Shaking the Snowglobe

I finished up my book Tracking the Wild Coomba, a pretty epic memoir about Doug Coombs, one of the first major free skiers and extreme mountaineers. The book was pretty inspiring, as the author literally tracked down Coomb’s life across the world by visiting every place he lived, skiing the lines he created, and speaking with his lifelong friends. Still not feeling super hot today, though much better than “wafish” (aka not robust) yesterday, I started a new book while couching it up. This one is The Once and Future King by TH White – a long tale about King Arthur. Merlin has a great quote right in the beginning, he says that sculptures should never be created with magic – true art has to be created by hand with a chisel. Alex West would enjoy this quote and find it analogous to his present day feelings about AI and art. Perhaps the ethics of AI is not as foreign as we think, and we can look to historical moral compasses around how magic should be used as a guide. The theme seems to be: keep the magic to menial tasks like cleaning the house and folding laundry, and nothing should get too out of hand.

Hoping to get a good night of sleep tonight with some magical dreams to boot, and feel up for a morning skin up a low angle track with Nick. My body is getting a little confused having not been sliding downhill at 20+ mph once a day.

As I plan my route home: another stop in Salt Lake City and then a few days in Bishop, CA, the call back to San Francisco grows louder; a friend asked if I wanted to go see a private early screening of Dune 2. Life on the road has been joyous and an adventure, and we’ve certainly some journey left on the itinerary, but home does beckon.