I'm in Berlin, but that's not what this post is about.

Working abroad from California, while traveling in Europe, is a pain in the ass. Not because of the obvious working while on holiday issue; quite the contrary. The inclusion of a few hours of work every few days is a welcomed grounding for any Fanny Trekker, giving one's life a brief, albeit fleeting feeling of importance. The problem is timing.

The 9-5 grind on the American west coast occurs in most of Europe between 5-1 at night. Getting started at 5 PM doesn't pose many troubles, except libraries and internet cafés tend to be closing. The issue lies in California, where no one gets started with any real work until 11 AM. One is hard pressed to find anyone working first thing in the morning. The first few hours are spent bullshitting with coworkers, going for some coffee, online banking, watching bids on eBay, returning emails, going to meetings, making plans for the rest of the day, and even doing personal errands or doctor appointments. No one actually works before 11 AM, and then they start just in time for lunch. Now, lunch is rarely 30 minutes, it can last an hour or more. So basically, one is left with 2 PM on, for any work to get done. But before 5 PM hits, people are ducking out early, be it for the kid’s soccer game, cheerleader practice, running to the bank or post office, or picking up an anniversary gift; anything to not spend the full 8 hours every day in the office.

Well what are we left with? Two hours. Two hours to rapidly cram a respectful amount of work into our jobs. But my two hours are near midnight when I'm drunk and high. Try sounding professional after cruising the beer houses of Germany all day or after just getting out of a coffee shop in Amsterdam, all while having to talk on a static riddled overseas telephone line, nearly yelling to be heard. I received a technical email one night filled with jargon that normally would be simple for me to understand. The stakes go up when it’s a pressing issue and I’m 4 hours into the night. I’m forced to put it off while knowing I won't have another chance until the following evening. Then there’s the inevitability of just blocking out the time. Well, at least if I want to keep some semblance of professionalism intact. I've also got that skeptical old man and his son in Norway to prove wrong.

Underneath a bridge...

"Do you see that guy under the bridge?" "Where?" "Under the bridge, he's drinking and eating a sandwich." "Oh yeah...I saw him in the store, I didn't think he was a bum." I'm under a bridge like a troll drinking beer and making salami and cheese sandwiches. The passengers on the cruise ship are 100 yards away and we can make each other out clear enough. They're on the deck drinking from the adjacent bar. They're wearing collared shits. I drink my cheap Tuborg pilsner and make sandwiches as cars pass overhead; a nice umbrella for a traveler who won't pay the 500 kroner to have a meal indoors ($50). I savor the beer, exchanging glances with the men 50 feet up the boat decks. Not quite making eye contact, but there ain't much to look at in this fjord. The beautiful scenery is enough to drive a man under a bridge. It’s legal to drink outside but the rain pushes you to shelter. I likely make as much money as any of them, but a Fanny Trekker travels light, and lives meagerly. Not that it would matter to them. I'm under a bridge, they're on a cruise ship. The mistake of coming here is huge, another tourist trap town, so much so that they barely have a bar. I had felt good about avoiding Stavanger, Norway's 4th largest city, and a tourist town in its own right. At least they may have had something real. My second beer goes down well, a nice dressing for the carton of wine finished on the train. Totally at a loss for why anyone would visit Northern California -- the fools. I find reality at the bottom of a bottle, but not all the time, normally I only find a hangover. Weeks into a drunk, it’s normally just a dull sense of touch though. Like someone took a knife and ground it against the curb until it looks the part, but can’t cut it. Cracking another beer, thinking about time; it isn't linear, or circular, or directionless, or polar. What then? I think time is nothing. We sit under a bridge alone, around a Christmas tree with family, in a lecture hall with fellow students, in a court room being judged. Always the same mistreatment of reality, disregard for freedom, ignorance of slavery. Not loneliness from being alone, more from insignificance in a world of war, wealth, fighting, fucking. Simply taking pleasure in being alive and enjoying nothing, being nothing, having nothing, doing whatever it takes to do nothing. It isn’t easy. Men have died working toward it; persecuted to the end of their days for rejecting the 2.5 kids and the home on the hill. Why not just drink, have ample sexual partners available – even if not used. We never adjust fully to the slavery within this Brave New World. We can medicate with our drugs, checking out with the prescribed pop-culture. The rain will still come down, the snow will block the roads, and beer will light the way into fellowship. Believing in nothing, and taking advantage of the beauty of nothing, we push on. As I devour my sandwich like a ferocious lion, I consider the impacts of nothing, thinking of the deliciousness of not caring about anything but good and honest awesome. I pound a beer. My hand goes "ting".

Scandinavian Forestry

Pine trees mixed with oaks, maples, and other production confers and hardwoods. They grow on wood lots, true wood lots, no more than a hundred acres at a time.  Between them are cows and barns in fields, homes with rural parks and football fields for the youth and intramural leagues.  Finally, I see a pick-up truck, a Toyota, but a truck none the less.  Silvicultures vary in Sweden and Norway, anything from seed-tree seed step, shelter wood prep steps, commercial and pre-commercial thinning, and single tree selection.  All scattered in view sheds designated for the railroad.  This is forestry on a pure farming basis, removed from our feel good forestry in California.  Give these men and women a dangle-head single grip harvester to chop, limb, and buck.  Or give them an International harvester for the wheat and grains growing in the adjacent fields of their wood lots. 

Not all site is created equal. Flat rocky expanses of scrubby pine lay below the dense stands of confers on the rich foothill slopes.  A stand of manicured 15 year old Douglas-fir sticks out like a sore thumb in the endless pine.  They have been planted within a 50+ acre clear-cut. A small 300 foot buffer extends between the plantation and the railroad tracks could've fooled a less discerning eye.  Then homes, steep pitched roofs, more welcoming pick-ups, and a broadcast over the train intercom welcoming us into Norway.  I attempt not to scoff at the low productivity of their timber land.  I have not been away from the Pacific Northwest long enough to ignore the differences.  They have beautiful trees and great management difficulties that a Californian forester never needs to ponder.  From my view in the train, I can imagine everything covered in snow and ice, a world outside the reach of a Fanny Trekkers arsenal.  High school students gossip can be heard a few seats in front of me, their words are indistinguishable, but familiar.  I highly doubt they are discussing the forested view we are passing.  But, that is the whole idea, to make it unnoticeable; at least to the untrained eye.  It is my curse as a forester to not see beyond the forest at the beauty of an individual tree.