Family Tree to Kings

I used the ancestry.com software and was able to trace our roots to the William the Conqueror, the Kings of England, France, Spain, Sweden and Denmark through Grandpa Perry's Mother's Mother side.

Climbing Mt.Fujii

Word to the wise, do not go hiking with anyone in their mid twenties,
if you are not in your mid twenties...or if you are me.

Some of the kids at work had the idea to climb Mt.Fujii. I had been in
1997 but was too sick when I reached the top to stand in line for the
last branded mark into my walking stick to prove I had made it to the
top. It was all a bit of a blur. I remember inviting friends over for
dinner who said they could not because they were climbing Mt.Fujii and
I was welcomed to join. I rememebered that at one point you are
basically rock climbing to get to the top and made a mental note of
everything i needed to take if I ever went again.

So I had my two cans of O2, water, aspirin, food, all the right
clothes but just forgot that I sit on my fat ass and drink and eat
everyday for a living.

First off all, from my office was Chris from London, 6 foot 2 athlete,
Victor from Russian who is in IT and a young guy and some lady who was
a friend of a friend who is Irish and wearing a Lisboa triatholon
tshirt...(SIGNAL ONE TELLING ME TO GO BACK).but I still went.

Train from Tokyo to Gotemba, Taxi from Gotemba to the 5th station.

Walked 200 feet and I was panting and my heart was pounding. (Signal
two)

The three kids went ahead of me naturally and I put my foot in a hole
and fell down the ascending path onto the descending path in a forest
and a startled old man said to his son," What is he doing here?"

In the pitch black darkness I heard a voice, "you should be here" who
was just a voice in the darkness of a middle aged Japanese man like a
guardian angel.

The three people I was with I told not to let me slow them down and
even though I seriously was going to turn back, as soon as my heart
rested and my breathing was back to normal, I looked up at the moon
and thought, I am going to do this. At my own pace and I will just
have a little "me" time.

Each rest stop along the way is like an oasis, tin roofed huts that
sell everything for three times the price and also for 6,300 yen (a
business hotel charge) you can sleep on one of their futons in the
hut. The toilet is 200 yen and for a country that has 2 trillion USD
in personal savings...I kept wondering why haven't they built a tram
to the top? AND why do the toilets smell like ancient rotting
death....what I imagine the Egyptian tombs smelling like when they are
opened for the first time!?!

Fujii was/is a volcano. By the time you get past the rich soil of
forest, there is nothing. It is just rock and it gets steeper and
steeper and steeper. My pace, ended up being five steps and a rest of
about ten minutes. I wish I was joking but I am not. I then tried to
do one zig , rest then a zag. Thank God for my flashlight because it
is pitch black. I took a picture of the Ascending Route signs as if it
was out of Monty Python...YES YES, it IS an ASCENDING ROUTE....we can
tell!!!! I find that the strangest things give you reassurance that
you are not insane and have no business taking the stairs much less
climbing a 12,000 foot mountain...like people who were purging from
the exertion or had a bloody nose...oh I am not THAT bad!

The true goal of going without sleep and going to Mt.Fujii at night
and climbing all night is to reach the summit at 4:30 for sunrise,
then you descend. That is what I did eleven years ago. This time the
sun came up and I was about half way there. It was beautiful. The
country is actually very beautiful....something you forget living in
Tokyo. And the people are lovely. I rekindled my love affair with
Japanese people (in a different way) because strangers kept telling me
"Gambette" and one old man kept asking his kids how to say "where are
you from in English" and they wouldn't tell him and he just looked at
me and said "HURRY UP!" in English. A six year old kid named Miki was
walking up the peak talking a million miles a minute, a blind woman
passed me with her husband telling her where to put her feet literally
every step of the way. People asked if I was alone....and I said,
"well, yes...basically" and when they asked, "What? you don't have any
friends up here?" I shrugged, "well, NO, basically!"

I ran into Chris and the others as they were coming down and I was
going up, they didnt realize I was there and they were saying, "well
basically he is just too out of shape, I mean, I go to the gym at
least, you go to the gym...I have had relatives die from being that
fat and out of shape"...I then said, "G'day Chris" and he looked up
and said, "Oh, we were just talking about you" i said, "yes, I am in
worse shape then I thought" silence...... they said after the first
rest stop when they didnt see me that i may have turned back. that
they were on to an onsen and would call me.

The Japanese always have all the gear. The best pants, boots, little
protectors over the boots to keep sand and rocks from getting in, so
they chuckled as I took my trekking shoes off and emptied the rocks out.

So I finally reached the top. I was thrilled, I imagined there would
be a party of all the people who had encouraged me along the way just
waiting for me to get there. That they would run up to me and have
photos taken with me buy me a beer.

Instead I just stood in line and got my last stamp which was from the
shrine and they use a piece of metal to hammer it in. I had a bowl of
Curry Rice. BLOODY LOVELY dish. I dont know what it costs these days
but I paid 1,200 and people were watching me with envy. Miki, the six
year old finished a bowl of ramen and screamed that is was delicious!

I asked someone who had said that he had seen me on the way up the
mountain and by the way lived in New York and went to city college and
got his bachelors and masters and.......then I realized my Yankees hat
sparked all sorts of stories from strangers about New York.
He advised me to take the Yamaguchi trail down because it was just a
trail. There was no way I was going down the way I had come up, I had
no more strength left in my knees or legs.......then began the journey
from Hell and the worst experience of my life.....

The trail, I remember, was steep....Miki and I became friends as his
father kept asking him to hurry up, Miki asked if I knew what potato
chips were... DO I?

at one point people were just running down, I was afraid of losing my
traction, flying off a cliff and bashing my head on a boulder...so I
kept the breaks on the whole way....then the wind kicked up and dust
was everywhere, I forgot sunscreen and was getting burned (right now
my face is swollen as I was wind blown and burned the whole way
down)...my hands look like I put them in hot oil and let them cook.
the way they move things from one rest stop to the other is a
bulldozer which started towards me, since I couldn't run and I didnt
have the strength to get off the trail, it chased me like some horror
film...I finally found a ledge I could climb on to.

Then the rain clouds came and started to hear thunder and remember a
man was struck by lightening the previous week and died. I was wearing
metal glasses.....so I thought I had better take refuge in one of the
rest stops. The clouds went away and left a fog mist that gave me 10
foot visibility....I started back down the trail and walked passed a
small pile of bells which is where I imagine the man had been struck.
The remaining part of the trail was a 45 degree angle sand and rock
road. It was 2:30 and I slid down this path with ten feet visibility
for 2 hours and 30 minutes. When the path turned to forest and I
thought I had reached the end, it opened up to a new sand road. I had
no idea how long the path was going to last, I had no idea where the
exit was, my phone was dead.....I had no idea of anyones number but
the house in Napa who I thought I would have to call and wake up to
call Sean to wake up Cathy and Ed to call SS and tell him I was alive.
Finally, at 5pm, I walked out of the 5th station. For a trip that was
suppose to be up at 10 pm and to the summit by 4:30 and back ended up
being almost 20 hours.

I can now barely walk, I cannot sit or stand without help, my face is
swollen into the scowl I had coming down, I cannot feel my finger tips
on my right hand and my face, neck, lips and hands are burnt...every
muscle in my body is aching and this will take about six months to
recover if memory serves me right.

But I did it!

The boys are back

Is a beautiful Australian movie where there is a line, "Life is a journey that should be travelled, no matter how difficult the road."

Namesake

I saw the movie, "Namesake" loved the line, "You have journeyed to a place where there is no where else to go.!"

Lemonade

Today I saw the movie, "Lemonade" about people who are unemployed. It was very uplifting and I got a lot of interesting ideas out of this to keep moving forward.