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Last year, an inspiring way for me to start spring was to go to an outdoor adventure film festival in town. Filmmakers who I knew, who I never knew were filmmakers until that night, had films about caving, rock climbing, and skateboarding. There were also movies about whitewater rafting, ice climbing, and a fantastical trip to Brazil. So many of the film festivalgoers were happy, easygoing, energetic, healthy, smiling, and driven to (or driven by) outdoor adventure sports, which made for an atmosphere of something that reminded me of home --- where, most of the time, people are nice to each other and everything is always OK, and at least someone is wearing a North Face jacket and a funny hat. Since a lot of the people there came to see their friends' or family members' films, and people who I hadn't seen in a while were turning up all over the place, there was a comfortable familiarity around there.
At any rate, I thought that was where I was headed tonight --- to the same kind of outdoor adventure film festival I remembered from last year. Instead, it was a commercial, international, more formal film-watching event that was different in a good sense, but not so good. At least, this time, there was plenty of room for everyone, since it was at a theater instead of a bar, but there were Patagonia commercials, and sponsors, and people showing the films who were just passing through town for another film showing somewhere else. Base jumping and skydiving were captivating, though, and the films were full of stories of falling, injury, and earth-moving achievements. I learned from one of the base jumpers in the movie that a base-jumper's life span has an average of six years: either the person gets bored and stops, too injured to continue, or dies in the process. Also, the same guy had a good metaphor for luck vs. experience: When you start out, the experience jar is empty and the luck jar is full; every time you get lucky, you take a little piece from the luck jar and put it in the experience jar, until the experience jar gets full, and that's when your luck runs out, and then the only thing that keeps you alive is the value of your experience. I think this guy is the same guy that tried to unsuccessfully jump off the Empire State Building sometime last year. He might be suing the city right now because the guards prevented him from jumping off the building, and in the process he got hurt. Or something like that.

Local stuff, two weeks from now.