Times are tense in SherpaTrek Central. 3 days and an early wake-up until mass deployment of the crack blogging team to Nepal. To recap, I’m still waiting for my US passport to magically appear in my hands. Luckily, I sent in an expedite order to the Passport place because they just finished last night and have sent it out overnight express. Fingers crossed. My backup plan is to fly out to Los Angeles Tomorrow Night! and ask someone in person to politely put their typewriter and scotch tape to work and make a nice picture book for me. Ah, but there’s a wrinkle in the plan. I will need a registered copy of my birth certificate as proof of citizenship (because of my Farkistani accent they need extra proof). Now I had to fax out an urgent request for my birth certificate to Idaho. I tried to submit an online form, but the Atari 800 web server they are running had a glitch somewhere in its 48k on RAM. They said they needed to order a new BASIC cartridge off of eBay.

Needless to say I’m very nervous about my prospects. Remember my choices: Getting mugged in L.A., hiding under a rock on an uncharted pirate island, or gagging on my drool and chipped wisdom teeth. The only thing I have to hold onto is the hope that the international flights serve more than the little pretzel snacks once every 3 hours. But then they’ll probably show ALL the great summer movies. Anyway, in the middle of this I’ll just be checking my packing list again and maybe I’ll dress up in my, heavy, heavy, deep cold winter gear, including the -15 degrees sleeping bag and liner and I’ll go out for a test run (tumble maybe). I’ll let you know how the crampons work out on the front lawn and the driveway.