Bringin home the bacon

Yes! Walked out of the post office today (just made it before closing - bus took a crazy route home) with the biggest smile on my face. Just like the cat who got the cream. As she passed it over to me the first thought in my head was "gee, it really is light". It has that new product smell and the soft touch of the silicon fly beckons me to skip work tomorrow and set up somewhere to hide out for the week.

It'll be different sleeping in this one. I haven't slept in a small tent since the days when dad and I went camping in our blue archetype tent, one of those square ones with the peak ridge in the centre. I have a 3-room, 8+ person tent which has seen its days of party camping. Drunken stumbling from one mozzie door to the next. Or when a mate Frank and I went camping for 5 days and it rained non-stop. He had one room, I had another. I read American Psycho while he hammered away at his Gameboy until the batteries ran out. Frank, Lox and I used to make tarp tipis, massive poles encased in a truck tarp. They were cool. Many happy memories camping. Or in a tent embassy (the lazy version - just strapped to trees) when it was freezing. Dale was wrapped up in an orange sleeping bag from primary school he had to dislocate his shoulder to zip it up - totally looked like a bit of bung fritz. Freezing one morning, from the opened end of the tent embassy, Frank and I awoke in our sleeping bags nestled on either side of Dale, a heat generator. It was like that scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles. "Those aren't pillows!"

Happy days. And more to come! If you haven't been in the outdoors for a while, or can't remember the last time you went camping, get out there. I can't say it enough. I really feel like my life has changed since the moment I laced up my sneakers and had a heart attack up Mount Parker in HK. The best time is now. If you're thinking maybe next week or the night after next, do it tonight, ASAP. Go for a ½hr walk for starters and you'll really feel like you're taking life on your own terms. A great saying from our local pastor: "Excuses are the bricks with which you build your house of failure". Absolutely.