Badger, Badger, Badger

It's been a busy weekend. Friday we headed off into town to check out an open-air Seafood Festival in Newport. Newport is on the Kentucky side of the river, and they've spent a ton of money fancying it up. They hold festivals, built an enormous purple bridge that literally leads nowhere, and built a bunch of uppity restaurants. The festival was fun, we ate a some fried fish, shrimp, and chips. Then we headed to Hofsbrau Haus for a European-styled beer. It was pretty good. Not as wonderful as I remember my one golden sip the winter before, but we both drank the seasonal brew, so we'll have try the others some other time.

Saturday, we mostly hung out around our apartment. We went to a festival (there's always festivals around here) in West Chester, near where we live. Instead of getting to the festival (which had a $5 charge for the 'free' parking the advertisements promised), we ended up checking out a really neat wine shop. They were have a wine-tasting, so we hung out with owner and chatted about the area and what's going on. We ended up heading home and making some really good pesto-stuffed pasta with a fresh, spicy marinara sauce. Then we spent the night in usual geek fashion: Surfing the internet and listening to down tempo lounge music.

Sunday (today) is errand day. We bought a ladder and some pleasantly-scented items. We cleaned up around here and did our weekly vegetarian grocery shopping. It's strange that this coming Tuesday, we'll have hit our goal of two weeks with no meat. It hasn't been that hard. The only times I've noticed is during breakfast when haven't been able to dive in a steaming mound of sweet, sweet bacon. Ah well. I don't know how long I'll keep it up, but it really hasn't been that bad.

Today, on our way out to breakfast this morning, we saw a badger scurrying down the road. We slowed down to get a look at it, and sure enough, it was Mr. Badger. We pointed and honked and drove past. Here is a good link to commemorate the occasion.

Oh, also, on Saturday Mandy and were driving somewhere when we stopped at a red light. A random car pulled up alongside us. The driver looked over at me and in this mocking-serious tone said, "Go Buckeyes." I waved. We drove off. I'm guessing that he was inspired by our blue Michigan plate to talk to a complete stranger at a light, but it's only one of many, many occasions of such things happening. For example, every single time I would go running down Burlingame, random people would shout totally unintelligible gibberish at me as a I ran. I would tell Mandy this, but she would claim (and rightfully so) that I often embellish my stories, and it can't really be true. But then she ran with me a few times, and it happened every single time. I've often wondered what it is about me that causes random people to shout nonsense. Is my firm, proud buttocks? My wavy locks of golden hair? I don't know. It's very strange.

Also, I promised some photos of our apartment by this weekend and, yes, I lied. The apartment is finally cleanish, the boxes put away, and the random junk arranged (somewhat). I'll try to get the pictures done tomorrow and post them.

Peace n' love, y'all.

The Flaming Lips f. Sonic Youth & The Go Team!

(Doesn't this look Wayne Coyne in his Christmas on Mars gettup?)

So here it is.

I left for Detroit about 10:00AM on Friday August 4th. I stopped for gas and breakfast sometime around 11:00AM in Sidney, OH. The breakfast was brief and not worth any kind of comment. I bring it up only because it was the only food I ate for the entire day.

The drive up was totally uneventful. It took right around 4 hours (Google Maps was right again) and I arrived and was parked a block from Comerica Park and State Theater about 3:15PM. I packed up my change of clothes, my camera, car stereo, and a couple bottles of water in my backpack and headed out. I wandered around downtown for about an hour, conversing with various concert goers, and snapping pictures.

Chad, Andy, and Jon showed up a little after 4:00PM. The four of us promptly headed into a nearby bar and drank a few beers while discussing film, showing off various geek gadgets, and our recent move to Cin City. This lasted for about two hours. Over the course of the two hours, the place kept getting progressively more filled with concert goers, baseball goers, and drink goers.

We all headed out of the bar around 6:30 – 7:00 and got in line. Actually, before I got in line, I went up to a bouncer and asked if it was cool if I brought in my backpack and camera. The guy gave me a thumbs up and I got in line. The guard at the door went through my back to make sure I wasn't sneaking in a gun or crack or something. Not finding any, she put a bracelet on my wrist and I went in the building. I picked up a cool Lips t-shirt and we headed to the main house which was about half full to its limit.

Here's where the fun begins.

The first thing I did, after drinking a beer, was take out my camera and begin recording some of the crappy footage you can see in the previous post. I had to hold the camera over my head to get a clear shot of the stage. I recorded two 30 seconds clips and turned to a friend to say something when I got a tap on my shoulder. I turned, expecting to see Angie or Mark (they were on their way over from their hotel) only to see a scowling security guard.

Over the din of the band (The Go Team!) the guard shouted and gestured towards my camera. Instinctively, I turned it off and put it one of the many pockets lining my cargo shorts. He kept scowling and angrily jabbing his finger at my pants. As the song died down, the voiceless motions of his mouth began to scream.

"Whatcha doing? You shootin' video?? Video?"

Of course I was.

"No. Of course not!" I said. "It's a still camera. I thought we could bring cameras in."

"You can, but not video cameras." He said.

"It's not a video camera." It was. "It only shoots stills." It doesn't.

"I saw a little red circle on the screen. A recording symbol." Damn. He was an observant security guard. While we were arguing another, older, guard came up and stood by us.

"There's, uh, a little red light that lights up on the outside before it flashes…" It was a stretch.

"You know, I was going to let you off, but now you’re lyin’. You must think I'm a retard. Show me the pictures you took." I did think he was retard, but would go so far as to say he was an observant retard. I sighed and handed over the camera, turning it on for him. In video mode, the display only shows the first frame of the video so it just looks like a still. Thankfully.

"See? It’s just pictures. I didn't know we couldn't take pictures." I said again, reaching for the camera.

"You can take pictures, not video.” He said, turning the camera over apparently looking for the slot where the DV tapes went. The older guard stepped over and took the camera from the young punk and handed it back saying, “Here, just take pictures of the walls or I'll have to confiscate it." I immediately stuffed in my backpack and walked back to the couch I had been sitting on.

Narrowly avoiding my camera getting yanked, I treated myself to a beer and forced my way to into the crowd to watch Sonic Youth. They were surprisingly good. I think I had always confused them with Sublime or something, because when they started playing long, minimalist-influenced rock songs with few words, I was taken aback. They played a long, very interesting set. By the time it was done, I desperately in need of some food.

I left the theater and headed down a block to a nearby Subway I had seen earlier in the afternoon while I wandered around. However, when I arrived there I discovered it friggen closed at 6:00PM on Saturdays. 6:00PM??? That’s crazy talk. So I turned back around, tummy all a-rumblin’ with beer and… well, that’s pretty much it. Just beer.

When I got back to the entrance of State Theater, I approached the same guard and flashed my badge expecting to just breeze past. Instead she put up a meaty hand in halting gesture.

“What?” I asked.

“Need to go through your bag.”

I showed her my bracelet and flashed my most charming smile, “I was just in here. Five minutes ago.”

“Put the bag there.” She gestured at a ledge. My smile needs tweaking, or something. I handed her the bag tempted to say, “Put it there yourself, lemonhead.” But I restrained myself.

She started rustling through bag much as she had done before, brushing past my toothbrush, underwear, and socks. She stopped on my daily pill organizer. Damn (again), I thought.

“What’s this?”

“They’re heart pills. This is my overnight bag.” Both were true.

“We have to have them tested.”

“Tested? Tested for what?”

“Hey, I’m just doing my job. A lot of people put things in people’s drinks…”

“And they usually bring in said drugs in pill organizers?” She gave me The Look, so I shut up. My heart pills look like Advil and I happened to have a couple Advil mixed in with them, so when she spotted these, she asked, “Are these Advil?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Ok, enjoy the show.” I took my bag back and wandered into the theater. The place was absolutely packed. In retrospective discussions with various people, we came to the conclusion that they must’ve oversold the show because it was so crammed.

The Lips (which are kind of a Rock N’ Roll band crossed with a stage performance) were incredible. See the video in yesterday’s post.

After the concert, Chad, Andy, and Jon all headed back to GR. Angie and Mark reserved a hotel room in Auburn Hills (normally 20 minutes away) for us to crash at after the concert. The idea was they would get drive their yellow Aztec to the hotel and would follow. Do I need to say it didn’t work out as planned?

I did follow them. That part worked out okay. It was the part about 20 minutes that didn’t work out very well. Basically we had to get on I-75 and drive straight until we hit an exit, then drive to the hotel that is actually viewable from the interstate. Instead, the city of Chicago completely shut the interstate down. They didn’t collapse it down to one lane, no. They completely ended the expressway by forcing all of the 12:30AM Sunday morning traffic onto some side street in the absolute ghetto with sparse to no detour signs.

After an hour or so of driving around the hood, we were parked beneath and underpass at a red light. A very loud crashing sound was heard (I didn’t see anything) then Angie drove the yellow bus through three reds lights and headed off over a hill. At the same time, a police car hit its lights and pulled ahead about 20 feet and stopped. I was very confused. I waited until the light turned green, slowly passing the flashing cruiser. I learned later that a old, beat up truck flew past us and smashed directly into a telephone pole completely demolishing it. I missed the entire thing – my view being obscured by the Aztec and the underpass stanchions.

We finally made it to the hotel about 1:00AM, shared a couple bowls of popcorn, and a donut hole. I took a quick shower and fell immediately into a coma. I awoke about 2 hours later completely awake. Monty Python’s Flying Circus was on PBS, so I watched that for a few minutes then promptly fell into a deep, wonderful sleep.

The Lips Concert - Video Update

This is the video portion of the update. It contains a small, low resolution 5 minute video of the adventure. It shouldn't take long to download and will rock your socks. You can only watch under three conditions: 1) You post some kind of comment 2) You understand that it was shot on a small camera designed to shoot single frames, not video and 3) The cameraman had a few beers and only ate a small breakfast the whole day. I think it captures the frenetic mood of the event along with how impossible it is to actually describe a Lips experience. I'll post the story tomorrow. Click the images below for the vid (you may have to 'Save Target As' or whatever the Mac equivalent is to download it).

Working on Lips

Hey all. Still working on the Lips edit. I plan to add a cool effect for the intro, but I can't seem to get it straight yet. I also want to post the story the goes along with it because it involves nearly confiscated cameras, trucks crashing into telephone poles, and a Subway that closes at 6:00PM on a Saturday in downtown Detroit (!)

Stay tuned. (I tried to upload a picture but the form keeps timing out. I'll try again tomorrow)

Dukes of... I give up.

It's a year and a day since this was put on the web, but since I stumbled across this tonight and it made me chuckle, I thought I'd throw it up.

Apparently, Warner Brothers does not have enough researching staff to figure out all the details about the Dukes of Hazzard movie before they dump millions of dollars into it just to find out that the original rights remained with the producer of the original film (Moonrunners).

The movie looked too horrible for me to waste money and time watching, but I couldn't resist poking fun at how Warner Brothers got screwed over for not doing their homework.

Corporate Cornhole

About a month ago I was reading the much over-hyped blog Fark.com. There was a funny link to an article that talked about how a city was gathering around a beloved cornhole festival. The Fark comments were of the usual immature / hilarious variety. I was chuckling as I scrolled down the page to where the Southerners started writing about what cornhole actually is. It turns it out it's that game you played when you were at a town fair. You know, the one where you throw small bean (corn) bags into large holes cut into pieces of wood and were awarded points accordingly. You’ve seen it on the bozo show and at every circus in the world. Apparently, the game of cornhole is big business down here - the point that they sell tote bags to carry your cornbags around in. People play it all the time and, somehow, manage saying the word "cornhole" without snickering.

The title of today's entry is actually a double entendre. It refers to both me as a corporate cornhole who sucks because I've allowed myself to be swallowed up (again) in the testing suck and the fact that the corporation that has recently hired me has an entire warehouse filled with cornhole boards that nearly everyone in the company plays during lunchtime (I will get pictures of these boards soon).

I started up the working-making-money thing again today and boy, does it suck. Not even eight hours into my first workweek and I hate it. I understand its necessity (it only takes a glance at my checkbook) and its function, but it doesn't make me like it one bit more. But for now it is necessary. Take a solid year off for school and you'll have to pay the piper. And oh how the piper will be paid over these next few months. So this is it. No more bitching about my job. If you ever wonder about the job and feel inclined to ask, don’t bother. The answer is: It sucks.

Speaking of the piper, here's a little tongue-twister Mandy and I came up with on our way up/down to Grand Rapids / Cincinnati dedicated to Kliener and the humor he finds in street names for hard drugs:

How much crack could a backpack pack, if a backpack could pack crack?
A backpack would pack all the crack that a backpack could pack
If a backpack could pack crack.

Let's see. In other news. This passed weekend I went to a fantastic Flaming Lips concert with friends and family. I have a score of pictures I took as well as enough small, crappy resolution videos that I might actually blend them all together into something this blog has never seen before. A video update. Look for that later this week. Also, I am going to come through with my promise of some pictures of the apartment. While I was gone partying, Mandy stayed home and decorated the apartment, painting a section of it, and hanging some tapestries (how nice is that?) So it's definitely ready for some pictures to be taken of.... it. For which. Something.

We bought a kid tonight! Her name is Fatimata and she lives in Ghanna. Sponsoring a child is something Mandy has done in the past and wanted to do again for a long time, so we decided this would be a good time to try it out. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about picking a kid out through an internet site. It feels sort of overlordish. Like I'm some kind of space dolphin wearing a flexible clam shell as a toga reaching into a candy jar filled with African kids. Or it could be the Green Thai Curry Paste is still causing me to hallucinate. One of the two.

Looking for color, try this

The MSNBC week in pic slide show has a really interesting image of an art piece that is being displayed in Sydney. The artist is an Aussie with an eye for color - check it out: art in balls

Online

Online! Woot! I'll post something with more substance tonight, but for now: Here's what happens when you're offline for a week and you normally live your life on the web (blue indicates new messages).

(Addendum Added 21:39 - There will not be a more substantial post tonight. Been busy. The above promise of a post... is a lie. A terrible, terrible lie. Do not be fooled.)

Weekly wrap-up

Well, I made it through a full week at the old j-o-b. I am glad that it is the weekend, as my head was too full for me to have worked another day. And for all of you that want to run out to the nearest insurance company and get a job....don't. Unless you want to be bored to tears everyday, or just a masochistic person at heart.

Anyways, as typical with many of my previous jobs I had about 2 days of training and then thrown right into the fire. I kind of like it better that way, cause then I get to work things out in my head real-time as opposed to a trainer repeating things over and over again.

I think I met like 50 people this week. Good luck if I remember half of their names. Everyone working there, that I've met, seem really nice and friendly. Be it directions to the local restaurants or advice to not eat the chili or taco salad, the people that I talk to seem helpful.

I was invited to go to lunch yesterday with a big group. We went to a place called Udipi, which serves Vegetarian South Indian cuisine. They had a big buffet, mostly with items that I have never seen before. The only thing that I recognized as eating before was the raita. I also saw what looked like mint chutney. After getting some food, I dug into the chutney only to discover that it did not taste like mint at all. It was good, but I couldn't recognize the flavor at all. Later on I discovered it was coconut. I was really shocked because I do not like coconut at all. There were a plethora of lentil options from lentils and potatoes, to lentil donuts. All of it was very good. I had a good time, especially since all of my Indian co-workers watched me as I ate things that they had specified as 'very spicey'. Many of those dishes were not in fact spicey to me, and they were very amazed.

One of my cube-mates name is Teja (short for a very long Indian name). She asked if I like the food, as she was unable to go. After I told her that I enjoyed it very much, she said that she would bring in some curry for me to eat next week. WOOT!!! Real curry from a real Indian lady!! I am really excited. I think I will make some food next week too to bring in and share.

I ended the week with a glass of wine and listening to Delilah on the radio while petting Athena and Ocyrus.

Before I end the post I want to make a shout out to my Harley parents who are traveling through Wyoming state right now!! Love you Mom and Dad!!

M&M's Flaming Lips

Tomorrow I head out of town to meet with the droogs in Detroit to watch the Flaming Lips. Though we had a ticket for Mandy, she is unable to attend due to work restrictions. It just happened to work out that I was able to secure a half-day this tomorrow, but that became a moot point when they delayed my start date to next Monday. If this concert is anything like the one Mandy and I saw in Atlanta, it will be a fun time, and I'm looking forward to it. A quick search on Google Maps shows that, essentially, I'll be taking I-75 North the entire way - for 240 miles, which is just about 4 hours. If I leave here around 10:30 - 11:00AM I should get there around 4:00PM. That should give me a few hours to find my mates, some curry, and a beer prior to the Lips showering me in confetti, giant rubber balls, and yellow smoke. I plan to take pictures of the event, if possible. I'll post them when I get back as I should have a blistering-fast internet connection awaiting my return.

In other news, Mandy and I have started our two-week experiment in eating only vegetarian meals. Since most of the meals we normally eat contain minimal portions of meat, It's been fairly painless thus far. I'll have to take Kleiner-One-Niner up on his offer of a lunch/dinner at the Taj Mahal (which Mandy have eaten at and, damn. It's good.)

The only real came last night, in the form of Green Thai Curry. A very simple recipe listed in a book of Thai cuisine led us to Jungle Jims in search of coconut milk, soy-based chicken substitute, and a small, innocent-looking tub of Green Thai Curry Paste. Mandy and I are big curry eaters and preparers, so we were very excited to try a new kind of curry. I began preparing the meal about 5:00, when Mandy returns from work. The recipe, essentially, is GTCP (Green Thai Curry Paste) mixed with coconut milk and shallots (green onions). You simmer the works then serve over rice. Simple enough. Mid-way through cutting the shallots I hear a scream from the bathroom. I stroll in to see what body part Mandy has cut off, still holding my wooden stirring spoon. I found her standing in the bathroom preparing to color her hair: Or rather, waiting for me to color her hair. The scream came as a result of her realization that she had mixed the activating agents too soon, and that I would have to start applying the coloring cream immediately. I made some grunt of approval and returned to the kitchen to stir the curry. Before returning to the bathroom, I licked the stirring spoon to get a taste of the curry. Pain erupted in my mouth like nothing I have ever experienced in my previous adventures in Mt. Currysburg. Apparently, GTCP is flavored with the essence of white-hot burning pain extracted from the Salem Witches as they were burned at the stake. I ran back into the bathroom, put on a pair of rubber gloves and got to work massaging the coloring cream into her hair while screaming over and over, "AHHHHHH!!!! IT BURNS!!!" (insert Flaming Lips joke here)

While the evening did have a slightly unkilter beginning, everything ended up fine. Mandy's hair turned out the fiery color she intended, the curry was almost impossibly hot but palatable, and we tried a couple local microbrews we also picked up Jungle Jims. Thankfully beer, popcorn, and most other things that are bad for you, are not made out of meat so I can still indulge when able.
That's it from here. I don't know if I'll get a chance to post tomorrow due to the whole traveling thing, but Mandy probably will. Saturday or Sunday, since the internet connection should be up and running, I'll post some pictures of the apartment.

Driving

When Chad and were in Paris, we both noticed a strange phenomena. It took a few days to actually see it, since our primary mode of transportation was walking. Subtle and hidden, it lurked just beneath the surface, but due to the high frequency of events, we discovered that Parisians do not pay attention to anything when they are in motion. For example (and there are many), a man would be strolling down a sidewalk, tipping his Barrett to the local shopkeepers, or occasionally use his baggett to engage in a mock sword fight with another jaunty Parisian. Then, for no reason whatsoever, the man would make a right turn and walk directly into traffic. Some drivers would blare their horns, other would shake their fists screaming "Sacre Bleu!!" (which means, for some reason, 'Sacred Blue.') and swerve around the bread-toting pedestrian.

On another occasion, a person riding a moped tricked out with a basket and full frontal weathershield complete with those rubber arm covers you always see Homer Simpson using to handle glowing green bars of nuclear material, slowly drove into the back of a parked car. The road was not particularly slippery or congested, the parked car not was going anywhere (it was parked), and the person hit it at a speed of about 10mph. After striking the parked vehicle, he got to his feet, walked the moped in reverse, and sputtered off down the road. Chad and I looked at each other then turned to amuse ourselves with the aghast expressions the crowd was surely wearing. However, no one was remotely surprised or even paused to watch the scene unfold. They just wandered around, happily walking into traffic, walking into stationary telephone poles, and driving into each other with their strange, small vehicles.

The reason I bring this up has much less to do with the apparent absentmindedness of Parisians (I can't say the same from the rest of the country, people who speak French, or people who've ever eatcheesee and wine), andmorer to do with the way Buckeyes drive. It's the same. The majority seem to drive very slowly and very dangerously. When atraffice signal turns green, for instance, most are content to wait for the light to cycle back to red. When cars stack up behind red lights, it's not in any kind of straight line: the vehicles end up pointed in completely random directions. And while pedestrians do not stop to engage in mock swords fights with loafs of hardened bread, they do occasionally stop to punch each other.

'Till next time!

Well, my soon-to-be-boss delayed my start date again. Now, I begin next Monday (August 7th) at 9 in the AM. Apparently, the person who needs to sign the forms for me to begin is on vacation, and won't be in until next Monday. Time will tell... I guess I will stay in Geek /Beach Bum mode for a few more days as shown above. (BTW: It's fugging hot down here. There's a heat WARNING until this Thursday! Heat indexes have been in the 100s for the past couple days.)

I just finished editing a project for my client in GR. Once our internet connection is up and running, I plan to post some clips of the good and bad music videos I edited. Some are really good (Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy' and Madonna's 'Get Together') and some (most) are absolutely, mind-bendingly awful. It's hard to describe how bad popular music and music videos are. I haven't had direct access to anything akin to MTV in years, and now that I'm being exposed to the pop-music scene as viewed through the hip lens of MTV, I can only weep and laugh. I feel a special kind of sympathy for Chad who was forced to endure hours of broadcast television night after night. Now that I think of it, this explains many of the more extreme problems he has. His dream to create a Foxy-Boxing / Oil-Wrestling hotel that floats in space has context now. Poor guy. Speaking of the poor guy: Today is his birthday. Send him some of those cheezy Hallmark email birthday greetings. He'd love that.

In response to Chad's comment: Yes there are plenty of independent theaters down here, I just haven't been to any yet. I don't know the difference between 'Theater' and 'Theatre' other than the spelling.

Though I have yet to find a place that sells them, there is a local magazine called CityBeat that covers the independent film, music, and midget-tossing scene. There is a 20+ year old film society that organizes meetings of local filmmakers, sets up screenings of hard-to-find films, and sends out a newsletter. I'm planning on joining that. There's also a repetory theater somewhere downtown (a theater that you join and vote on what films it will show). I had a bunch of links to different film sites, but this $*&$% computer has just refreshed the page and lost them all again. God, I can't wait till I our connection is back up. Here's a few I remember:

Underneath Cincinnati

Cinci Film Society

Esquire Independent Theater (I like the name. :)

LiteBriteTest

This geek's new style...

I started work on July 26, 2006 at 8am. I came to work wearing khaki pants, a green shirt and a black jacket. I felt like a fish out of water, as most people do when they first start a job. After a quick tour, I was put in the area that I will be working. It took about 3 hours before the button on my pants decided to pop off. Luckily, it was only holding the flap on the inside of the pants, and I had a hook to keep my pants closed! After working for three days in clothes that I have worn for about 3 years, I decided that it would be best if I had some new clothes. Matt and I headed home for the weekend, and I went shopping with my sister. This time I spent shopping with her I will always remember as a good hell. The main reason is because I hate to shop in a store. Give me a computer and I am ready to start clicking. Put me in a room full of clothes and tell me to grab some and head for the dressing room, and I break out in hives.

If you don’t know my sister, you don’t know that she likes to shop. I am not usually this masochistic, but since she knows fashion and I don’t, I didn't feel I really had a choice. Unfortunately, that meant our shopping trip was going to be longer than I am used to. Normally if I have to go into a store to buy clothes, I am in for about 15 minutes. I usually pick things up on the way in and talk myself out of most of them on the way out. My purchases usually include socks and maybe a shirt (usually something I wouldn’t be able to wear to work anyhow). She fixed me up good with a plethora of snazzy outfits, shoes, and such.

The moral: if you are not the expert, make sure you ask for help. If it is an arduous task and you are not sure you are going to make it, repeat these words over and over in your head – This too shall pass.

I am very thankful that she was able to donate her time to help clothe this geek :)

Thanks Jess!

Back To It

We arrived about 7:00 yesterday and proceeded to order some Chinese food from "Timmy's Wok." The food was good, though not amazing. Mandy headed off to work this morning, and I've been spending the day cleaning and picking up random odds and ends that we need.

We are officially closed out of our apartment at Timber Ridge. The place was very good to us. It had all the things we were looking for in an apartment: Washer and dryer, garage, and a larger kitchen. Sadly, the timing was off and the jobs in GR were too far and few between. A couple can only live off of their savings for so long before they need to look for alternatives. On the other hand, jobs weren't the primary factor in moving. Mandy and I had long been considering trying out a new locale; one that has more opportunities for both tech and film. We're also getting sick of apartment living. All things considered, they are great if you need flexibility and have a high potential of moving around a lot. Being flexible is part and parcel of, oh for example, tech and film jobs. We know that moving into some kind of a more stable home is not too terribly far off in our future, and if we were going to get out of dodge and try out a new town or two, the time to do it is now. We're really getting to the point where we want to start investing our money in a living space rather than giving it over to an apartment complex. We spents several thousand dollars moving into Timber Ridge, paying rent, breaking our lease that we will never see again.

We look at this whole experience as a grand experiment in trying out new locations, meeting new people, and hopefully finding opportunities to better both our careers and our relationship. The odd thing about returning here yesterday was that the apartment contains our personal possessions but has none of the feel of home. This is always the case when I've moved into a new place. It takes time to adjust to the new layout, have a few friends over, and build a repertoire of memory that kind of serves as a shared history of the space. Then, after a while, it slowly begins to feel like home. With Timber Ridge, this took about three months - nearly the entire length of time we lived there. With Arbor Lake it never happened. With Bayberry it happened almost instantly...

(OMG!!!! When I hit the damn 'Windows' key on the keyboard on these crappy computers, my blog disappears. I've rewritten the next two paragraphs twice and now their gone again. I want to post from my own computer!!! ARGGHHH!!!!)

Quick Summary: The Internet rules! I miss it. I want the Internet in our apartment so I don't have to deal with people popping out of the gym, sitting in the chair next to me huffing and puffing, spraying sweat all over their computer. I should trip them as they exit the room and yank their their annoying pink iPods off their flabby arms and smash them to pieces with the heel of my shoe all the while cackling, "Whatcha gonna do about it, fatty???" But, instead, I sit here listening to Speed of Sound by Coldplay while typing and giggling to myself.
Anyway, I know the transition period will happen. It will take longer than usual due to obvious reasons like being in a completely new city in a different state. This week Mandy and I are going to start decorating and painting as we work to make the space feel less like a place where we eat and sleep and more like a place we live.

Pictures of the apartment are coming. I'll post them once our connection is up and running, so don't expect them before Sunday. Also, since this is a public forum, I'm not going to be posting any details about the apartment (like our address), so if you need any of that info, just email Mandy or I.

Leaving For GR

(Don't know why this went into draft instead of publish yesterday... unless I accidentaly hit 'Draft' instead of 'Publish')

Our short trip back was successful. We finished up with the apartment, went to see Phoenix which was a fun, albeit short concert, and had breakfast Sunday morning. Since we were not allowed to bring in recording devices of any kind, I don't have any pics to share. We're planning to leave here about noon and hopefully be back in Cin City about 5-6. I may post more when I arrive, but probably not.

Thanks for all the positive feedback about the blog. Many people I talked to this weekend mentioned having read it to see what's going on with Mandy and I. If you're a lurker (a person who just reads) consider posting a comment or two. It's free and you don't even have to register.

Saying Goodbye

The drive up was uneventful. We hit a little construction, traffic, and a thunderstorm, but nothing life-altering. The trip ended up taking about 5 1/2 hours, everything included. I think the 5 hour mark is a pretty good estimate for traveling between GR and Cin City. With gas, potty, and food breaks, people should be able to get from one place to the other in 5 1/2 to 6 hrs - for future reference.

Today, Mandy's Parents, Jess and Mike, and Mandy and I met for breakfast at the Gally Kitchen in Grandville. I ate a breakfast consisting of coffe and a breakfast burrito. It was good. Afterwards, Mandy and Jess headed off to go clothes shopping for Mandy's new gig ("The dress code here is buisness casual. Though, more buisness than casual.") while Mandy's Mom and I headed back to Timber Ridge to finish up. I dropped the entertainment stand off at my sister and bro-in-laws then headed back and finished moving everything into their truck. All in all, it took about 2 hours to finish the move-out. This was due. largely, to the fact that Mandy's parents painted, vacuumed, spackled, and generally did everything for us this past week. This, again, brings home the fact that much of this move would've been impossible withou their help. So, thanks again.

Tonight, Mandy and I are meeting up with friends and family to see Phoenix at the Intersection here in GR. This is a band that Mandy and I have been fans of since we first heard their single on a sampler CD picked while attending an Air concert at Clutch Cargos in Detroit. They are a kind of French/Funk/Rock band with a little retro-60s thrown in for kicks. Good stuff. Tomorrow we'll catch breakfast with some people, then head out of dodge around 1 or 2, to be back in town by 7-8.

We finally signed up for cable (Time-Warner has a monopoly in the Cinci area) and should be getting it activated next Saturday. Hopefully by then, I'll have a few small projects finished that will give everyone an idea about where we're living, what the apartment looks like, and (yes Dolemite) how the cats are doing. 'Till next time: Keep your SPAM in the fridge and your eyes on the prize!

Upward Bound

We're heading back to GR for a short visit this weekend. We'll be leaving here around 5 when Mandy gets out of work and drive up. Saturday, we're cleaning and getting done with the Timber Ridge apartment. That evening we're going to see Phoenix perform at the Intersection then do something with friends afterwards. Sunday we drive back. The weekend is going to be mostly driving, a lot of cleaning, and little Pheonix phunkiness. Since we're not going to be in town for long, we're not going to be able to make out to see everyone we'd like: I have a feeling this will be a theme whenever we come to visit. After this short visit, we're probably staying down here for a few weeks to get settled. This would be a good time for a visit, if anyone's interested

I don't know if we'll have a chance to post an update until Monday, but we'll try. I'll post pictures of the weekend and of the new place in Cinci when we return.

About The Cats

In response to a comment, here's an update on the cats:

Mandy and I have had a little experience moving our cats around in vehicles. The few experiences we've had have been short, 15-minute trips to the vets. Also, during "The Great South Carolina Job Fall-Through of '05" the cats spent a couple months *interacting with (*read: hissing at and puking near) Mandy's parents cats. In fact, the level of hissing and puking and general stress may have been a contributing factor in the heart attack that ultimate claimed the life Mandy's parent's cat 'King Kitty.' During these short trips, that cats went absolutly insane. Leaping around the cars, howling, chewing hands, climbing under breaks and gas pedals. In response to the extreme ways the cats responded to our short trips, we decided to drug them for the 5+ hour trip to Cin City.

We doped the cats with veternarian-perscribed drugs aprox. 1 hour before we left GR. As we prepared to leave, Athena looked a little sleepy, but Ocyrus was still wide-eyed and fully alert. We packed the cats in seperate cat carriers lined with poofy towels and placed one in each car.

The drugs must have been mislabled, because they caused the cats to alternatly chew at the metal bars, burrow in the towels, and leap so violently against the tops of their carriers that they knocked the boxes off of the seats and pass out. While passed out, their mouths would remain open, eyes rolled back in their heads, and they would let out little whistling, yowling noises ever few minutes. After about an hour and half of this, we pulled off to a rest area to let them out of the boxes for a while.

While watching the cats stumble around like me after a few hours at Founders, we decided we should put them together in one car and leave them out of the boxes. It was decided that they should go with Mandy and I would take the boxes. All things considered, the boxes were definitely the better car-mates.

Mandy said they gave much less trouble once they were together and out of their boxes. They alternatly slept and howled the rest of the way to Cin City. For the next few days, they moped around the house and slept most of the day and night, coming down (or up?) from their drugs. They've now fully recovered, and are back to their usual shedding, annoying, and impossibly cute selves.

When, if ever, we take them back up North, we will not drug them. The drugs seemed to make them even more horrible to deal with then they were straight. Maybe we'll feed them a little Founder IPA or Dirty Bastard and play some Ween before we go. That usually puts me in a mellow, relaxed mood.

At a Good Clip

Things are moving along really quickly. I went for the interview yesterday in Dayton and ended up getting the job. I went into our recruiting agency (it's same as Mandy's) and filled out the paperwork today. Two really cool things happen as a result: 1) I will get a sign-on bonus, just like Mandy and 2) we can each pay for separate insurance which lowers the cost by about 30%. The bonuses are especially helpful, as they almost totally cover the cost of breaking our lease at Timber Ridge and the cost of paying for the Budget truck. I noticed a comment from AK47 about a job in Blue Ash, so I'll have to look into that and see whether it'd be better to stick with the job I have just recently gotten. One thing is certain; after three solid months of job-hunting in GR with no results, we moved to this area and are both employed in less than 10 days. I don't if that's a credit to the can-do, don't-have-any-teeth spirit of the Buckeyes or a just a strange fluke, but it's pretty damn cool. I begin my job this upcoming Monday. For those of you who I am joining to see the Lips next weekend, don't worry. I'll still be there but the details of how and when are back in "under construction" mode.

Mandy and I will be heading back to GR this weekend (July 28th-30th) to finish cleaning up the apartment, turn in the keys, and pay off the lords and ladies of land. We'll head out of Cin City after Mandy gets out of work and be in town around 10:00PM. Saturday night we were thinking of hooking up with friends at Cambridge house for drinks and conversation and so forth. If anyone is up for it, or has a better suggestion, post it on the blog or call either of us. Next weekend, I'll be in Detroit for the Lips concert. After that, we'll probably be sticking around here for a couple weeks to continue our reconnaissance of the area. Mandy's parents are beginning their 'round the country Harley adventure this weekend and have plans to drop by our new place on their way back near the end of August.

Chad mentioned posting a list of the top 10 strangest differences between here and GR. This is funny because Mandy and I had already been compiling a list between the two of us. When we hit 10 on the list, we'll post it.

Umm. Anything else... We went to see Superman Returns yesterday in a large National Amusements theater. This is the same chain that ran Showcase Cinemas, the movie theater Chad and Pete worked at years ago. While Showcase will always have a safe nook in my heart, this theater will not. The tickets prices were reasonable for a matinee ($6.50) but here's the catch: You have to purchase the more expensive "Director's Seat" tickets to get benefits like seats that don't suck, refills on pop and popcorn, and your choice of seating in theater. Even McDonalds gives their patrons refills on drinks! In the words of Gob from the brilliant Arrested Development, "You ask the guy with the $5,000 suit to get a refill? COME ON!!!" I posted a review of the film on MindSplint, so check it out if you get a chance.

Day Around Town

Short post today... at least for now. I drove out to Dayton to meet someone at 7:00AM this morning. Dayton is about 35 minutes from where we live, so the drive wasn't that bad. I met a recruiter from a consulting agency and then I had an interview at a place in downtown Dayton. It went well, and I'd say it's pretty likely that I'll end up getting a job there. I should hear something today.

Anyway, the recruiter took me out to breakfast at a Cracker Barrel. Then, this afternoon, Mandy and I were taken out by a couple recruiters from her consulting agency to a restaurant in town. This city is great! The people take you out for food all the time.

We're still trying to figure out what to do about our internet conncetion and getting our barrings about the city. Mandy starts her job tomorrow at 8:00AM, so send her happy vibes and cheerful thoughts.

If we make it back down to this little business center, we'll probably post something else, but if not, we'll post an update tomorrow. Thanks for the comments! It lets us know that some people are reading our ramblings.

Tearful goodbyes...

This entire moving process has been all a blur. I can hardly believe we, and all of our stuff, is in our new apartment. The journey would not have been possible if not for my Grandpa Dudas, my mom and dad, and my uncle John and his girlfriend Suzanne. The rest of my family have also been supportive in shoving us out of Grand Rapids with a farewell party last Friday. Being breakfast people, Matt and I have fallen in love with Waffle Houses.

Today Matt and I went to breakfast with my mom and dad. The food was good, but the time was bittersweet. We would be driving back to our new apartment, and my parents would be riding back to good 'ole GR. I found myself to be quite overwhelmed, so there were no tears coming from my eyes (at this time). I do feel that my heart aches already in missing my friends and family, but my mind is set to jump into this new adventure whole heartedly. I look forward to the new adventures to come!

We Have Landed

Mandy and I have arrived in Cincinnati. We are still unpacking and getting everything organized. We just got back from dinner with Mandy's parents and are heading back to continue to unpack. The apartment complex has a little business center that will allow us to periodically get online while we wait for our own high-speed connection to get setup. I am way too tired and stuffed to type much more, so I'll close with this: The people down here have no teeth.

Last day in harbor...

Today was the big move everything out of the apartment into the moving van day. Over the past few days Mandy and I have been packing boxes and generally getting our things ready to move.

We picked up the moving van from Budget about 9:00AM. For some reason, our reservation information got lost on the way from the webpage we entered it in and the place we picked the truck up from - so it took a little while to re-order everything. We ended up settling on a 16' van with a dozen furniture covers.

We met Mandy's dad and grandfather at our place at about 11:30AM and proceeded to load up the bulky furniture. After loading the bedroom, the monster TV, and some boxes we realized that there was no way possible to fit everything we own into the truck. We moved to sell the TV and our bedroom set (but we're keeping the mattress and box-springs). The TV has already been sold to the Sterks, who are movie-nuts and the bedroom set will appear in the GR Press sometime in the near future. On the way back from Cincinnati this past weekend, Mandy and I discussed getting rid of the TV and bedroom furniture and we figure this will be better in the long run. We don't own a house or plan on owning one for a while, so there's little call for a full bedroom set. The TV, on the other hand, will be replaced in short order by a snazzy new one. I'll post pictures when we buy it.

We ended up wrapping up around 4:30 and have returned to Mandy's parents to sleep the night away. We plan to leave GR tomorrow before 10:00AM and make the long trip to Cin City in time to catch our new landlord and sign the lease and pick up the keys. Sunday will be filled with unpacking and returning the truck.

Ironically, while checking my email today I found a recruiter looking for two QA Testers in Grand Rapids. The job is described as being a, "Progressive company, casual dress, and meals paid for on Fridays." Mandy and I have been trying to find ANY tech job in Grand Rapids for the past three month solid and the first one we see arrives the day we are moving out. At first, I was pissed. Didn't it just figure that a job would open up as soon as we decided to head out of dodge? It seemed I could actually see an old geezer with a crooked smile floating in the clouds laughing and repeatedly jabbing a giant, red button labeled "Screw Matt and Mandy". Then I realized, mostly due to Mandy's gentle reminders, that we aren't moving solely for a job. It helps, but it isn't the main reason. We are leaving to try out a new place, eat at new restaurants, meet new people, save some money, and work on improving the nuances of our new relationship as a married couple. Also, if he were up there, poking a fate button, there's no way we would've been able to find an apartment and completely move to another state in less than seven days. We would've been stuck at every possible turn, and the amazing people who showed up to help us move, give us words of support, and make promises to visit would've never materialized.

At any rate, we are both excited about the road ahead. The grand experiment begins in t-minus 14 hours, and we are giddy.

Thanks to everyone who's helped out this past week in there own, different ways. I'll post again when I have access to a computer and the internet (which is made out of tubes, I hear). Stay tuned!

(I'll post some pics as soon as I can unload them from the camera)

Hello Cincinnati - Yet Again

In case you haven't heard, Mandy and I are relocating to Cincinnati, OH. We are there right now, as I type this. It's unbelievably hot down here (I keep hearing it's pretty damn hot up there too). We arrived yesterday (Sunday) and did a whole lot of apartment hunting today. We checked out some lofts downtown, a few apartments on the ritzy west-side, and some down-to-earth apartments on the North end. We ended up settling for an apartment not far from where Mandy will be working, and hopefully not far from where I will end up working.

I haven't been to Cin City in a while. The last time I headed down here, it was with Chad in toe as we went to meet the strange and enigmatic Kleiner to upgrade my delipidated computer. The area of Fairfield, which Mandy and I crused around this day past, was our destination. It's strange to see the area in the day time and with an eye that I might end up living in there parts for a while. For some reason, unbenounced to myself and everyone I know, Kleiner has dissapeared off the face the planet, so we haven't really had the means to look him up and invite him out for a beer. Alas. Maybe he'll resurface someday.

The people in the area seem really down-to-earth. We've had a few decent conversations with the locals including one extremely happy black man who yelled, as I scoured our car for our checkbook, "I just moved here from Holland Michigan! Move back! Ohio sucks!" The rest the natives have been more forthcoming and generally very pleased that there will be a couple of entergetic, young go-getters pracing about in their automated vehicle devices.

The hotel we are staying at, again, charged money for wireless internet access, so my time is limited. I will post a few random pictures when we end up back in GR and before Comcast comes and disconnects our cable.

From the (kinda) South. PEACE!

Pointless Product #2

Here is the obligatory Homer Simpson Quote.

This is lifted straight off of Boingboing.net (a much funnier and well-written blog than ours), but I had to put a post up about it. Is this a truly pointless product? Yes. Do I want one? Yes.

Instant Messenger Puppet

Da Fort O' Jooleye!

I love the 4th of July. I'd rank it right up there with the likes of Halloween and New Years Eve as my favorite holidays. It attacks you with coolness on many fronts, flanks, and forts. First, everyone can agree to liking it. It happens right around the Summer Solstice, when the daylight is long and temperatures are up. It's also centered around a non-religious event - the Independence of the United States. Regardless of what stupid things we are doing around the world now, everyone can agree the founders were pretty sharp dudes - and they came up with an interesting way for people to govern themselves. Second, the 4th is a celebration of heat, sunshine, and charred food. Everyone (well, unless they happen to be slaves of the soul-crushing television industry) gets to take a day off and enjoy the summer in its purest form - free from the distractions and concerns of keepin' it real, so to speak.

Hurrah for the forth!

Run #2

Another strange week has passed in Grand Rapids. Life seems to whirling into one of the tempests that appear every now and again. People moving, people dying, and people dancing get sucked into the vortex to be flung about seemingly at random. When the storm and the debris settle, things seem normal, but altered in vague and profound ways. I think the microcosm of an individual's life is self-semetrical to the whole of society: The small-scale reflects and imitates the large-scale. This particular tempest doesn't appear to be concerned with the events of my life, but everyone's and all at once. Maybe these things are happening all the time, but only occasionally we rise above the water and see how chaotic and strange the whole dance of life really is.

I ran my second 5K run this past weekend - it was the YMC Buck Creek Run. Though haven't been training as agressivly as I'd like, I still did better than the 5/3rd River Bank earlier this year. I knocked a good 30 seconds off each mile.

Walt Disney speaks from beyond the grave

I just read a really interesting article on BoingBoing that detailed a letter Walt Disney wrote to the future. It was unearthed in a time capsule from 1956. Check out the link: Walt's Letter

I love time capsules. They rule.

A Southern Summary

Here are the two videos I shot with my little still camera. They're pretty large files, so be forewarned. You may want to right+click and 'Save Target As.' Or whatever the Mac equivalent is.
Flaming Lips Video 1

Flaming Lips Video 2

The trip is over. The last unwritten day was spent driving to Louisville, KY to use yearly passes Mandy and I purchased. Upon arrival, we found that the Six Flags in Louisville isn’t open during the week until the week after we were there. After that we headed back home and watched George Lucas’ “THX 1173” a very derivative sci-fi movie.

Some observations from the trip:

1. Always check the local papers when traveling

By doing this, Mandy was able to discover a free concert at the Olympic Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta, featuring the Flaming Lips. We didn’t know the concert was happening until we arrived, and only after flipping through a local newspaper.


2. Ask the wait staff for recommendations

I ate an Irish boxty on the advice of a waitress at an Irish Pub. It was the single most delicious thing I ate on the trip. The menu item description read, “Corned Beef and Buttered Cabbage Wrapped in a Potato Pancake with Mustard Sauce.” Which sounds interesting, but not particularly good. I took the recommendation and discovered that I love the things.



3. Use Priceline

We purchased a room in Louisville both on the way down and on the way back up. The first time we stayed in the hotel we paid well over $60. The second time we used Priceline to pay for a better room for $40. This may be an isolated incident or it may not. Either way, Priceline saved us some moolah.



4. Find alternatives

Several of our plans for each day were spoiled by circumstances beyond our control. A bit more planning may have resulted more successful plans, but it may not have. The point is, irregardless of whether a plan was successful or not, we were able to turn every situation into something fun and adventurous. Adding flexibility to a trip means that you don’t always know what’s coming up next, and that can be good thing or a bad thing. It all depends on your disposition and willingness to adapt to the circumstances.

It was damn good to get out of dodge for a week. Checking out a city brimming with interesting places, people, and new sites gives one a fresh new perspective. Atlanta is multi-racial in a way that Grand Rapids is not, and I think will never be. Generations of non-whities have been living in Atlanta for a long time, and there seems to be a proud culture wrapped around the fact that the slavery-based economy Atlanta used to run on has been replaced by a capital market.

SOUTH - Day 5

This is going to be a quick update, as we just got back from the festival. Today was good. We went to Six Flags and rode a bunch of interesting rides, especially Superman The Ride. It was a strange inverted, flying kind of thing.

A picture I took of Wayne singing Yoshimi with a nun hand-puppet

The Flaming Lips concert was amazing (and free). They played for about 2 hours, covering a wide gambit from Soft Bullitan through Mystics. Mark always told me that their shows are hard to discribe, they must be experienced. It's true. It's unlike any other concert I've been too. Wayne shooting confetti into the audience, balloons everywhere, him singing through a megaphone they sprayed yellow and green smoke, and either side of the band was flanked by a group of Martains and a group of Santa Clauses. The interesting thing is that there is no strong sense of pretention. There is no purpose for any of the fanfare apart from the fact that's it's just fun. It doesn't make any grand point or say antything important: It's just fun to watch and interact.

I have a couple video I shot with my little Cannon PowerShot that I will post when I get back home.

'Till tomorrow.

SOUTH - Day 4

Yesterday we went through town trying to find our way to the zoo. We hoped a couple trains and jumped on a bus after waiting for about a half an hour. When we finally arrived at the zoo, we found it to be closed... the one day of the year it is closed, actually. That was about 4:00PM.

In spite of that, we headed back into town to check out the start of the festivals. We went to a really cool arts and crafts festival. I got an ear of corn and a beer. It was great. We also checked out the large festival that we are going to Sunday to watch the Lips. We wandered around afterward, checking out some local dives, and headed back to the hotel to pack up and get ready to move on to our next hotel. We're going to a Holiday Inn near the Olympic Park where the festival will be tomorrow. Then on to jump on some sweet rides at the 6 Flags Over Georga.

SOUTH - Day 3

Today we woke up, well rested, and while Mandy went off to exercise in the hotel’s facilities, I rolled over and went back to sleep. The hotel is beautiful and the help is very good. Wherever we are going we are met with a smile and a hello from the staff. If we are looking confused, they ask if they can help. For example, we were downstairs trying to leach off the wireless network (see post from yesterday for details), one of the doormen was walking through the lobby and saw us boot up and then shut down. He came over and asked if we needed help. We asked if he knew where a coffee shop was, trying to be a little inconspicuous about our intentions, but he saw right through us. He directed us to a little place about a quarter mile up, and said he thought that they had wireless. And the door to our hotel room, for some reason, has a doorbell.

We walked up to the joe-shop, got some coffee and grub, and then found out that they too charge for wireless. These people are insane!! Luckily, Amerihost had many unsecured networks open so we helped ourselves and got the info that we needed. We then went and visited a very cool historic museum.

For dinner we went to really good Irish pub / restaurant and ate some authentic food. I had a strange, albeit delicious, dish called a boxty. I’ve never heard of these things before. It’s basically a potato pancake stuffed with corned beef and cabbage and slathered in a really tangy mustard sauce. It was amazingly good. Mandy had a spicy chicken sandwich and some huge, deep-fried chips. I also had a pint of Guinness per Chad’s request

Tomorrow we’re planning to go to a Six Flags nearby. I’ll give a better update.

Oh, and it turns out that there’s a free concert series going on this weekend. The band playing tomorrow night, for free, is The Flaming Lips…. For free.

AHHH HAHAHAAHA!!!!

SOUTH - Day 2

Day 2 – Thursday

There has been a day delay in the posts due to our current hotel’s policy of charging $4.95 per 15 minutes of wireless internet usage. Yes, that’s fucking insane. On the way down here, we stopped at a random exit and drove slowly through the town until we happened across an unsecured network. That has been working pretty well here in Atlanta, but we keep getting dropped.

Yesterday (Thursday) we drove from Louisville, KY to Atlanta. On the way, we stopped in this small town called Portland that is apparently where strawberries were first discovered. We didn’t realize this until we stopped and found all of these small, road-side stands selling strawberries. We stopped at a local vineyard \and bought some amazing wine.

The rest of the trip to Atlanta took about 6 hours. When we arrived, we settled in our amazingly opulent hotel room. Mandy booked the room through Priceline, so we ended up getting a $290 priced room for $90. It’s been very cool.

We ate at a slightly crappy joint recommended to us by the concierge. It was a restaurant that combined fondue, live jazz, and a giant pirate ship… which makes it sound pretty damn cool, but turned out to just be overpriced and bland.

SOUTH - Day 1

Welp, we made it as far as Louisville, KY. The drive took far less time than google maps predicted, so we're sitting in the hotel lounge enjoying a couple local microbrews. Just outside of our hotel room's window, we can see the local convention center and Six Flags (which Mandy will not let me go to... because we are going to the Six Flags in Atlanta, so it's a compromise). The theme of the convention is Suckers and Plungers or something. The sign was hilarious, needless to say. The convention going on at the actual hotel is a group of people who do the legal management for gangs within the prison system. We came across a table displaying ads for various software solutions for how to schedule prisoner transport and other prisoner services. Very interesting stuff.

We'll be heading out of here early tomorrow to make the rest of the way to Atlanta where, undoubtedly, more crazy conventions will be happening.

M&M

The South Pt. 1

I am eat tofu in the South, come to tomorrow!

Tomorrow in the dimmest A.M., Mandy and I will be heading off to the South. Grand staircases, plantations, and "Frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn" will be everywhere. I am packing my cleanest pair of spurs and loading my iPod with banjo melodies a plenty. Provided there is enough internet-wire to go around, I will be able "jack in" and provide "updates" to "everyone." As time and connectivity allows, I'll be making daily updates including images and scratch N' sniff blots.

Keep it tuned to Drop My Straw for more lunatic ravings as we head into the deepest, darkest heart of the American South to dispell and, hopefully, create some myths.

Race Day Pt. 2

So I survived the race. I guess have to pay back all those loans I took out last Friday.

The race went really well. About 8,000 people participated, again making it the 2nd largest 5K and 25K race in America. The 5K part started at 8:10AM and I ran it in about 33 minutes, giving me, on average, 11 minutes 14 seconds / mile. Which isn't the greatest, I ended up somewhere around the 37 percentile, meaning 63% of everyone performing did better than I. However, I'm taking this race a launching point for a series of other races this summer. Mandy, Angie, Chad, Andy and myself are planning to do 5 5K races by the end of the summer. I figure if I keep up with my training and actually do the races I plan to do, I should be able to get to being able to do under a 10 minute mile by the end of the summer and loose some of the profound flab you can easily see on the image below.

Race Day Pt. 1

The race day is nearly upon me. I've been training for the 5/3rd Riverbank run for a while now. I think by this picture you can tell that my training has put me in fine shape for the 3.1 mile jaunt. The last time I competed in any kind of race was in Austin, TX for a 100 mile juvinille diabetes race. Howerver, the only training we did for that race was going out biking one time, one a borrowed bike, wearing jeans and boots. Needless to say, I did not complete that race.

At that time I made a pact with myself that if ever I attempted to compete in any kind of organized athletic thingy, I would either complete the the race or die in the process.

Well, the weather tomorrow is suppossed to be pouring and in the low 40s. It's been nice knowing you...

Little Tid-bits

We can all breathe a sigh of relief...
I don't know about you, but I am glad to hear that King Tut's missing penis was rediscovered a couple of days ago. This information has given me a renewed sense of joy, and I know that I will be able to sleep better tonight.

How many candles do you want on that cake?
A native of San Agustin, El Salvador, Cruz Hernandez, should soon find herself in the Guinness book of world records. Cruz, born on May 3, 1878 has just turned 128yrs old. She celebrated her birthday with about 200 people, some were carrying cakes and others were dressed as mythological heroes

It's a baby!!
A 63-year old is set to be the Briton's oldest mother soon. Patricia Rashbrook was given in vitro fertilization (IVF) last October. If my math is correct she should be looking for a June/July baby.

Tips n' Tricks

Thanks to Josh's recent comment about the fact that these blogs supply site feeds, I thought I'd whip up a quick list of cool features Blogger has that you might not know about. Each header is a link to a page that describes the feature.

1. Site Feeds

What site feeds allow you to do is create an active bookmark that will display direct links to each entry in a blog as they are updated (in semi-realtime). For example, I have a bookmark that says "Drop My Straw" in my toolbar in Firefox. When I click on it, it opens a drop down box that shows all of the latest entries on the blog. From there, I can select which article I want to view.

If you use Blogger, your site's feed is: http://[yoursitename].blogspot.com/atom.xml

If you are posting to your own blog, you don't need to do anything to enable this feature. As a viewer of blogs, however, you need to setup a live bookmark in your browser to use the feature. This will vary from browser to browser, but I can say from personal experience, it was incredibly easy to do in Firefox... and since Firefox is ported to basically every OS on the planet, you can always use this option.

This is Drop My Sraw's Feed: http://dropmystraw.blogspot.com/atom.xml

2. Email Updating

Email updating lets you update your blog simply by emailing the contents of your post to the blog. When your blog will receives the email, it will format the text and contents and, depending on your settings, either post it or save it as a draft for you to post.

3. Telephone Updating

You can call your blog and have it auto-update with an MP3 of your message. Outrageous! This feature isn't actually provided by Blogger, but by a 3rd party. It seems really easy to use. Just click the link and check it out.

If you have any questions, let me know!

Done (now we dance)

By the time you read this, I will have graduated from Grand Valley State University with a Bachelors of Science in Communication (Film and Video / Cinema Studies). I learned a ton of interesting and helpful things during my time at GVSU. In fact, to demonstrate my awesome mastery of the moving picture, I put together the following movie. It took several weeks, but I think you'll agree it was worth the effort. To see the film, press the play button.

You are NOT a victim

I understand that there are a lot of niave people in this world. Also, there are a lot of people that do not have what is considered "street smarts". I do think that there are more people that call themselves victims than need to be. I am going to briefly view two stories that have happened in the past couple of years.


First is a man named Thomas Patrick Remo. He decided to rent a storage unit, dress it up as a doctors office, put an ad in the paper for FREE gynecologist exam. If I saw this ad, I would not respond to it, but there were a number of women that did respond and received "exams" from him. Luckily, Thomas Patrick Remo is now behind bars on charges of practicing medicine without a license. Remo allegedly convinced unsuspecting women he was an ob-gyn while offering free medical exams out of a storage facility.

This next example is almost too much. Apparently, a 76 year old Florida man decided that he would try his hand (no pun intended) at door-to-door sales. But instead of steak knives or vacuum cleaners, he decided to give free breast exams. Now I don't know about you, but I'm not letting some guy come into my house to give me a free breast exam. Unfortunately, there were a few women that fell for his sales pitch and allowed him in.

C'mon people!!! Use the two brain cells that you haven't dowsed in PBR and think before you let some one OBVIOUSLY take advantage of you!!!

Working to be happy with me

According to the American BMI calculator I am overweight. In the American society where more is better, that may not surprise, but I am a person that generally watches what I eat and I exercise between 4-6 days a week. Granted the calculator does not take into count body frame size, but nevertheless, according to US standards, I am ‘fat’.

I came across this story today, and found myself having a strong reaction of envy for a person that could eat so much and not gain any weight. Once I read the entire article, and saw how many problems he has had over the years and how much of a struggle it is for him to live a ‘normal’ life, I obviously wasn’t ready to trade places with the guy. The release of envy for this person left me with a newfound awareness – I was not happy with myself, physically.

I have previously thought that I had a good self-image, but now know from my gut reaction I need to take a look at this part of me. I like learning, growing, and improving, and now that I have discovered an area of myself that is not as strong as I once thought, I am going to challenge myself to be the best person that I can be and be happy with the person that I am.

Do we even need humans anymore?

I know it's been a long time since my last post...I promise to TRY to write more.

I remember reading an article a few years ago about how science was in the process of perfecting the ability to fertilize ovarian eggs (through synthenic and frozen sperm). There was a lot of uproar as some groups (with mostly men as members) thought that they would no longer be needed.

Today it seems science has stepped forward again....in a different direction. Click here to read an article on a robot giving birth.

Most science fiction stories depict the world being taken over by machines. Looks like we are headed in the right direction.

Monkey Whistle

Almost done with school. 24 days until I officially graduate. I decided not to walk due to the length of ceremony (4 1/2 - 5 hours) and that I wouldn't even get to actually walk across the stage. I would just sit there while they read names.

The oddness of the thing is that so much of what I've been doing for the last 4 years has been rooted in school. My jobs have always been a means to an end. Video projects have almost exclusively been because of deadlines set by professors. Even my writing has been mandated by what I knew the Prof was looking for.

Whelp, now the end is here. I've accomplished my goal. I'm going to get my degree, so now what? I know I eventually want to get an MFA, but I want to take some serious time off. I want to earn my chops in the various technical and ideological aspects of the craft before I try to learn more. I want to find a job that is not only fulfilling, but pays well. I want to be rich and famous. I want to live in forest, off of solar-grids and hydroelectric power generators while simultaneously living in a small, cramped apartment in Manhattan. Ugh.

I'm sure things will sort themselves out, as they always do, but in the meantime this is more likely to be my working reality. I will move to China and take over this guy's job."Now can I be a director?"

I don't know art, but I know what I like

Mandy forwarded me this link from MSNBC. Regardless of what pro-choice groups advocate or any of the myriad reasons that now exist or will exist in the future, one simple fact remains: A sculpture of Brittany Spears giving birth while straddling a roaring lion is the surest sign that the end times are upon us. The end is neigh, my friends. This is proof from the Bible itself:

“Then the angel said to me: 'Why are you astonished? I will explain to you the mystery of the woman and of the beast she rides'” Rev 17:7

“It’s in Revelations, people! We don’t have a prayer!” –Reverend Lovejoy “The Simpsons”

Best wishes....and a lifetime of love

Saturday was a very exciting day for me! A day that had been a dream of mine for a long time... Esquire, a very good friend of mine got married to the woman of his dreams.

I met Esquire at CompUSA, at the end of 1996/beginning of 1997 (the exact time is a little foggy as I was partying too hard back then). There is no forgetting the smile, the dimples, or the niave person that he was back then (ok, I was pretty niave too). We had many adventures, a couple of fights, and a lot of hugs.

Through the years, I have seen him go through many changes, and along the way, he has dated a few women. I knew he was serious about Amy almost immediately, as she was not anything like anyone he ever dated before.

Amy and I have begun to get to know each other and I look forward to becoming a great friend to and for her. It would be great to have the same type of strong bond that Esquire and I have, with her.

The wedding was absolutely wonderful, bridal party were glowing, and the reception was fun. I am very happy for both of them and wish them a long life together filled with love.

Game Collection, or: OMGWTFBBQ??!??

I enjoy gaming, always have, and as long as my peepers and hands hold out, always will. I enjoy them on an aesthetic level as much as their being a self-reflexive window into our increasingly post-modern society. If film is a mirror of humanity, then video games are a kind of shiny, reflective, odd smelling silly-putty of humanity.

So, I suppose, it comes as no surprise that people can obsess about video games. If people can be addicted to drugs, chocolate, and smooches, it's not such a stretch to imagine them being addicted to the escapist/voyeuristic aspects of interactive gaming. Faint, blurry lines separate "enthusiast" from "that smelly game-guy in the basement."

To make my point, here is a link I lifted from the exhaustive game blog Bluesnews. Click the link below and take a look at the images. What's your vote: Enthusiasm or Insanity?

Game Collection on Kotaku

It's all gotten clearer.....

As my last post stated, I went in to get LASIK surgery last week Friday. It was a very strange experience, and I was a bit nervous, but the surgery was a success. As I sat in the very comfortable chair waiting for Matt to be brought over, I took a deep breath. I had to keep telling myself to blink because I was keeping my eyes open, trying to take everything in.

The days that have followed, I have found myself blinking more (with hopes of feeling my contacts) and announcing that I am going to take my contacts out (before bed). Matt has looked at me strangely, but has been a support all the while.

Matt had an idea to do a before and after picture of how my vision has changed. It took a little while to blur the before picture, mostly because I was in denial of how bad my sight was before the surgery, but we finally finished. Here is what we came up with:

Before:


After:


I am very blessed to have the opportunity to take advantage of this great surgical invention. I would recommend LASIK to anyone!

One day left....

For all of you who do not know, tomorrow at 2:30pm I will prepped to undergo the infamous Lasik surgery. This has been a long time coming as I have been wanting something to rid me of my glasses and contacts for many years.

I want it to hurry up and get here, and yet I don't. I want to be able to control the entire situation, so that I know that there will not be any complications, but I know that I can't. Which brings me to the emotion that I am feeling now...anxiety.

Luckily, I have a card up my sleeve - Mr. Matt Fox!!! He is always the rock that helps support me in times of trouble and struggles. I am able to rest a little more easily knowing that he will be standing there when I get out of surgery....to tell me how cool it looked when the doctor cut my eyes open!

Matt will be driving me to and from my appointment, and has offered his and Chad's services of entertaining a semi-swollen eyed Mandy.

To take a quote from Lydia Deetzs: Yes, I love that man of mine!