Baxil [bakh-HEEL'], n.

Scribblings from a suburban dragon.

TO E-MAIL ME: Use the address above or baxil at. tomorrowlands dot org. To make sure my spam filters don't accidentally flag your message, please add [BAXLJ] to the subject line.

Basic Biography

Yes, I am a dragon.*

Baxil [bakh-HEEL] is my name, not just my Internet/LJ handle. It's not the name I was born with. (My "human" name is no secret and I answer to it, but I prefer to use Baxil for all but work/tax/legal purposes, or with people who have known me since childhood.)

I am happily married to beautiful wife kadyg.**

The two of us live together in the beautiful foothills of California's Sierra Nevada*** with two black cats and f15h (plural-times-15 of fish). I don't care if you come to our house and actually count 19 18 over 30 (our guppies have been busy), they're still f15h, dammit. Or maybe f33sh.

My Big Crazy Adventure

In summer 2006, I attempted to walk the entire Pacific Crest Trail. I completed 916 miles before developing patellar tendonitis in the high Sierra. I journaled the trip along the way, and a more in-depth look is available at my website. [Trip FAQ]

My trail name is Redtail. There is, of course, a story behind it.

When the stars align, I will go out and hike the PCT again. End-to-end, or just the parts I missed, I haven't decided yet.

About This Journal

This is the primary outlet for my nonfiction (and very occasional short fiction; longer stuff goes off-journal e.g. ttustories). It's a random and unpredictable mixture of essays, opinions, life updates, riddles, game geeking, spirituality, etc. Accordingly, there will be shit in here you don't care about.

When you reach one of those posts, the "Page Down" key is your friend. I put posts under LJ-cuts only for hideous (rather than merely excessive) length, or for posts that appeal to a strictly limited audience, or for posts I only want people reading who are interested enough to click. (This is why.) The flip side of that coin: I only post shit that I think is worth reading. Memes are an endangered species here and must evolve in creative ways to survive.

I'm pretty diligent about tagging my entries in case you're interested in a particular facet of the multi-fauceted scarlet emerald of my life.****

Most of my journal is defiantly public*****; if I've friended you, respect my confidentiality, because friends-locked posts are that way for a reason. I also post a few items locked to hand-picked (not opt-in) subcircles of my social group, and a number of private notes-to-self/unfinished-posts, in case you're wondering about the numbers on the calendar view.

Ancient but useful history:
For a long while, LJ was a sideline for me. I kept my real journal at Tomorrowlands up until a few big server crashes took the wind out of my sails. (In May 2004, I switched to Movable Type, kept going, and mirrored the journal at tlands_dot_org, but that got wiped out with the second server crash.) I migrated over here to keep the day-to-day writing habit fed.

Other random journal-ey information:

• Have I commented on one of your posts? Usericon interpretation guide here.
  
  
• I try to maintain a relatively angst-free journal:

  
  (source)

  ... please help me keep it that way by respecting my opinions and beliefs (or at least my right to have them).
  
  
• If you enjoy needless and hyper-anal levels of detail, my friends-list policy is here. I'm kind of embarassed I bothered to write it, so the short version: No matter how interesting you are, I only friend people who pass a basic trust threshold. Also, I'm a slacker who never bothers checking his "friend-of", so please do speak up if you friend me! Otherwise I may never know!

I ask not for consolation, but for passion and for grace,
I ask not for comfort, but for clarity;
Let me breathe in the Spirit, let me live in the light
Let me burn with a pure intensity. [*]

Emergency contact information is here. [no, you can't see it. See meme.]

--

* One decade and counting! (Or ~4,700 years and counting, depending. ]B=8))
** My remaining social/spiritual/relationship web, such as it is, is not really soundbite-able, but Kady gets (and deserves) special mention.
*** Not the "Sierra Nevada Mountains." "Sierra" is Spanish for "mountain range." They're not the Nevada Mountains Mountains, people.
*^4 I also seem to be developing quite a habit for footnoting my posts.
*^5 Take that, public!