle of huckleberry whiskey, and gave it to him almost as a gag gift. We both decided to sample it, and it was actually really good. I don't know how available it is nationwide, but it's Porter's Huckleberry Whiskey from the locale that's known for its bourbon purveyances... Ogden, Utah? Okay, so that doesn't make a ton of sense, but trust me, the stuff is good, smooth, easy to drink. I definitely recommend it.

Am I bailing on Highland Park or Ahmad's Earl Grey? Of course not, but as they say, variety is the spice of life.

NOTE: Originally posted in April, and accidentally posted to Operation Highlander. Oops.

Digital Investigation: The Missing Gymnasium

In 2007, I moved from a remote area of California into the metropolitan area of Hampton Roads, Virginia. One of my goals upon moving was to find somewhere to swim laps. Shortly after my arrival, I visited a gym within walking distance of my apartment, walked in, and asked a single question: "How much would it cost me to swim laps in your pool?" Instead of giving me an answer, the representative behind the desk gave me a complete facility tour, then tried to hype me up on the value of Muscle Milk Bars, before finally giving me some sort of price list. I thanked her, left, and never set foot in the building again.

A few months ago, I was reminiscing about the incident, and couldn't remember the name of the gym. So, I tried to look it up, and found that it's gone. Wait... What? The building was on River Birch Run, opposite Greenbrier Mall from Greenbrier Parkway. But, as one can see from the current map that the only present businesses on that block are a Firestone Complete Auto Care, an MRI clinic that was under construction in September of 2007, and a retirement complex for senior citizens. I was stumped, and even creative Googling didn't help.

I finally found part of the answer: a literal missing building. Since it was on the periphery of a mall parking lot, Google Street View offered multiple angles on the building, revealing it to be a Bally Total Fitness. Remember those?

Well, apparently the company started selling off assets around 2011, and the chain itself ceased to exist by late 2016. A quick Google search failed to determine when the Chesapeake location closed.

This may seem like a really trivial thing to post about, but it had me really curious, and it ended up taking some modest sleuthing skills to work out. I also remain stunned that a perfectly good building wasn't sold off and repurposed, either by a different fitness company or some entirely different tenant. Now, all that remains is a patch of grass and a disused, presumably deteriorating parking area. That just seems strange.

As for me, I eventually started swimming, intermittently, at several branches of the local YMCA. I frequently ran into two major issues: seasonal electrical storms that forced the temporary closure of the pools during the timeframe when I was usually there, and high school swim teams that were allowed to take up the entire pool facilities. I probably could have adjusted my own schedule if my fitness had been a high enough priority, but it wasn't, and I didn't. Such is life.

PRE-PUBLICATION UPDATE: Oddly enough, when you start Googling "Bally total fitness," you get video recommendations. As it turns out, around a year ago, some guy back in Chesapeake made a video about this very Bally's location. Here it is...


... and the bottom line from a video that's about three times as long as it needs to be is that the building was probably condemned, and demolished in lieu of being rehabilitated into something suitable for another business to occupy.

Fueling the Fires of Civilization: The Perfect Shave

I officially started to develop a bald spot around the time that I was twenty-three years old. Most of the men on either side of my family are bald, so it wasn't much of a surprise. By the time I reached my late twenties, I would occasionally go for a full shave, but usually had my barber manicure a tighter and tighter patch of hair. When I arrived in the Middle East in late 2010, I finally committed to the "bald is beautiful" look.

Some of my fondest memories of Kuwait were the hours spent, usually every other week, in the barber's chair. My Pakistani barber, Mohammed, would send his cousin to get me a cup of tea, and then shave my head, style my beard, and give me a back massage. That treatment was suspended when I repatriated in early 2012, and then resumed six months later when I arrived in Aberdeen for graduate school. There, I found a Turkish barber shop, staffed by Orhan from Turkey, and Yari and Alex from Iran. Same thing: cuppa, head shave, beard trim, back massage. The Aberdeen contingent added something I don't remember from the Kuwaiti sessions: ear hair singeing utilizing fire.

Turkish barbers are tougher to come by in the States, so I eventually had to develop my own shaving methods. For a long time, that involved a mustache and beard trimmer, followed by hot water and a double-bladed, fixed headed Gilette disposable razor. I still prefer that particular razor for some circumstances, but when I got married, my buddy Caleb sent me a fantastic shaving set that I've gotten a lot of use out of.

This started with the handle: a Merkur Mk34c Double Edge Razor with Heavy Duty Short Handle. Accompanying this was a pack of Feather Double Edge Safety Razor Blades, platinum-coated, and manufactured in Japan. When I found myself running low after a couple of years, I invested in a pack of (I think) one hundred; at present, the fifty pack seems to be the best available option.

Caleb recently reported that he's "upgraded" his own setup to include the fancy new design from Henson Shaving. If you're just starting out, or have to have the newest thing, give it a try; for me, I'll probably be using that Merkur equipment for the rest of my life. What can I say? Henson is Canadian, and Merkur is German. I have a German dog, a German car, and I'm predominantly German in my personal heritage, so it just makes sense, right?

That takes care of the razor itself. How about the lather? Caleb got me a combo pack of Pacific Shaving Company's Caffeinated Shaving Cream & Aftershave. I find myself going through a lot more of the shaving cream than the aftershave, so I've replaced it a few times. As for building and applying the lather, Caleb sent a Fento Badger Hair Shaving Brush and Chrome Razor Stand. This doesn't appear to be available anymore, but Amazon's current best-selling option seems to be the Perfecto 100% Original Pure Badger Shaving Brush.

It's worth noting that in recent years, as one might expect in the current social climate, badger hair brushes have generated some controversy due to questions about animal cruelty, particularly when sourced from Chinese manufacturers. I'm no proponent of animal cruelty, but the entire point of "Fueling the fires of civilization" is to embrace traditions. So, I'll probably remain a proponent of actual badger hair, but it's worth mentioning the issue so that people can make informed decisions about what they use, and where they source their supplies.

A few years ago, I saw a video about lathering up, and that video recommended a run-of-the-mill stainless steel dog food bowl. I bought an 10-Pint Our Pets Durapet Bowl from our local pet supply chain, and it works great. Disliking the appearance of a dog food bowl on our bathroom counter, my wife bought me some classy looking concrete bowl. I tried it, but it didn't work as well. So, I still use the dog food bowl, but once it dries out, I try to stash it underneath my sink. No small part of being civilized involves the work of maintaining a happy home.

A few lines up, I linked to a video from a Scottish company called Executive Shaving. I've never used any of their shaving supplies, but their shaving tutorial is the best one that I've found on the Internet. Once you have your supplies - or even if you're just going to stick with a disposable razor and hot water - the video below is worth your time to watch.


I almost forgot: a few years ago, a friend randomly sent me a can of Lumber Prince Beard Balm. I use it on occasion, particularly when trimming up my beard. It does a great job of softening my whiskers. I'd definitely recommend it.

The only thing I'd add at this point is that if I haven't shaved my head for awhile, I'll buzz my hair short with a mustache and beard trimmer, then shave it closer with an electric razor, then finally implement the process described in the Executive Shaving video. I'll just add that however you're shaving, and irrespective of what you're shaving, be careful - cuts aren't fun!

All Good Things: BBC Arabic Takes a Hit

Last week, I learned that earlier this year, the BBC World Service discontinued broadcasts in ten foreign languages. Among these was the BBC's Arabic Service, which had been broadcasting to the Arab world for more than eighty-five years. For me, this marks not only the end of one of the more consistent and reliable Arabic audio streams, but also the end of the BBC Xtra podcast.

al Jazeera: BBC Arabic radio goes off air after 85 years

Middle East Economy: Hundreds of jobs lost following BBC Arabic radio transmisson stoppage

Arab News: End of an Era: BBC Arabic Radio goes off air after 85 years

Zawya: BBC's Arabic radio service bids farewell to the world after 85 years of broadcasting

Daily Mail: BBC World Service is to cut 382 jobs and will AXE Arabic and Persian radio stations under plan to make more of its broadcasts 'digital only'

For the uninitiated, there are actually two BBC entities that sort of coexist like conjoined twins in the same ecosystem. The domestic British Broadcasting Corporation, often affectionately referred to as "Auntie Beeb," provides domestic programming to the British audience (though some of those program(me)s are subsequently proliferated to other countries on outlets such as BBC America). "Auntie Beeb" is funded by the infamous licensing fee, by which any Brit who owns a television (and maybe a radio?) pays a fee for it, which goes to support the BBC, public broadcasting style. The other twin is funded by the British Foreign Office, and focuses on the production of content aimed at informing and engaging an international audience.

The Arabic service celebrated its eightieth anniversary in 2018, and the History Extra podcast - a production of the BBC domestic service's BBC History magazine - used the occasion to interview one of the BBC's executives, Wissam El Sayegh. Five years later, and even under these unfortunate circumstances, it's still worth the listen.

I experienced the BBC's Arabic Service in three contexts. The first was in either late 2007 or early 2008, when I discovered the BBC Xtra podcast. That was not too terribly long after its 2005 debut. It's since jumped around a bit, but you can catch the last few episodes here, at least for a limited time. I retain a cache of dozens of episodes of Xtra from the period ranging from around 2007 to around 2013, and a handful of later episodes. I had started studying Arabic in mid-2005, with very few resources easily available to me, and Xtra was great because it's consistent format helped me to learn words and build an understanding based on what I knew was going on. I paired Xtra listening sessions with lessons from ArabicPod.

The second incarnation, which I would have experienced intermittently starting around the same time, was the live Internet stream of the BBC's actual Arabic Service, which would broadcast the Xtra programs, but also offered other programs and live news coverage. Same idea: listen, identify different segments, and learn words and phrases. The live stream was the Internet-accessible version of the BBC's aforementioned long standing Arabic radio service, which broadcast across the Arab world. During my own stint living in Kuwait, when I drove alone, I'd regularly tune the actual, bona fide radio program in on 90.1 FM - though if I'm being honest, I was usually more likely to tune in the BBC World Service's English programs on 100.1 FM.

I had noticed a couple of months ago that my previously successful efforts to access the BBC Arabic Service via the Radio Garden app had begun to fail. As stations occasionally disappear and reappear, I didn't pay it much mind, but then I decided to do some Googling, and discovered the sad news: that not only had the BBC shut its Arabic service down, I'd missed the whole thing. I managed to download the crew's farewell special. Even though my Arabic was never strong, and has deteriorated significantly since I left Kuwait more than a decade ago, I was able to get the gist of the various conversations. It was a bittersweet listen.

The BBC's official position is that this was a difficult decision to make, that it was driven by the restrictive budgetary environment in the United Kingdom following Brexit, and that their goal is to focus on digital content. So, maybe there's room to hope that some incarnation of the BBC's Arabic radio content may return at some point. In the meantime, I'll pat myself on the back for saving as many episodes as I did, and continue to enjoy those episodes when I resume my Arabic studies... Soon, hopefully.

Self Control and My Big Mouth

"All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison."
- James 3:7-8

At some point when I was in college, I stopped into the parking lot of my high school to get my car washed by one of the teams of female athletes, who were running a fundraiser. I ended up briefly meeting their coach, who may have also been a teacher, and found out that she was engaged to a guy I went to high school with. The conversation somehow produced the key data point that she was engaged to a guy I'd gone to high school with, and I said something to the effect of "Wow, that's too bad, because that guy is a jerk." She politely expressed her dissent, and that was the end of it. We never ran across one another again.

In high school, I was voted "Most Outspoken" in my graduating class. One of my student newspaper advisors gave me an end-of-year award for "always being willing to share his insights on the world"; and my AP English teacher gave me an award that translated to "Most Self-Righteous," though that was at least partially in jest, because he also gave me an award at the same end-of-year event that said "Most Likely to Pose for a Nerd Poster." The obvious take-away is that those who knew the high school incarnation of me thought that I talked too much, and also that what I said rendered me somewhat unpleasant to be around.

I like to think I've gotten better of the years. I look back at many situations in my life, think to myself that I should have kept my mouth shut, and I try to let those regrets inform my behavior. I make an effort to listen more, and to talk less. My tone and many of my positions have moderated over the years. In some cases, I've been known to de-escalate or mediate situations, rather than escalating them. I like to think that there's almost nobody on the planet that I wouldn't buy at least one beer for, and willingly sit for ten or fifteen minutes of discussion, unpleasant though it might be.

I don't know what made me remember speaking to that coach at that car wash on this bright, beautiful June morning - wait, yes I do, I saw a photo of a woman who reminded me of a friend whom the guy in question once bragged about having taken advantage of while she was drunk, in earshot of multiple people. Anyway, as I reflect on it, it's one of the few examples of me opening my big, stupid mouth that I don't regret. That guy was a jerk, and I was right to say so.

Operation Alchemy, Dispatch #1: Metaphors for Being Too Busy

When I was a freshman in high school, Switchfoot released their debut album, The Legend of Chin. One of the strongest tracks on a truly classic album was Life and Love and Why, which featured one line in particular that's always stuck with me: "Give me a reason for life and for death, and a reason for drowning while I hold my breath." At the moment, I find myself reflecting on that line, and a litany of others. I feel "buried alive." I feel like I'm "trying to boil the ocean." In the opening pages of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic trilogy, the author has Bilbo saying, "I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

I suspect that it's a feeling that most people can identify with: trying to accomplish things beyond one's capacity.

By the way, dear reader, that is a dram of twelve-year-old Highland Park single malt Scotch whisky. It's a fine facilitator of evening reflection.

Shortly before I turned forty, and additionally since then, I've been working on a sort of five-to-ten-year plan called "Operation Alchemy": the creation of something greater than its constituent components. A full accounting of all of the various components is another topic for another day, but the concept basically boiled down to this: assuming for the sake of arguments that (1) forty marks the halfway point between my birth and my death, and (2) my life hasn't played out the way that I had originally expected, and (3) I want to feel as if I've accomplished something when the end comes, (4) I'd better start planning for what I want to accomplish, and how to ensure that I actually accomplish it.

Honestly, even just planning this whole thing has taken forever. I'd say that I'm really still just in the initial phase. Even just moving from planning to execution requires me to finish up some projects and get myself organized. That's involved things like going through basically all of the documents and paper detritus that I'd accumulated over the last twenty years - actually, probably more like twenty-five - and either sorting it, or boxing it up for shredding. It's involved organizing and consolidating my digital files, and eliminating redundancies, so that my digital porfolio is easier to access and use. It's required me to consolidate my belongings and organize the work area that I've tried to establish in my garage. In early 2022, I finally obtained my Physical Security Professional certification. These are just a few examples. There are plenty more.

A lot of this was difficult between mid-2014 and mid-2017, when I was living on the East Coast and only had a small subset of my personal belongings with me. Of course, I look back to the period from 2007 to 2010, when I could have done some of that sorting, and didn't; and other, shorter periods in 2012 and 2014, when I had the time and apparently didn't have the foresight to utilize it. A lengthy global pandemic that largely confined me to my home was, on paper, a great time to work on all of that, except that we semi-unexpectedly brought home a specimen of one of the more notoriously demanding dog breeds, just as we were beginning to hear rumblings of something out of the ordinary happening in China. (When we initially contacted the breeder, we expected to land on a waiting list for a few months, but they'd just welcomed a litter, and the sole puppy that wasn't spoken for was exactly what my wife had expressed her preference for. That's not an expression of regret, just an acknowledgement that life played out differently than we'd expected.) And I have to say, the amount of time that just being married requires ended up really catching me by surprise! Again, not a regret, just an observation of how much time I had as a bachelor. The amount of time I wasted in my twenties and early thirties is simply unconscionable.

So, being deliberate about the planning and allocation of my time has been important. Being disciplined about sticking to those plans has been an additional challenge, and some of the preparatory tasks feel so critical to the overall plan that it feels sort of pointless to even start executing that plan until they're complete. Can I really start doing new research, or continuing old research, before I have a functioning webpage and archive online? Does it make any sense to try adjusting my diet and exercising without developing concrete plans for both? Some projects are big, some are small, some are planning, some are productive. Overall, though, there's a lot to be done.

A lot of this pre-work could get sorted if I had a solid week of just doing these projects. And, honestly, Tango has reached the point in his life at which he's vastly easier to manage than he was during the pandemic. I'm even getting plenty of encouragement from my boss to, y'know, take that time, because I'm maxed out on the leave that I can accrue. Unfortunately, as I've slowly reclaimed productive bandwidth over the last several months, a great deal of that bandwidth has, quite reasonably, been consumed by work. On the plus side, I'm feeling more engaged and ambitious about my day job than I have in a long time. Conversely, I'm constantly buried in work tasks, which acts not only as a deterrent to taking the time off that I'd like to be using for those projects, but also as an energy sink that prevents me from making productive use of my evenings and weekends. In that regard, there appears to be no end in sight.

Of course, all of this falls quite squarely into the "First World Problems" category, and I make a point of keeping in mind that I should be (and actually am) grateful for the situation in which I find myself. There's also virtue in being patient; after all, if I can pace myself, I can accomplish both the work tasks, and the personal/work-adjacent tasks. That doesn't stop any of it from being frustrating. It doesn't stop me from feeling like "butter scraped over too much bread," or as if I'm buried alive, or as if I'm drowning while desperately holding breath.

More on Operation Alchemy to come.