Farmdale and Wu Tang Sword Style Circa 2006

I joined my Dead Runners' Club brothers at Farmdale this past Sunday. Temps were a cozy 15 degrees, skies clear, wind shrouded by forest cover. I took off ahead of the group, reasoning that my slow pace would make it tough to keep up and still be comfortable. The snow of the last month or so has since frozen solid making footing a bit more difficult than it was a couple of weeks ago, but still preferable to pavement. Went (stupidly?) straight up Blue Chevy Hill, losing a half step with every step gained, did a half hour or so on the back trail before forking north to the water crossing at Farm Creek. Clear ice right on the bank did me in, went down on my ass, bruised elbow, knee, but no cracked skull, so kept moving. As the maxim dictates: "If the bone ain't showin, keep on goin.'

Now, I've been at Farmdale several times and it's a testament to my lack of navigation or maybe just refusal to consult a map during a run that I do not know all the trail linkups. I ended up going up the dam face and finding the mountain bike trail system on the back side, hooking up with Dave, Larry, Scott, and Kim on Scholl's loop. Larry and Kim headed back and I decided to toss caution into the culvert and try and keep up with Dave and Scott, both much lighter, faster and more talented than myself. They were kind and I managed to keep up, we looped back to the dam, backtracked through Scholl's, finally illuminating how to weave through those upland prairie areas to connect to the access road and return on the back trail. All told it was a solid 2 1/2 hour run.

Started reading "Chronciles of Tao: Secret Life of a Taoist Master" by Deng Ming-Dao, a book which collects his three shorter novels into one cohesive work. More later.

Soundtrack: "Think Differently: Wu Tang Clan meets the Indie Culture" Picked this up for myself on a whim while christmas shopping. I keep looking for answer to "36 Chambers," but alas it never comes. This is a compilation of Wu style mid 90s (surreal to think that passes for nostalgia) beats rapped over by "indie" mc's. It's not exactly Wu, as RZA, GZA, and UGod are really the only clan that appear on this, but when they do pop up, it's worth hearing, for instance there's an amazing, albeit too short, tribute to ODB, and some spoken word interludes by Jim Jarmusch, just enough spark to keep it interesting. I'd say about 30 percent of this is golden, 50 is average, and 20 is throwaway. Sadly, in 2005/6 from what I can glean about the state of hip hop, that's good enough to warrant a listen.