Prologue:
Just a few words before we begin our adventure
".36 Al, .36" I said to my co-worker and friend, who laughed out loud
and so went my job
that dealt with computer security. We had just finished a
meeting that still, to this day, I find hard to believe actually
happened. I found a devastating security hole and brought it
to the
attention of the other programmers. They asked me how to I
caused the breach and I told them the steps I took. They
said, "That's
preposterous, why would anyone
ever do that?" I replied, "Curiosity, ignorance, malice?"
One of the programmers said, "We can't guard against malice,
so why bother." I said, "That's our job." I thought
that if we aren't
trying to guard against malice, why don't we stick a little post-it
note on the data and say, "Don't look!" It went downhill from
there. They just didn't say it once but they went on
defending such silliness. All I could do was say, ".36".
What does this number mean? I was a contractor and my layoff
date was at latest, August 22. One can also write this as
8/22, which is also an division equation: .36 = 8/22,
so whenever I would get frustrated (which was often), I would
say to Al, ".36", who was the only one at work who understood what it
meant. I knew that when the day arrived, I would be starting
my travels. I would hike the Superior Hiking Trail, mountain
bike in the western U.S., dive in Fiji, see my friends, and
tramp in New Zealand. But of all these things, I most looked
forward to tramping in the New Zealand rainforest.
I've been to New Zealand three times before and always had the time of
my life. I truly came to love the deep rainforests of
southern NZ. So when I knew that my job was ending, I debated
where I wanted to go for an extended period of travel. I
wanted to head to South America or Africa, but the rainforest kept
calling me and I knew that I had to return. And that is why
this travelogue has been titled Rainforest Reprise. I enjoyed
seeing my friends, I enjoyed hanging out, I liked hitchhiking, but the
rainforest is what drew me back most of all. The day finally
arrived when I was freed of the shackles of employment and the
wide-world called my name.
There is so much that happens during such a trip. In these
writings, I hope I
can bring you to a distant land and impart upon you, some of the wonder
that I felt and still feel to this day.