Jodag.NET

My Cubbies are in the postseason.  I have fond memories of returning from a sucsessful White Mountain summit and driving back down that long road listening to my other team (the Giants) lose to the Angels in game 6, back in 2002.  Kari, GJ and I trying to translate the game from Spanish into English and Kari being an Angel fan made for a sour ending to a great day.  Don’t get me wrong, that was a great game and a beautiful comeback but it came at the cost of my team.

Now, another LA team is beating up on my team.  I’m not going to say they’ve lost yet but it is the bottom of the 8th and the Cubs are losing 6-2.  I really hate LA teams, if I have to wind up cheering for the White Sox in the post season I’m going to vomit.

In other news, I just finished a book called, “The Cactus Eaters” by Dan White.  I love that book, it’s funny and inspiring.  He’s a clusterfuck on feet and he attempts to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail, starting with a girlfriend.  I won’t say anything more about the book outside of the fact that it was a great read and makes me want to through hike the PCT myself.

I don’t know exactly how I’d swing 5 consecutive months off work, and the portion of the trail that appeals to me most would be the Sierra Nevada section, it’s even covered in his book most extensively.  Seemingly by a ratio of 70-80 of California/Sierra pages to 1 page of Oregon/Washington.  Now that could be due to one other major event that takes place at the Oregon border, thereby making the California story a more appealing one to read, but that’s speculation.

Either way, this goes up there with, “Touch the top of the World” by Erik Weihenmayer for purely inspirational adventure books, though in different ways.

It’s always hard ending a good book.  You want more, you’re forlorn without the friends you’ve made in the book but you can’t get any.  It’s a hopeless feeling, like being in jail while those new friends are out living their lives and unaware of the people they left behind.  I need something else to read now

Linda Marie Grant, born April 14th, 1952, died August 1st, 1988.  20 years ago today.  She had three kids; me, Kristen and David Joseph Lenz (Borden?).   I miss her more than I can describe.  I can remember her smile and her sickness.  I remember Cabrini Green where she lived and the oxygen tanks in the corner of that dark, cold, shitty apartment where she lived last before the hospital stay.  She lied about the oxygen tanks, said they belonged to the previous resident to try to spare my sister and me the knowledge of her pending death.

She died in a hospital without her kids.  She’s buried in a grave without a headstone.

There is a brother out there that I don’t know, one of the last connections I have to my lost mom.  My brother’s name is David Lenz and he was adopted or fostered in Illinois.  As long as I’m seeing search phrases like what are pictured in the attached pic, I’m going to keep on hoping to hear from him someday soon.

I have sat on this post since Aug 1st, the 20th anniversary of her death.  I didn’t really want to post it and I deleted some of my more personal memories and thoughts.  I changed my mind today, when I found this site, it’s a diary of a dying mom.  She gave me the courage to remember my mom so publicly.

MWTC; Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, CA.  A place of legends and lore, and in the heady, long forgotten days of yore it was the home to some of the most fun I ever had in the Marine Corps.  I’ll be back there for the first time since 1996 this Saturday for the Mountain Warfare Training Challenge.  It’s a 10k that takes place at elevations ranging from 6,800 to 7,800 which is nothing to shake a stick at.  There are obstacles like a wall to climb, a couple tunnel crawls, a tire course and a hay bale pyramid thing in addition to the whole, run 6 plus miles at elevation.

I love Bridgeport.  It’s a beautiful little town surrounded by beautifully big mountains.  I remember running on my days off with Engie and Jolin to the top of a knoll a few miles from base.  To get there we had to cross at least one ice cold stream and god only knows why we would do that on our day off.  Maybe it’s because none of us had a car there.  We also randomly struck out behind the base, through streams and up cliffs just taking in the newness and beauty of it all. Though, I also remember our semi-senile old First Sergeant singing Asian themed cadences from what must have been the WWII era.  The only problem was that our CO, who I swear to you signed my recommendation letter as Major Wang, USMC, commanding was obviously of Asian descent while he sang the cadences.

Either way, that place is where the Sierra planted seeds in me.  They took awhile to sprout, but they were well planted.  I’m excited to go back and see my memories.  I’m excited to go back and run this race.  I’m excited to get out after the race and get up into the White Mountains.  I’m excited to get out after the White Mountains and get into Death Valley to see Zigzag and Hunter and the Eureka dunes as well as everything inbetween.

I’m just happy to be getting back to where I belong, it’s been too long since I’ve been up there and I miss it.  Bilbo Baggins once described himself as butter scraped over too much bread.  I like that description, because it fits.  I have a very visceral need to be out and exploring, otherwise my mind starts to eat its own thoughts like a dog eating its own shit.  I need to feel the touch of a new sunrise and smell the warmth of a new vista laid before my eyes.  I need to see a sunset on the Sierra crest and sleep under the stars.

I’m going to the root of my enthrallment with the mountains.

I often wonder if my brother, David knows he has a brother. I wonder what his foster/adoptive parents told him about his birth family, if anything. I wonder what his adopted parents know about his birth family and why David was taken away. I wonder how he took the news that he was adopted, when he eventually found out, as he must have. I wonder if he has any pictures of us or him as a small child.

I have a few pictures, we were at Nana’s house, which was a little red brick house with a huge yard and two apple trees out front. My sister and I would get paid to pick up apples from the yard, I remember that they were bitter little things to eat. David was there, I think he was already fostered out and my sister and I were visiting from California. That may have been the only time that we ever met as children, I coulnd’t have been more than 10, so Tina was about 8 and David may have been around 5ish? I remember that day mainly because I have a few pictures to remind me of being there. Without pictures of that day and what he looked like, the concept of me having a brother would be more of an abstract idea instead of a hard actual personal fact. I hope he does have a picture, or some memories of us.

I wonder if he’s ever googled my name, or his mom’s or sister’s name. Does he even know our names? I am almost 100% sure his name is David Joseph Lenz, he was born David Joseph and I don’t know the last name. I’m sure he knows his mom’s name, Linda Marie Grant is what she’s buried under and the cemetary is less than an hour from where he is supposed to live.

I hear he’s in Algonquin, when I was in Chicago last year I found a number for a Lenz family in Algonquin and called them. I left a message, but never heard back. I have no idea who his dad is, but we share our mom. Her death really did fracture what was left of the Borden clan, sending shards from California to Chicago. She is missed, and there’s nothing I can do about that. I can however, find my brother.

I was watching the end of the movie, “Snatch” with Brad Pitt today and remembered something. In Morgan Hill we had a little informal boxing club, my friends and I. We would meet up in Scott’s backyard, get on the gloves and go to town. There was Big John, Heavy hitting Rhett, Mackey the non dairy creamer, not sure if Scott had a nickname and I know I didn’t. We fought each other and I remembered why I liked boxing, besides the basics - good workout, fun, challenging, competition.

I liked boxing because when I got hit hard, in the head I’d hear voices. They seemed like they were just out of reach, just beyond behing able to hear what they were saying. I could just hear murmering in the background as I was coming to. I would see little pinpoints of light as well, sometimes referred to as seeing stars but hearing the voices was neat. It was like waking up in the middle of a dream and trying to remember what the conversation you were having with the man in the moon was about. You have a feeling that the talk was important, but you just can’t recall what it was about.

That’s what I liked about getting hit in the head. I’ll be honest, Rhett was a fucking freight train when it came to hitting. I can see why Scott just ran around the ring instead of going toe to toe with that beast.

Recently, I recalled one of the most spectacular sunsets I have seen in my life. Here in Socal, we are getting the remnants of Hurricane Dean filtering through. So it’s humid and cloudy more often than not, making for some nice sunsets and sunrises. That’s what spawned this memory from god knows where or how long ago.

I don’t remember which shithole of a country it was in but it was one of the oilpipeistan type countries and I was either driving or sitting in a Humvee. Looking out the window to my left was a desert plain like everyone has at least seen pictures of. The sun was going down and there was so much grit and sand in the air that you could see the sphere of the sun and it was no brighter than a dying lightbulb.

The sun sand and grit in the air held the beauty though, it was as colorful as anything you have ever seen and for some reason there were clouds, big puffy white clouds in the desert. And the topper was about to come. As we were driving, we passed by the command post. You know what it looks like, even if you can only imagine it. Camo tents, war equipment, Marines all wandering around doing the stuff that people in that situation do. But a massive American Flag flapping next to a Marine Corps flag. As we drove by the setting sun was framed between those two flags with everything else around creating a vision the likes of which I haven’t seen since.

Four months ago in Chicago I saw mom’s grave. There’s alot to be said about that, but the thing that sticks out most is how hard it was to find. I knew the cemetary it was in, so that was easy but finding the grave itself wasn’t.

At the office in the cemetery I asked for her by the names I thought she would be buried under. First, Linda Borden, her maiden name. Nothing. Next Linda Mole, nothing. Now, you have to keep in mind that this is an older cemetary and maybe newer ones are different but this one had all it’s files in large dusty old tomes. So to look up Borden, the clerk needed to get the “B” book and Molae the “M” book. So the clerk seems pissy already. The other thing to keep in mind that a son who misses his mom and has never seen her grave is trying his best but failing miserably not to cry like a baby the whole time.

So next I ask for Linda Grant. After a snippy comment from the clerk she brought out the “G” book. Lo and behold, there she was. She hadn’t carried the Grant name for at least 8 years before she died. But it was a touching last wish of hers to be buried with the name of two of her children. Tears that have been saved for 20 years went out the window at that point while the clerk showed me on the map where to find the grave.

I followed the map but found no grave. I searched high and low where it was supposed to be to no avail. There was no Linda Grant buried there that I saw. So, I returned to the office to ask again. Another, nicer clerk helped this time while the first one sat in back looking even pissier than before. This clerk explained that there was no gravestone marker for my mom, but showed me how to find it based on nearby gravestones.

I didn’t know that there were unmarked graves in the world, I thought that was something that happened in the old west, not in present day society.

So, I found it.

I’m going on a trip into my past this week. I fly out to Chicago today and return on Friday. This will be interesting, occasionally I’ll catch a whiff of something that reminds me of Chi-town, usually something damp, moldy or wet will trigger those scent based memories. If you’re trying to contact me I don’t have a reliable cellphone, so good luck. The battery won’t charge in it anymore, in addition to the fact that the Verizon network is shit in my neck of the woods makes me wonder why I’m even paying for the stupid thing.

When I get back from Chicago I’m switching to Cingular with a sexy 8525 methinks. With a little program called PdaNet and that I may be able to get rid of my Satellite internet connection too which would save me a ton of headaches with the latency and a buttload of money with the monthly bill.

So be aware if you’re trying to contact me for the last month or so the home phone is the most reliable way.

Please don’t crash, SWA flight to Chicagoland.

So, in general it’s been a ton of time since this place has been updated. No storytime shit, no new pics no new backpacking or snowboarding and nothing new at all. Sucky.

Now that the academy is over, hopefully I can rectify that situation, starting now. I have my badge and am starting work tomorrow (Nov 1) at an anonymous location. It’s an Off Highway Vehicle park, so mainly I’ll be handling enforcement and medicals, which is good to go. It’ll be a good solid learning experience and the location is awesome. About an hour north of L.A. proper, but in a completely different world. It’s out of a small town named Gorman at the top of “the grapevine” which is the mountain range that seperates the central valley from Socal itself. So it’s a small town (less than a thousand fifty people and no other towns for miles), in the mountains, but just about 1-1.5 hours away from the biggest city on the west coast.

I have state housing, in a canyon with no neighbors and a locked gate. I have a cost of living bonus every month because the park is in LA county. I have no real reason to complain about anything yet. I’m excited as fuck.

What I start tomorrow is called the FTO portion of my training. For the next three months my FTO (Field Training Officer) and I will be attached at the hip. Every time we interact with the public he’s going to be grading me and making sure I’m doing everything from writing tickets to arrests to medical aids correctly and most importantly safely. After these three months, I have 9 more months of probation and then a fat raise.

What else is going on…I went back to OC at the end of my 1 week vacation between the academy and work. I was going to have dinner with Efong and he wound up inviting a bunch of old Interplay clowns (Jmitchell, Egood, Dchee, Pchan and Jkirkland). So we spent alot of time just looking back at the Interplay days fondly. They are mostly still all in the game industry and are working for different companies since Iplay is essentially dead. And each of them said that Interplay was just fun, the people and the environment. Which is something that the companies they are working for now are definately lacking in some ways. Sad in a way I guess. I miss Iplay on occasion. There were some damn fine people there and I learned alot while I was there. RIP BIS, once again.

Oh well, one other thing I’ve realized over the last 2 days is that I am blessed with amazing friends. Truly blessed and in all honesty, I have no idea why.

Coe was outstanding, as always. I saw the western flank of the Sierra, which I only see from Coe. I was growled at by some of the wild pigs, for getting too close with my camera. Scott wants to do a bit of backpacking out there, which is great news for me because it gives me more reasons to head up there during the winter, while the Sierra is largely off limits for me and my limited winter mountaineering skills.

Of course the drive up there sucks, and even worse than that is the drive back especially if it’s only a 2 day trip, 1 day up and one day back. I spent almost as much time driving this weekend as I did hiking, I need my pilot’s license, STAT.

Morgan Hill sort of changes, while staying the same. The hill in front of the old police station where we would slide down when there was ice on the ground is now all dirt and stone. There are more and more houses and fewer open fields every time I go back, those open fields where we would catch pollywogs, or walk through to get to school when it wasn’t muddy and of course where we would build our tree houses. Those open, empty, fields really do hold quite a few memories for me, now they are just condo farms.

On the good side, the village and the crest (previously the bad areas of town) have cleaned themselves up somewhat, or my standards have dropped after living near L.A. for so long that they look better than they used to. The Granada theatre looks like it is being remodeled and cleaned up finally. That’s where I saw Revenge of the Jedi, when the theatre only had one screen, then they went and remodeled it so there are now TWO WHOLE screens (they basically just split the room in half with a wall that you can usually hear the movie on the other side through). I wonder if it’ll have 4 screens now with the remodeling!?! Gotta love small town life.