Source: http://www.carynews.com/2013/02/08/70774/green-hope-boys-win-schools-first.html
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Saturday, February 9, 2013
Cary News | Green Hope boys win school s first NCHSAA swimming ...
CARY - With her swimmers cheering on their teammates more and more, first-year Green Hope coach Lauren Nosal noticed the qualitative results ? her team growing stronger ? and the quantitative effect it had on lowering their times.On Thursday, Green Hope won its first boys? swimming state championship while the girls finished runner-up.?The stakes were higher, and they fed off each other?s energy more than anything today,? Nosal said. ?We pushed around (the relays) a little bit. There were no feelings. Everyone was super positive; they just wanted what was best for the team.?The boys? race was heavily impacted by Green Hope?s success in the relays, where it won two of the three events and finished with 259 points.?I can?t really explain it,? senior Ryan Cade said. ?When you think of all the great Green Hope swimmers who have come through, it?s just an honor.?Cornelius Hough?s boys were runner-up in the N.C. High School Athletic Association 4A state championships, while South Mecklenburg (175) was third, East Chapel Hill (168) was fourth, three-time defending champ Charlotte Providence (156) was fifth and Leesville Road (127) was sixth.The Green Hope girls, meanwhile, couldn?t pull off their first-ever state championship because defending champ Hough was just too fast. Hough set four state records with meet MVP Emily Allen, a sophomore, helping to set them all ? two individuals, two relays.Hough had 323 points, while Green Hope had 236. Panther Creek (182) was third, while Providence (167), Greensboro Grimsley (160) and Cary (159) all followed.?This is definitely the farthest we?ve gotten in my four years at Green Hope, and it?s just incredible to be a part of it,? senior Shannon Scovel said. ?We tried to fight Hough the whole way, but we were very happy with how it ended up.? Holly Springs? Ellington named MVPThe boys? competition had parity for most of the night, so the MVP went to the only swimmer who won two events ? Holly Springs junior Colin Ellington.Ellington became the school?s first boys? state swim champion with a win in the 200-yard IM (1:49.29), then became the state record-holder in the 100-yard freestyle (44.87). His time broke a 2006 state record set by Knightdale?s Matt Donch.Green Hope?s boys? 200-yard medley relay won in 1:34.99, thanks to the efforts of Chris Daniels, Seth Maslowski, Tad Spence and Cade.The 200-yard freestyle relay (1:27.83) was won by the Falcons? Jonathan Glavich, Stephen Hollinshead, Daniels and Maslowski. ?This was my last swim meet as a senior, so I knew it was going to be a special one, and we made it a special one,? Spence said.Cade was also third in the 200-yard IM, while Glavich was third in the 200-yard freestyle and second in the 100-yard butterfly.Green Hope was third in the 400-yard freestyle relay, which was won by Greenville Rose (3:09.52).Panther Creek?s Jamison Hauser won the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:34.53, while Millbrook?s David Craig was second.?I felt like once we got to that 100 (yards left) point that I had it and I just had to finish it out and stay strong,? said Hauser, a sophomore. ?(Craig) started catching me that last 50 (yards) so I just had to put my head down and race for the finish.? John Manchester of Hough won the 200-yard freestyle (1:39.85) and the 100-yard backstroke (49.39).Northwest Guilford?s Daniel Le broke the 100-yard breaststroke state record twice ? first he took down last year?s record in the prelims, then he broke his own in the finals (55.14). Leesville Road?s Sean Yeh was runner-up.Charlotte Providence, which was denied its fourth straight state championship, was led by Kyle Darmody, who missed breaking a 23-year-old state record by 0.1 second with his time of 20.54 in the 50-yard freestyle. Leesville?s Scott Johnson was second in the event.Wilmington Laney?s Christian Caveness won the 100-yard butterfly in 50.02.East Chapel Hill?s Koya Osada was second in the 200-yard IM and 100-yard backstroke.Riverside?s Aaron Daniels-Freeman won Wednesday?s state boys? diving championship by 1.83 points, while Panther Creek?s Connor Callahan was third and East Chapel Hill?s James Brady was fourth.Falcons girls come up shortMVP Allen stole the show. The sophomore broke two 2009 state records set by Olympian Lauren Perdue ? the 50-yard freestyle (23.02) and the 100-yard freestyle (49.77) ? and then helped Hough set records in the girls? 200-yard freestyle relay (1:35.04) and 400-yard freestyle relay (3:24.83).But Green Hope did set a state mark. Hannah Moore broke the state record in the 100-yard backstroke, besting Broughton?s Sabrina Benson?s 2010 time with a 54.37. Moore also won the 500-yard freestyle by a little more than 10 seconds (4:47.66) and combined with Jenny Nusbaum, Emily Etgen and Maddie Massey to win the 200-yard medley relay (1:47.56).?I think I swam against (Benson) when she got that record. I?ve come pretty far in the last two or three years,? Moore said, and noted her team has come pretty far too. ?As it went on and we kept winning meets we started doing really well, we got so close. And now we?re here and it?s so exciting to be (boys?) champions and (girls?) runners-up.?Though seeded fourth in her event after prelims, Megan Owens of Cary won the state title in the 100-yard butterfly (55.59).Hough?s Jessica Merritt cruised to a title in the 200-yard freestyle (1:48.84) while Green Hope?s Brooke Rubendall and Broughton?s Kelsey Moore went second and third.Alexandra Martelle of South Mecklenburg won the 200-yard IM in 2:03.32, with Apex?s Victoria Tschoke coming in second.Martelle also won the 100-yard breaststroke (1:03.21) with Holly Springs? Maddie Witzke coming in second. Also in the 200-yard relay, Cary was second and Panther Creek was third.Western Guilford?s Lily Armstrong won the girls? diving competitions held on Wednesday. 
Yemen seeks UN probe into ship seized with arms
UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? Yemen has asked the U.N. Security Council to investigate a ship that Yemeni authorities said they seized with a cargo of Iranian-made missiles, rockets and other weapons, the U.N. envoy to the impoverished Mideast nation said Thursday.
Security Council members are discussing Yemen's request, Jamal Benomar told reporters Thursday after Security Council consultations on Yemen's political transition.
Yemen's Defense Ministry announced Wednesday that Yemeni authorities seized an Iranian ship last month carrying material for bombs and suicide belts, explosives, Katyusha rockets, surface-to-air missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and large amounts of ammunition.
Yemeni President Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi sent a message to his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, last week calling on him to stop sending arms to Yemen and quit supporting a southern separatist movement, according to an official in the Yemeni president's office, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
Benomar would not say if the U.N. could confirm that the weapons were Iranian. He said it would be up to the U.N. investigation to determine "where the shipment came from, who the recipients were, etc."
Yemen recently has witnessed several cases of illegal arms shipments through its porous shores and also is home to an active branch of al-Qaida, which staged several failed or foiled attacks on U.S. territory.
Yemen has been struggling with a transition to democracy since Arab Spring protests a year ago forced Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after 33 years as president. Hadi leads a transitional government that is trying to promote national reconciliation, draft a new constitution and hold elections.
Saleh, who was allowed to remain in Yemen under the power-transfer deal, has been blamed by many over the past year for using loyalists and relatives in powerful posts to stall reform efforts.
Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mary Lyall Grant and Moroccan Ambassador Mohammed Loulichki, who led a recent Security Councill mission to Yemen, said Hadi and other government officials urged the council to impose strong measures against anyone trying to undermine the political transition.
The Security Council adopted a resolution in June that threatened non-military sanctions against those trying to interfere with Yemen's move to democracy.
Benomar said council members "heard in no uncertain terms during their recent visit to Yemen that acts of obstruction are impeding the transition" and that it was clear who those actors were. He gave no details and the Security Council did not indicate if any sanctions would be discussed.
Lyall Grant said Hadi told council members that the first phase of the transition involving the restructuring of the military and consolidating gains against al-Qaida was complete.
A national dialogue, a key feature of the second phase, will begin March 18 to lead up to elections in February 2014, Benomar said.
Lyall Grant painted a grim picture of impoverished Yemen: half of its 24 million people have no access to clean water and sanitation, 10 million don't have enough food and 1 million children suffer from acute malnutrition.
Benomar told the Security Council he lamented that very little of the nearly $8 billion that international donors have pledged has actually been received to help Yemen overcome its humanitarian crisis. He said "the governments need to accelerate the establishment of a mechanism to absorb the donor funded programs and the donors in turn need to fulfill their commitments."
"I told the council that the ball is in their court. They will need to act now. There is no time for complacency. Time is running out and there will be no second chances," Benomar said. "Yemenis need their support now."
___
Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report.
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Friday, February 8, 2013
Closest Earth-like planet 'stroll across park'
This artist's conception provided by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows a hypothetical planet with two moons orbiting in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. Earth-like worlds may be closer and more plentiful than anyone imagined. Astronomers reported Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 that the closest Earth-like planet may be just 13 light years away. That planet hasn't been found yet, but should be there based on the team's study of red dwarf stars which are the most common stars in our galaxy. (AP Photo/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, David A. Aguilar)
This artist's conception provided by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows a hypothetical planet with two moons orbiting in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. Earth-like worlds may be closer and more plentiful than anyone imagined. Astronomers reported Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2013 that the closest Earth-like planet may be just 13 light years away. That planet hasn't been found yet, but should be there based on the team's study of red dwarf stars which are the most common stars in our galaxy. (AP Photo/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, David A. Aguilar)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) ? Earth-like worlds may be closer and more plentiful than anyone imagined.
Astronomers reported Wednesday that the nearest Earth-like planet may be just 13 light-years away ? or some 77 trillion miles. That planet hasn't been found yet, but should be there based on the team's study of red dwarf stars.
Galactically speaking, that's right next door.
If our Milky Way galaxy were shrunk to the size of the United States, the distance between Earth and its closest Earth-like neighbor would be the span of New York's Central Park, said Harvard University graduate student Courtney Dressing, the study's lead author.
"The nearest Earth-like planet is simply a stroll across the park away," she said at a news conference in Cambridge, Mass.
Small, cool red dwarfs are the most common stars in our galaxy, numbering at least 75 billion.
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics team estimates 6 percent of red dwarf stars have Earth-like planets. To qualify, the planet must be roughly the size of Earth and get as much light from its star, as Earth does from the sun.
This high rate of occurrence should simplify the search for extraterrestrial life.
As the report's co-author, David Charbonneau, noted, he's an astronomer, but hopes to become a biologist if that search succeeds.
These planetary candidates are quite different than Earth because of the differences between their red dwarf stars and the sun, Charbonneau told reporters.
Because the red dwarfs are so much smaller, potentially habitable planets would need to orbit much closer than the Earth does to the sun. They likely would be rocky, the astronomers said, but different types of atmospheres could lead to different types of life.
Red dwarf stars also can be old ? far older than our sun ? which means their planets could be much older than Earth and their potential life forms much more evolved.
Our solar system is 4.5 billion years old, for instance, while some red dwarf stars are 12 billion years old. One of these target planets could be 12 billion years old as well, the scientists said.
Future spacecraft should be able to locate these planets and provide environmental clues.
California Institute of Technology astronomer John Johnson, who was not involved in the study, called the proximity of the nearest Earth-like planet "extraordinarily exciting."
"It's right within reach," Johnson said, and future efforts will put scientists "hot on the trail of finding life elsewhere in the galaxy."
These newest findings are based on data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009. They will be published in "The Astrophysical Journal."
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Should we be worried about the latest Facebook glitch?
A bug on Facebook sent ripples through the Web on Thursday afternoon.?
The Facebook logo is pictured at the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, in this Jan. 29, 2013 file photo.
Reuters
EnlargeA glitch on Thursday rerouted an untold number of requests from third-party sites directly to an error page on Facebook.com.?
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The whole debacle apparently stemmed from a problem with Facebook Connect, the feature that allows you to instantly "like" or re-post content from non-Facebook sites. If you happened to be logged into Facebook, and you attempted to click on any site that uses Facebook Connect ? the Huffington Post, for instance, or Gawker ? you were redirected to Facebook.com, and politely told to "try again later."?
"For a short period of time, there was a bug that redirected people logging in with Facebook from third-party sites to Facebook.com," a company representative told All Things D. "The issue was quickly resolved, and Login with Facebook is now working as usual.?
So the bug is fixed. But over at VentureBeat, Ricardo Bilton suggests that we not immediately forget about the underlying issues.?
"What are we?sacrificing?when we?integrate?our websites and log-in systems with a single external site that?s as large and uncompromising as Facebook?" Bilton wonders.?The glitch, he?adds,?"shows just how far the social network?tentacles?stretch?into?the workings of completely disparate websites. And when an octopus that large starts having problems, so, too, do the millions of people who rely on it."
Adam Clark Estes of the Atlantic Wire puts things even more plainly.?
"There are few corners [of the Web that Facebook] does not touch, and if you don't use Facebook you should be fine," he writes. "But if you do, whether you read your News Feed or not, Facebook can ruin your Thursday night of Internet surfing any time it wants."?
For more tech news, follow us on?Twitter:?@CSMHorizonsBlog
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Thursday, February 7, 2013
Obama taps REI chief Sally Jewell for interior secretary
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sally Jewell, a retail executive and outdoor enthusiast, is President Barack Obama's pick to oversee the national parks and vast energy reserves on public lands as U.S. interior secretary.
Obama nominated Jewell, chief executive of outdoor retailer REI, on Wednesday, calling her an "expert on the energy and climate issues that are going to shape our future" as well as a savvy executive who understands the link between conservation and economic progress.
Jewell is the first woman chosen to join Obama's second-term Cabinet, which has been criticized as lacking diversity.
"I am humbled and I'm energized by this opportunity," Jewell said in a brief White House ceremony, where she was introduced by outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Her background, which includes a stint as an oil company engineer, won praise from conservationists and some industry groups, but Jewell's nomination drew skepticism from some Republicans.
"I look forward to hearing about the qualifications Ms. Jewell has that make her a suitable candidate to run such an important agency, and how she plans to restore balance to the Interior Department," said U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Murkowski has criticized the department, including its decision in December to open about half the vast National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska's North Slope to drilling, which she said was not enough.
David Vitter of Louisiana, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said he wanted to learn Jewell's views on the administration's five-year offshore oil leasing plan, which he has argued should allow for expanded drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Jewell, 56, has been a leader in land conservation in the Pacific Northwest, but she worked in the energy and banking sectors earlier in her career.
Besides managing the U.S. National Park Service, the Interior Department oversees about a fifth of the nation's land mass and vast offshore oil fields.
Interior has a strong say in rules that govern hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on public lands as well as drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic. It will help implement the president's push for more renewable energy development on federal land.
EXPERIENCE IN FINANCE
Jewell joined Recreational Equipment Inc as a board member in 1996 before taking over as chief operating officer in 2000 and then later as CEO of the national retail chain.
A graduate of the University of Washington, where she now serves as a regent, Jewell began her career as an engineer at Mobil Oil Corp, working in Oklahoma and Colorado.
At Washington's Rainier National Bank in the early 1980s, she gained a reputation for rejecting risky loans to the oil and gas sector, inoculating the bank from a string of failures when the Oklahoma and Texas oil boom went bust.
"Her experience as a petroleum engineer and business leader will bring a unique perspective to an office that is key to our nation's energy portfolio," the Western Energy Alliance said in a statement.
Jewell's recognition from many environmental groups, and the reputation of Washington state-based REI for conservation and environmental stewardship efforts, seemed certain to draw attention.
"We're not going to get excited that she's suddenly going to change course from the current anti-energy policies of the Obama administration," said Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
But the group said Jewell did not seem to be a "lock it up and throw away the key preservationist," and Ebell said CEI did not plan to oppose her nomination.
Jewell is an outdoorswoman who lists snowboarding and kayaking among her hobbies and has climbed Vinson Massif, Antarctica's highest mountain. She served on the "National Parks Second Century Commission," whose goal was to help shape the future of the National Parks System.
"In Jewell, President Obama chose a leader with a demonstrated commitment to preserving the higher purposes public lands hold for all Americans - recreation, adventure, and enjoyment," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, one of many environmental groups praising the choice.
About 30 percent of U.S. oil and gas production and 40 percent of the nation's coal come from land managed by Interior, according to the agency's website. The department collected roughly $12 billion in revenue from federal land last year.
Interior has come under scrutiny in recent years for giving industry undue sway in awarding contracts and collecting too little royalty revenue.
Last month, the Senate energy committee asked the department to investigate whether mining companies were shortchanging the government on coal export royalties.
Obama is remaking his energy and environmental team at a time when the nation is responding to a surge in shale oil and gas development that has transformed the U.S. energy outlook.
The president has said he hopes to reduce the country's reliance on carbon fuels blamed for climate change.
Jewell has received several awards for her work in environmental conservation. As a leader with the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, an initiative to create a green corridor around the Puget Sound to inland Washington State, Jewell has worked with government and private interests to protect land for conservation and recreational use.
The president has yet to name replacements for Lisa Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, and Steven Chu, the Energy Secretary, both of whom have announced their departures.
Jewell's Senate confirmation hearings have not been scheduled.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Susan Heavey, Patrick Rucker, Valerie Volcovici, Timothy Gardner and Deborah Zabarenko; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-name-rei-chief-sally-jewell-interior-secretary-133402962.html
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Fable: The Journey Review - GamingExcellence
Microsoft debut the Kinect back in 2010. Ever since, they've been trying to prove to gamers that the Kinect isn?t just for kids and casual gamers. They haven?t been doing a great job of it. Most of the Kinect support for ?hardcore? games has just been simple voice commands, some are a little more in depth than that, but not by much. So Microsoft needs to put out something to grab their core audience. Enter Fable: The Journey.
Fable had always been a series predicated on the duality of good an evil and giving the player the ability to choose which path to walk down. Fable has always been able to show you, immediately, the consequences of being Good or Evil. Sure the later Fable games have made it a bit more ambiguous than simply light and dark, but it?s always been at the core of the games. Lionhead studios felt it was necessary to do away with this choice mechanic. No idea why, it?s the biggest reason why people enjoy the Fable Games. Previous iterations of the franchise have also featured large areas to explore and a more open concept, Fable: The Journey is pretty linear through and through, and it?s unfortunate.
The Journey starts with the lovable (perhaps relatable) protagonist Gabriel, slacking off as usual. Once the captain of the caravan finds you it?s onward you go. The story set up is pretty basic, Gabriel is thrust into a conflict that he doesn?t want any part of. Once you meet Theresa the Blind Seer it?s pretty much all downhill from there. The story does showcase a lot more lore to the Fable universe than previous iterations, especially about Theresa. There?s not too much to the story other than that unfortunately. Fable: the Journey is broken up in two modes: Riding and Combat.
The game is played entirely with the Kinect. No controller in the slightest. You sit on your couch guiding the reigns of your Horse drawn carriage with your hands while riding. You can crack the reigns to speed up your horse or pull the reigns to your chest to slow her down. You collect experience as you ride in the form of orbs. Some orbs need to be traversed at a certain speed to obtain, slow or fast. While riding there are hazards to avoid and slight variations on paths. The riding is overall pretty boring to be honest. The biggest red flag that should make this pretty obvious is that the leader of the caravan tells Gabriel not to fall asleep at the reigns again. If the protagonist is so bored that he?s falling asleep guiding his horse through trails, then why should I be excited doing the same thing? It was difficult to even play The Journey just because of how boring the riding sections are. As you ride you may find Stopping Points where you can listen to dialog, or find treasure or get into combat. The treasure wasn?t entirely worth it. All you collect are just cards with Fable specific items on them. You can?t use them in game or anything useful like that. They just go to a separate collectibles menu.
The combat is played out like a standard rail shooter. You are playing in first person and Gabriel moves around a field for you as you fling magic at enemies with your hands. Your right hand controls your basic offensive spell and your left hand controls a push/pull spell that is used for utility. It is drilled into your head from the get-go that your push/pull spell is great for utility outside of combat. They mention this every time they possibly can. The problem with the combat is that the Kinect isn?t terribly accurate (at least it wasn?t for me). If I tried to cross my shots over to the left side of the TV with my right hand they usually just fizzled and went wherever they wanted. Not even in the general area that I wanted. This cause some serious problems. Even the blocking mechanic wouldn?t work every now and then. I found the whole combat experience unresponsive and unreliable. Again, this could just be my experience with it, others may vary. There is a calibration that you can do to attempt to fine tune the Kinect sensor to your living room/TV, but it turned out to be pretty ineffectual for me.
The fact that the game requires Kinect shouldn?t be a negative, but unfortunately it is here. There were many instances, in or out of combat, that I found a general unresponsiveness to it. I would exaggerate the gestures after the regular gestures wouldn?t work. Gestures that had worked prior to their failure. It caused me some damage to my horse, or myself, even once caused me to fall victim to the enemies. It?s just a general problem that I had, it may be my room set up. It also doesn?t help if your couch/chair is... well, comfortable. You need to have a high, firm, couch/chair, not one that actually lets you sink in and be comfortable. This is a bit of a problem for me, because when I got my couch, I chose one that was actually comfortable to play games in, not one that I wouldn?t want to enjoy lounging on... I figure I?m not the only one.
You also use the Kinect for healing or various other camp activities. There are a lot of moments where Kinect gestures are just shoved in your face. When your horse receives damage you have to make a stop at a rest point and heal your horse by patting her on the wounds. You do this a lot. You will be stopping at many of the rest spots due to damage. So I hope you really like Horses and petting them... You also camp between chapters where you can actually brush your horse, or feed her apples and do various other tasks. All requiring you to gesture with Kinect. Feeding your horse an apple actually requires you to go to the tree, put your hand in the air and pluck an apple, then hold it out for your horse to eat. It adds extra levels of involvement and immersion, but the whole process seems just unnecessary.
The graphics and sound are up to par with most current generation games. I don?t have any complaints or particular praise in this section. The voice acting is pretty well done, as with the other Fable games. There are some weird graphical irregularities, like some hands or other objects look less rendered on some characters. Some, but not all. It was just odd to look at. It wasn?t a big problem as that?s not your focal point. The enemies look menacing and the magic looks good. The whole appearance of the game is pretty great, there is still a wealth of colour in the world instead of the standard grey/brown of most AAA games.
Overall Fable: The Journey left me wanting. I found myself dreading having to play. It was boring, I think I, myself, nearly fell asleep a few times. I was really hopeful that I would be pleasantly surprised with this title. Unfortunately I was only surprised at how bored I was. The combat sections were supposed to be the most exciting and even then I found myself not caring too much about getting to them. It doesn?t help that I had some problems with the Kinect responding to me in some cases. I left Fable: The Journey pretty underwhelmed. I think Microsoft still needs to find that one hard core title, The Journey certainly isn?t it.
Source: http://www.gamingexcellence.com/xbox360/games/fable-the-journey/review
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Easter Island Travel: How To Non-Metaphorically Get Away From It All
If you want to get really, really off the grid, fly 5,991 miles from your home airport to Easter Island. You'll have to stop once, in Lima, but this will be the easiest part of the journey, an air-conditioned, half-day respite you will look back on fondly as you suck bone-dry air of the cabin of the 767 winging you to the middle of the Pacific.
Once you hit the ground in Easter Island, you'll want to clean up at a hotel and then link up with a local guide, who can explain to you the route you're about to take along the unsettled and mostly wild northern coast of the island, a place you can only reach "by foot, horse, boat or helicopter."
Don't bother asking if there's even a helicopter on the island. You're planning to walk.
Some of the best travelers were walkers, and you'd do well to emulate their method to well and truly disconnect. Study the Appalachian Trail through-hikers, who disconnect even as the trail cuts close to the biggest cities in the U.S. Bill Bryson walked through thousands of miles of woods; Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan; you can handle Easter Island.
Set out from your hotel with a backpack full of water and sunscreen slathered on every exposed bit of skin. This might be the one time it's okay to wear a bandana (wrapped around your neck to keep off the sun). Break out that hat you bought on a whim during your layover. There's no shade once you set out on this journey to disconnect.
Drive past Ahu Akivi, the only platform whose statues face outward to the sea rather than inward to watch over islanders. Snap a few photos with the other tourists, then leave them behind. You really, really want to get away, so make for the trailhead at Ahu Te Peu. You might bump into a few other hikers, but you'll soon leave the behind too, as your guide cuts through stands of eucalyptus trees and hops expertly over lava stones strewn across the sloping plains. Try to keep up, would you?
After a bit of small talk, you and your guide will settle into a silent rhythm, tramping your way along the western coast of the island at a safe distance from the 40-meter cliffs that plunge down to the Pacific. You'll stop occasionally to observe prehistoric architecture, a felled moai statue here, the foundation of a native home there. You'll hear little more than the breeze of the sea and the chirping of birds. Your guide might say something to the cattle grazing nearby, but they'll stand unmoving, as if speechless to the mere fact that you've made it this far.
You'll keep walking until you spot a small ranch house, where workers sometimes overnight when they work this far from town. You may see a figure on the horizon near the shelter, silhouetted against the stark blue sky, but you won't see anyone as you approach. You'll break for lunch, maybe some sandwiches and local fruit juice, in the shade of a mango tree.
As you press on, still navigating the volcanic boulders that cover this northern coast of the island, you'll stop for a moment or two to take a swig of water and ponder the deep cobalt of the waves. You and your guide are the only people on this ridge, thousands of miles from the nearest land and seemingly all alone in the middle of the huge ocean.
You're not the first people to ever come here, but you are here right now and, for a few moments, that's all that matters in the whole world.
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/07/easter-island-get-away_n_2632094.html
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