Remaking Memories

Johannes Brahms!

2009-07-11T15:25:00.004-04:00

This man flicked me off today.

At least, he looked like Toby Flenderson. I was driving on 27, and some dude I guess wanted to merge into my lane, but he wasn't signaling his intent to merge, so I didn't feel obligated to let him in in front of me when there was plenty of room behind me. So, he flipped me the bird. And I was delighted when I passed him and saw that the guy who was overly upset with me for littel to no reason was, as Daryl put it, "the guy with the sad eyes". Totally made my day.

Also, my day was even more made when I was watching Life, a good show I;m upset that I'm getting into as it has already been canceled, and one of the ads was this.

I would totally eat that, beard or no beard.

Keepin' It Unreal

2009-07-10T14:35:00.003-04:00

I haven't forgotten the blog. For multiple days at a time, it slips my mind, and there are times when I feel like writing something, and it just doesn't happen. There have been plenty of blog worthy things, such as my new brothers of the Hawaiian shirt wearing clan at Baker Park on the fourth. There have been plenty of things going on with Ben and Justin.

Problem is, all of these things are tainted. It's been a long time since I've felt bad about how I handled something. guilt is not a feeling I like, a feeling I took great lengths to avoid. I'd like to say this thing brings out the worst in me, but maybe it just reveals who I really am. I take a malicious pleasure in being a jerk. I feel I take more pleasure in the pride of not being an ass, but one is easier than the other sometimes.

Point being, this last project I've been working on, I love it. Thing about it is, it's real. It's not something born in my head. I've, with Justin and Ben's help, documented it, and embellished it, but I've made almost nothing up. And while I like that my life is for once interesting enough to to merit something like this, in this case, a screenplay, it's all very real, and I'm having doubts as to whether I'm the protagonist of this story, or the antagonist. The wanderlust I've been feeling lately isn't because I'm a gypsy at heart. It's because once again, I'm finding myself unhappy with who I'm becoming, and I'm too afraid to fix it.

I don't really know. It's an ugly situation, one that has no easy solution, only the promise that the situation will go away at the end of the summer, at least temporarily, so I have the option to ignore it until it goes away, which is not what I want to go away.

I've been drawing though. I'm not very good, but considering how good the women in my family are, I have to at least have some talent. I don't have anything I consider good enough to put on the blog yet, but I'm trying. I've just got some stories that I envision more as graphic novels than books. Some things are said better with pictures than words, and while I doubt I'll ever be good enough to do these as a solo endeavor, I've got some characters that I want to actually see somewhere other than in my head. Some of my more recent stories have started with a simple image, my latest was what I believed to be a character from another story, whom I thought had died much younger than I saw him there, oddly, on metro. I don't know if it means anything, other than that my imagination has totally stepped out of my control, not mention my understanding.

But it's what I should be doing. Making stuff up. It's not a guilt free place, and there is still question over who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, but at least I'm still rational enough to know that while it matters to me, it only matters to me. I can maintain my self image as a decent human being. What I'm working on now, the real stuff, I'd like to leave it alone for a year or too, come back to it, and see what's changed. Once I can separate it from reality, then maybe I can finish it, guilt free. Once the people in it are characters, and not people I know.

Still, I wanted to try my hand at drawing, and I've been reading some web comics lately, paying almost as much attention to the artwork, or more importantly, the changes and improvement of the artwork, as the stories themselves. I think if I keep at it, I might produce something decent. I'll never do anything that compares to my sisters, but if I can do the cover art for at least one book, I'll be extremely happy. It's probably just another excuse to do something besides actually write these stories. I think my skill at procrastination would let me put off my own death. That is the dream, anyways.

About Time!

2009-06-21T15:11:00.002-04:00

Not that I need it, but it's nice to know that they make a supplement now.

It was pretty awesome, walking into Wal-Mart, looking for protein powder, to see this. Not going to lie to you. It just about made the trip to Frederick worthwhile, seeing as Ben and I tried to go clothes shopping, but were unaware of the lack of Old Navy in Frederick. I don't know if the fact that we are too hopeless to shop for clothes makes us slightly better, considering it seems our friendship has reached the level of Bromance where we go clothes shopping together. In our defense, Ben apparently had some sweet deal, but a deal that necessitated spending more money than he wanted to. It wasn't gay at all. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

But jeeze, protein supplements! So confusing. I had bought some stuff that is just god awful, but for 25g of protein, it wasn't worth choking down, especially since according to the fancy graphs on the container, working out while using a placebo protein source, you will attain negative muscle growth. I'm just curious if that only applies if you think you're getting protein, but aren't, or if you just aren't getting enough, because that means that pretty much all the exercise I've done my entire life has been depleting my muscles.

But anyways, I'm nearing the end, and the other night, talking with Mike, Keely's fiance, he said he had some stuff that was 50g, double what I was rocking. Needing to investigate, Ben and I went to Wal-Mart, to shop around for protein. We found ones of course that were 50g, but in the fine print, you saw that it was for two scoops! Every single one had a different measurement and definition of a serving size. Some were one, some two, one was even four scoops. They all ended up being roughly the same, but it took us about ten minutes to figure it out. I dind't even end up getting anything, as I still need to finish my awful vanilla cream whey protein, that tastes quite a bit more like cake batter, and doesn't mix with anything, so there are just chunks of gooey protein floating in whatever you're trying to consume with it. It's awful.

Reasons not to Blog

2009-06-19T18:43:00.010-04:00

I haven't forgotten the blog. There have been several times when I meant to post, but then something comes up. Like the other day, I totally had a post, and pictures for it. I was going to take my pictures off of my camera, but since I got a new camera, one that uses an SD card, and not the useless XD card that my old Olympus used, I hadn't bought a new card, and instead was using an old SD card I had. When I put it in my computer, I noticed there were other things on it.

Even more exciting than finding a bunch of old word files I thought I had lost, was the discovery of stuff I had written that I didn't remember at all.So rather than post, I've been reading some of my old stuff for the past several days, one of which was a story that was almost 90 pages, one that I was certain I had lost.

My only regret is not doing a better job of dating this stuff. I was telling Justin about this, and he compared me to an archaeologist, going back into my life, and trying to carbon date stuff. It's pretty true. Most of my stories, I can place their conception, roughly.

The Monkey House, it was in either my Spanish four or AP Spanish class, when we were trying to talk about fears in Spanish. I'm pretty sure it was four, because the next semester, I considered trying to write it for my graduation project, but the story wasn't old enough, but I did write a lot, and found probably all of it the other day.

My story about demi-gods that govern human life and death, I remember that was the summer after senior year, and it came about while I was running on route 27 every night, and my sense were over-tuned, and I was jumping at every shadow. I found a lot of the original ideas for that.

And a lot of stuff from Eryk Valen's story. Stuff so old I still spelled his name Eric. He's the one, the important one, the one who I have no idea how long I've known about him. I can date him back to at least seventh grade, just from certain things, but I'm sure it was before then. How much has he changed in that time. That had to be before he even had a name, let alone a proper spelling.

So, with all that old stuff, then I of course was thinking about the name, and how he got, and it has been a long time since I've learned anything new about him. I replay his story over and over, and a few things get changed, added, and omitted, but there is very rarely anything new. But for the first time in probably a year, I have something new. And also, I have dated it, and backed it up for sure. Man it annoys me that I have no idea when any of that stuff was written.

Anyways, pictures. I have some. Apart from my typical three day a week workouts with Ben and Justin, I realized I wasn't running as much, so I started running to my old neighborhood, taking a few laps back and forth across the lake, and then running back home. It's only four miles, but the swim in the middle wears me out. I was talking to my old neighbor, Valerie, today, and she said that you couldn't pay her to get in that lake. I can't really argue there. It's beautiful, but it is pretty gross. It gets worse as the summer goes on. I remember as kids, when we'd all go swimming in it, we'd all have rashes from the "ching chings" as Keely (who just got engaged, congrats Keely and Mike) dubbed them. But right now, the algae and seaweed or whatever that grows in there is almost nonexistent, at least in the small part I swim in, and it's manageable. Also, people like to keep reminding me of the snapping turtle situation in that lake, a fact that I'm aware of but don't like to be reminded of. They generally chill on the bottom, waiting for prey, so I figure if my feet don't touch the ground, I'm alright.

The lake. The pictures don't do it justice, at least not to how disgusting it is. With all the rain lately though, it's quite full, meaning it's cleaner than usual, and colder than usual, both huge pluses.

Just a picture of Jo chillaxin' on the deck, under my chaise.

This was pretty sweet storm, came on pretty suddenly. Also, left my car windows open that day. It rains, like almost everyday, and seems I would learn to roll them up, even if I plan on leaving shortly and it doesn't look like rain.

Productive

2009-06-05T21:01:00.002-04:00

I think this pretty much sums up our day. I got a new camera today, but I was at Ben's with him and Justin, a fellow member of the blog quadratic and old friend from high school home for the summer, so I didn't have a memory card with me, so I was limited to three pictures. I felt these did an accurate job of describing our day, as the three of us sat around at Ben's house. We were actually quite productive. On what, I won't say just yet, but here is just a small preview of what is to come.

That is our other friend Colin, also a memeber of the blog quadratic:

And John Lithgow, famous actor:

The rest you can deduce for yourselves.

RDTSBWTR

2009-06-03T13:50:00.004-04:00

Robot Dinosaurs That Shoot Beams When They Roar

Just, just click the link. It's pretty awesome. I feel that everyone should make the world safe for another ten jillion years.

Still Dancing with Groogrux King

2009-06-02T18:39:00.004-04:00

The new Dave Matthews Band album came out today, Big Whiskey and the Groogrux king came out. I'm a pretty big DMB fan, not quite the caliber that Jo is, but they're pretty good. It's been rather easy to enjoy, since they've done a rather good job of marketing it, and I was able to catch their live performance last night a Beacon theater streaming commercial free on Hulu, and Hulu also has a bunch of stuff from them, from a documentary on the latest CD, to music videos, to live performances.

So, I bought the CD today, and I was tempted to play it in the car, but you never know if Giz is going to keep the CD's I put in her, or worse, chew them up, so waited. And I have to say, at first, I was mildly disappointed. After all the promotion, and the majority of the band agreeing that it was their best, I felt there was nothing that really compared to some of their greats like "Crash Into Me" or "Grey Street". SO I sat out in the sun for awhile and listened to it on repeat (and got a sunburn on the bottom of me feet. didn't know that could happen, and it finally began to click. It still doesn't have anything quite like the aforementioned songs, but as an album, it's really good. Not having really listened to any of their former albums as an album, together in order as they were originally, produced, I can't vouch for it being their best. It's hard to compare it to Dave's solo album, "Some Devil", which, with the exception of the title track, I am a huge fan, but him sans the band is just a different sound.

Not to mention the album art. It is fantastic. The polar bear might be my favorite, and that's just the cover. Suffice to say, it kept me rather amused for at least a whole run through.

I don't know, Jo and I enjoyed it. It was about time.

Snapper

2009-05-30T11:21:00.003-04:00

This is my new buddy.

I went for a bike ride with my dad this morning. It was beautiful, and I haven't ridden in a while. We went to my old neighborhood first. It's always a little rough going back. It's like walking back into my childhood, only, it's not real. I can never go back. I can remember in that painful bittersweet flood that comes with every trip over there. I am one nostalgic sob.

That aside, it was a sweet ride. At some point, I lost my father, because he of course did the smart thing, and assumed I would forget the way home. I of course didn't, and

When I got back to my parents neighborhood, I came upon two girls and a barking dog in the middle of the road. The issue was my buddy the snapper. I attracted a small crowd as I attempted to get my new friend out of the road. He of course wasn't having it. One of the few things that really terrify me, and the lake was full of them. I remember one year, walking out on the ice when it was just strong enough to get out on the edge, and I looked down, and there was one about twice that size right under my feet. I always have dreams where I'm back at the lake, and most of them involve snapping turtles, usually covering the shore, just hundreds of them. Still, now, finding this guy on the road, I wasn't about to try and grab him with my bare hands, but I had no issues getting him off the road. I guess if tools hadn't been readily available, I would have sucked it up and used my hands to move him, but I'm glad it didn't come to that.

I was able to get him into one of those big plastic storage containers and get him off the street without losing a finger. I took him down to the stream where by the pond we fly kites at. Of course now, knowing he might be there, I will never walk in that pond again.

Familiar Faces

2009-05-27T21:20:00.003-04:00

Been seeing a lot more people I used to know lately. This is an experience that can be good or bad. Particularly bad, especially when I run into people from high school at work. The best had to be a while back, when I ran into some girl I knew, who's name I don't remember, and if I cared a bit more, I might bust out the year book, but I didn't after it happened, and I don't intend to now.

Needless to say, on Thursdays, my job takes me over to the clothing side of the store, and I spend all day updating counts there. And of course, I should run into this girl while I'm researching my favorite part, lingerie.

This is awesome for me, because, for starters, I'm at a immediate disadvantage, because I didn't know her well in school, nor she me, but we recognize each other, but she has the advantage of knowing my name because I'm displaying it on my chest, whereas I've got nothing, and I can't ask her hers, because even though she probably only remembered mine because it's right there, I'd feel like a jerk for not remembering hers. And then it's just an awkward place to catch up. There's the typical "what are you up to these days", and I really don't care what she's up to, and as for me, I'm rifling through the panty wall, looking for a particular set the system thinks we have but I can't find.

This experience has prompted a change in my routine, and I now start there and get that done before the store opens.

Anyways, today was a good one. My boos came up to me while I was over in cosmetics (another great place to run into people, btw) and told me there was a guy over by the PC games who was suspected of stealing XBox games. So I have to go over and ask him if he needs help, and just sort of deter theft. And who should be the suspect but one of my old friends from engineering club, Sean something or other.

I was really good to see him actually, even if he may or may not have been stealing. I'd be interested to find out if Jesse actually saw him on the cameras or just suspected him of it, because yeah, I haven't seen the guy in like four years, but I really didn't see it. He's doing pretty well for himself, got a good job for some defense contractor, and doesn't seem like he needs to resort to stealing games, but who knows. Not me, that's for sure.

Then later, at Safeway, I ran into a guy who I generally see when I'm there, Cody, working in the bakery. I haven't been there lately, and he's one of those people who always nags me about going to school, and doing something with my life, which, I actually like him because for some reason, it doesn't bug me coming from him. And then, as soon as he saw me, he said he just saw one of my best friends from way back in kindergarten, Evan Ponton. I was about to whip out my phone and call him and see if he was still in the store, but Cody beat me to it, calling him out over the store intercom. Evan walks around the corner, a few minutes later, a confused look on his face, wondering what he could possibly be needed at the bakery for.

We talked for a bit, and I need to see him more this summer. He reminded me I need to see a lot of people this summer, as right now, I hang out with the same four people four days a week, plus, then the people from work, who I see five or six days. Really, different people are nice, change things up, you know.

Lost In Mount Airy

2009-05-16T22:17:00.002-04:00

It's not a big town. Nor is it not a town I've spent most of my life in. Same for Ben, and he at least has a decent sense of direction. And yet, the two of managed to get lost in Mount Airy today. And not like the back woods hick part of Mount Airy. We were looking for Main Street.

Our Friend Anna is only in town for a couple of days, and she proposed the idea of hanging out, and said she would be in town for the local festival, "Spring Fling," I believe it is called. So, only coordinating with each other, Ben and I decided to go. Not able to park near Main Street itself, we parked at a park, and decided to walk through the park and some yards to hopefully get back onto Main Street, and discovered a small section of Mount Airy that may or may not even be in Mount Airy. There are several theories, more than one of them involving wormholes and time travel.

Needless to say, we found our way back into the present and Mount Airy, only to discover that Anna was leaving just as we were getting there, so we didn't even see her, and the rest of our friends, as per use, suck. So, we walked through the festival, questioned why we had even considered coming (seriously, those things are awful), and then decided to go back to the car. By then, my ribs were starting to ache pretty bad, so we again tried to take what we believed was the shortest distance between two points, and got semi lost again, again in Mount Airy.

We made it back, and then spent most of the rest of the day lounging in the sun. I had forgotten how much fun just lounging in the sun is. Yay skin cancer!

Moderately Injured

2009-05-15T19:16:00.003-04:00

Well, I hate my right hand.

The best thing about hating my right hand, and also, the worst thing, is how much it makes me think about my left hand. My left arm, even over two years later, is still stronger than my right. When I broke my collar bone, my right arm was dead weight for more than six weeks, and when my left arm decided to pick up the slack, it never stopped. However, it's still worthless for things like, writing, eating utensils. Things it's great for in a pinch consist of shifting in a manual car, and, well, that's about all that comes to mind.

I suppose a recount of the accident is in order. And for that to happen, we have to go further back in time, to the invention of Awesome Ball.

It describes itself. It is, without a doubt, the most awesome game ever. Why, well, there are no real rules to Awesome Ball, the major reason besides lack of coordination and terrible team spirit that I never excelled or really did sports as a kid. Now mind you, there were some that that were fun, when they were made up or not played with the standard set of rules, but those are a story for another day.

Recently, my mother got one of those big exercise balls, and I amused myself with that pretty easily. Ben was over at some point, and he seemed to think he could pop one. It very quickly progressed into a challenge, one that will likely never be fulfilled. Of course, their were constraints like he couldn't use tools, and there would have to be a time limit. So, not wanting to destroy my mother's, I bought my own. This was the large, or 75 cm gray exercise ball, made by Prospirit, which ran me only a little over $10, so I wasn't going to be too out should Ben succeed.

Luckily, we planned on documenting the challenge, so when I first busted it out, it was dark, so we of course would not engage in the challenge in such poor lighting. SO instead, we proceeded to play some sort of soccer, rugby, volleyball combination game with the giant ball. And the fun was nigh infinite. We established that there would be no rules, which was later broken by the addition of the one and only rule, that you could invent any rule you wanted during play, provided it only lasted for thirty seconds.

Eventually, we took Awesome to the masses, and by masses, I mean our friends from high school. The problem I have discovered is that the more of us there are, the lazier we get. It was most fun with two people, and while it seemed like it would improve with more participants, it got worse and worse the more people we involved. Until I, in a mood inspired by the lack of energy, I just ran up to the ball after having to retrieve it for like the sixty third time, and jumped on it. It of course, being a sphere, rolled out from under me, throwing me off so I would land on my face. Stunned by this turn of events, I didn't get my hands out in time to fully break my fall, and instead, nearly broke both my hand and ribs as I landed on them.

Neither are, fortunately, just badly bruised. The whole incident did remind me that I do enjoy being insured, and now, today, after finishing all of my classes for this semester, and more than likely failing PreCalc, I am considering signing up for classes again in the fall. It's sad, because my reasons for going to school keep getting worse and worse. It went from feeling like I was supposed to, and when that didn't motivate me, I did it to get out of high school early. Then, after dropping out, incidentally because of a broken bone, to feeling like it was the responsible thing to do, when it was not at all, to doing it because everyone else thought I should, to now, for insurance.

Still though, despite the injuries, the park was great. It was good to see some of my old friends. Rusty, in particular, is always amusing, and it never gets old how dumb this kid can be. I had locked my keys in the car with the windows down just enough to reach my arm in and unlock it. Rusty of course spied that I had fruit snacks, so he of course sticks his arm in to try and reach the box. It didn't seem physically possible, but every time we thought he had wedged his arm in as far as he could, he'd jam it in a little further. You could see the red marks on his arm that marked his progress, and the distance between the first time he got stuck and where he finally reached the box was probably close to two inches.

He finally managed to grab the edge of the box, but the cardboard ripped, and the box fell over on his side. He pulled out, defeated, and then Ben pointed out that he could have easily unlocked the door from his position. He earned those fruit snacks.

I suppose I can't make fun of him to much. When we left, I was worried I would have to have someone come pick me up, because I couldn't drive myself home, and the only other person driving stick, Ben, had to take his own car. But, Rusty and I form an unstoppable team, and he operated the shifter while I worked the clutch, and despite our poor levels of communication, there were zero accidents on the way home.

But, as I stated previously, I hate my right hand, and my left hand is not much better, and I'm sick of typing, so that's all I've got for now. I promise to do something soon, but for now, I'm kind of laid up.

Public Speaking

2009-05-07T23:27:00.004-04:00

For film, we generally have to write papers on low budget films. This time, however, he gave us an alternative; write a two page paper on a micro budget film, or write a two page screenplay of a scene in proper format. I obviously opted for the latter, though I was mildly worried in class when a couple of the guys were saying they didn't because the man grading it was a man who did not like "Dark Knight". I mean, everyone liked "Dark Knight". Yeah, It was a long movie, but it was good for the entire three hours. But that is not the point of this blost.

Anyways, I got more worried when he said that he was going to have people come up and talk about the movie we watched. I had a brief moment where I thought, having not watched a film, I would be exempt, but someone immediately brought that to his attention. Well, we would have to get up and talk about our scene.

As much as I've been thinking about Eryk Valen of late, I didn't want to write a scene that was all action. So I opted for a story that I don't even ever imagine as a movie. I haven't talked about "Calc" yet on the blog, but I think I might have mentioned Graham. I'm too lazy to look for him now. Anyways, it's coming, soon, but just without saying anything about it at all, it should be stated that it's my only story that isn't rooted in fantasy or science fiction, and it's the only one that is in first person.

So I wrote a scene from that, a scene I will be blosting on here once I clean it up a bit. I was after all, limited to two pages, so it wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I do want to blost it here, regardless of whether I envision it as a movie or not.

Back to class, where he had four people come up and talk about the low budget films they had watched. Every time he was calling people, I was of course trying not to be noticed, and it seemed to be working. Then, after the fourth, he said he'd go ahead and do someone who had written a scene. He asked those who had to raise their hands, and there were only three of us. I'm trying desperately to find that perfect mixture of not drawing attention to myself, but not trying to look too much like I don't want to do it, and not succeeding at all. I was probably doing both, I know for sure looked like I didn't want to. And of course, he looks back and forth between the other two, and then zeros in on me.

So I got up, and in front of twenty people, proceeded to tell them a very general synopsis of Calc, and describe my scene. I got a lot of technical questions, I guess, about the layout and scene length and stuff like that, and so the story itself wasn't delved into that much, but man, it was great. I'm not a great public speaker, or a speaker in general. But, well, I'm sure if I saw myself, I'd think differently, but compared to past experiences from my own viewpoint, I did rather well. I was soaked in sweat, but I actually looked at my audience, didn't fidget with my hands, and kept the stuttering to a minimum.

I was glad I had done it, even as minimal as it was, and after class, I stuck around to talk to my teacher, to thank him. He said that he picked me because he had read the other guys last week, and it was just kind of, I believe the phrase he used was "hokey pokey", and the other chick looked too excited. He said I captured the opposite look from what I was going for. I looked scared, but at the same time, needing to do it. And that was the truth of it. I mean, I got this tattoo partly as a reason to tell people, and I haven't told a soul yet, except Alfie, the guy who did the tattoo, but I was sitting there with him for almost three hours while he jammed a needle into my arm millions of times.

I wanted to tell my teacher, Adam Frey, who is a great guy, a bit more. It was just me and one other guy left, and while I'm still not comfortable, the more personal, the better. But the thing about Adam is, the guy can talk. The past two weeks, we haven't watched a single film. this is partly because the projector in the classroom barely and rarely works. In fact, after I talked, he just talked for the next hour and a half, and no one else even went. And honestly, that's fine by me. He's very interesting, and his voice is very easy for me to pay attention to. It''s preferable to watching films. I don't fall asleep as I tend to do at ten at night, when the lights are out, and I've been up since five.

So, he's an English Major, so I wanted to talk to him about writing some, and, well, I listened to him talk about writing for another half hour after class was over. So I didn't get to talk any more about my own writing as I had wanted to, but still, I said a lot more than usually do. And tomorrow is Pizza Night with the neighbors, who I'm sure will love to hear about my tattoo, and the reasoning behind it. I'll bust out some Eryk Valen and Graham then.

Farewell Scrubs

2009-05-06T21:08:00.002-04:00

Tonight was the series finale of Scrubs, easily my favorite comedy. And now, after eight wonderful years, it is over.

My sister Kellie first introduced it to me, letting me borrow the first three seasons on DVD. Those were the best seasons, before it hit its rough patch. I watched those first three seasons a lot, as that was when I was currently not going to school, and still rocking the shattered collar bone, so I watched even more TV than usual, which is a lot.

I was thinking about it, and I've seen every episode, most of them twice, some of them probably as many as ten times. It's easier to find on TV than Seinfeld, and it never gets old. All 168 episodes. At roughly 22 minutes per episode, that's 3,696 minutes, or a little over 61 and a half hours. Almost three days, and that's just watching them all once, not including commercials. And as I think back on it, totally worth it.

There is speculation of it returning, with a different cast of interns introduced in this season. I kind of hope they don't. I suppose if the same guy, Bill Lawrence, does it, I'll probably watch it, but really they ended that show, they had a good ending to that show, and go back at all, even with a new cast, it kind of disrespects a brilliant piece of work.

Now I just have to wait for the last season to come out on DVD, and watch those 61.6 hours of hospital humor in a straight run.

Tat!

2009-05-02T21:15:00.002-04:00

So it's done. I've been waiting, well, for a long time, but knowing for sure that it would happen, it's been about a month and a half.

I got my tattoo. And it is awesome!

By the way, I don't usually rock the sleeveless T. It's an awful look, second only to the sleeveless shirts that are ripped down to like an inch from the bottom, to show off the sides. But it is rather sore, and so I found the one shirt that I got from one of my sisters and my armpits had eaten such huge holes in the sleeves that they practically fell off.

For starters, I need to thank H, my sister, who drew the design for me. Initially unsupportive, but when I explained, she agreed, and put my idea on paper, in a medium my ideas rarely get translated too. My art is with words, not pictures, and seeing it come out as a picture, that was a great feeling. So thanks H, you're amazing.

However, you failed me initially, and your negativity was not wanted. So I need to thank Stephanie Dorsey, and also, to give her a shout out for her birthday. When Heather was initially being a Debbie Downer, I turned to a person who's support I was almost guaranteed, and who's support would actually mean something. No offense Ben, but you're support is worthless. She gave me the positive reception I wanted, and needed, and she went with me both to make the appointment and to when I actually got it done. And she kept it a secret, which is more than I can say for Heather. But Steph, she's one of my oldest friends, and it meant a lot to me.

Third, I need to thank the man who actually used a tiny fast moving needle to jam ink into skin, Alfie, of Marks Of The Spark. This guy, he is truly wonderful at what he does. His attention to detail is phenomenal, and amazingly, it turned out better than I had imagined, far better than I could have hoped for. He came highly recommended, and I recommend his to anyone looking to get a tattoo. You have to book well in advance, as I said, it took me about a month and half, but the wait was well worth it.

Marks Of The Spark

I suppose I should tell you what it is. Besides two guns and a sword. If you couldn't figure that one out, no need to read further.

Ben wants a tattoo, but he doesn't know what he wants. That just doesn't make sense to me. I had no desire whatsoever to put something that permanent on my body until I knew exactly what I wanted, and even then, it took me over a year to decide for sure to go through with it. I'm not a fan of meaningless ink. Even doing it for the sake of art, or having something that looks good, well, it had better look damn good. If there's no reason behind it, well, I just don't get it. Mine is a symbol, and more than that, it's a promise. A promise to a man named Eryk Valen, who's sword and gun's I will now bear forever on my left arm. I'm going to tell his story. And there's no backing out now. I have a permanent reminder of my purpose in life.

The farmer's tan isn't terrible yet. I suppose I'll do something about that, but I say that every year. Can't really worry about that for a week or so anyways.

Year's down the road, if I haven't told his story, the tattoo becomes not a promise, but a reminder of my failure, and I can't live with that. I'm scared, terrified, of telling this story. I'm selfish with it, and I'm afraid I won't do it justice. But that's not an excuse. I can't keep this one to myself, and if I intend to die without telling this story, better today than tomorrow. It's that important. So to you, Eryk Valen, and all of you, I will tell your stories. You just have to keep telling me yours.

Oh yeah, should note, the reaction from the folks; poor. The timing was both good in a way for me, but bad for them. Fortunately, other people's opinion of me and my actions matter little these days. That's one of the things my mother said; people would assume I'm a gun nut. The fact that that matters so much to her makes me a little sad, for her, but if people think I'm gung ho guns, more power to them. I've never even touched a gun, nor do I have any desire to do so. A lot of my characters, I want to experience what they do, but I have no need to experience anything Eryk Valen has felt. That's I guess why he's special, compared to the rest. He is in no way based off myself.

So I have the tattoo now. For starters, I will most likely tell those who helped make this happen the story to the best of my verbal abilities, I owe them that much. Eventually, I'll probably tell some of it here, and one day, I'm going to have it written all down, and it will be published, for all the world to know the story of the man who's so important to me. That is my dream, my goal, and my purpose. I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Eryk Valen Is All Important

Done

2009-05-01T19:27:00.003-04:00

My procrastinating finally caught up with me, as it usually does, but I think I'm pretty much done with everything I was supposed to do. So, I will be able to resume blosting on a regular basis.

I spent about two days "practicando espanol corta y tradusca". For those of you who don't speak Spanish, that is "cut and paste Spanish". Several hundred (I don't have an accurate count because I skipped any I deemed would take me more than thirty seconds, or couldn't be solved using my genius cut and paste method) activities of basic Spanish. Fortunately for me, you could just hit the submit button, and it would tell you how many you got right, what the right answers were, and more importantly, you could retry. So, since the questions didn't change, unlike my math homework, which I consequently rarely do, I simply tried on what looked easy, submitted, copied the answers, returned to the questions, pasted the answers, and bam, done. They even did me the favor of highlighting what ones I had wrong. Even still, I didn't finish. Mostly, it was those listening ones. The multiple choice was easy, and at the end, I was just looking for those to get the points, because one page where you write a paragraph and one page where you answer two true or false questions are worth the same.

But anyways, I'm done now. I didn't feel bad about cheating either, because I could have done them, and I would have gained nothing from it. I shouldn't be in only Spanish I, and I didn't even capitalize on tutoring like I was planning to. The rest of the class is about as bad as I am, only they don't know complex Spanish.

Now, the other big issue; imeem. We may or may not be at war with them. For awhile, we've known that some of the songs won't play the full thing on our blog, but ti wasn't until recently that we discovered that they had updated, and every song already on our blog would only play the 30 second demo. Unacceptable. I realize this is likely due to licensing laws and all that, and while that is all well and good, we've come to rely on it for our music, and it's rather convenient. Also, don't have an embed feature if you don't want people to embed songs on their sites. Seriously.

So, we have found a temporary alternative, that unfortunately uses imeem, but for the time being, seems to embed the whole song, no matter the song, and with any luck, they won't come back later and decide to change it.

This seems a lame come back after my near week of silence, but tomorrow's will be better, I promise you this. Just got to get back into the swing things.

Recap

2009-04-25T20:50:00.007-04:00

Sorry about the lack of blosting. Been, busy...

The whole fam was in town, and by whole fam, I mean my sister Kellie and her two kids, and Heather and her potential husband, my potential brother-in-law. I guess it's more future than potential... I don't consider it official unless I see it happen, and the chances of that happening aren't good. As I mentioned, the whole busy thing.

I will be very glad to be done with school, and if I'm smart, I'll never go back. It's not the worst thing in the world, it's just there are a hundred other places I'd rather, be, a thousand things I'd rather be doing. I don't like to expend effort when I don't care, and that's what school is. I can be really motivated if I'm all in, but I see no reason for school. I'm actually making my final paper for my English class on how going to college isn't the best idea in the world, which makes me a little bit of a hypocrite, but that's nothing new. Also, that paper will more than likely never be finished, because before we finished it, the professor went ahead and told us what we're doing next, which just happens to be fiction.

These have nothing to do with this blost. I made Ben take these because we haven't had pictures in awhile, and I though the blog needed some color. I intended to get to what we did today on here, and I might do a part two of the recap.

No constraints other than it has to deal with fear. Taft doesn't care how long it is, whether it's really fiction or nonfiction, or a mix of both. And see, that I can, and will write, with gusto. But all the other papers we've had to write... I'm not hear to persuade anyone on anything. I don't want to illustrate a point, or compare or contrast a damn thing. I really don't want tell someone the causes and effects of a certain problem. I think that's all the papers we've done. Anyways, I'm here to tell a story. That's my purpose, I do that, and then I can die, happily. But I have no reason to write anything else. Mostly because I don't care about any of these other things.

But now of course, he told us about that last project, so I won't finish my paper that is actually critical to me passing English 101H because I'm doing the next paper that may or may not have any effect on my grade. And that's just the thing. Grades. They're so arbitrary, and it's just so depressing to see how much stock everyone else puts in them. It's not important. Passing isn't even that important. The money I wasted on these classes, even less important. None of that stuff matters unless you make it matter, and I can't find a reason to even try anymore.

Also, my film class. He just gave us another paper to do, that isn't due for two weeks. Just write a scene for a movie, or I guess television would work too, in the proper screenplay format. It has to be two pages, and deal with teenagers, but other than that, no restrictions. That I can do. That I want to do. My old neighbor, Korry, just finished or is about to graduate from Full Sale down in Florida, and I think he wants to be a director, and he's promised me a movie. Now's as good a time as any to start preparing for that. And Korry, he's someone who has benefited from College, and I'm glad he did. That's the issue I'm having with that paper, because my premise is go to school if you want to, but don't if you don't want to. It's very true, but not very conducive to writing a six page paper, especially when I'm writing important things.

I guess that film scene isn't preventing me from doing another assignment in film, but it is do in two weeks, and he's pretty lax on the whole turning things in on time thing, which is wonderful, but Rather than doing that one later, I'm putting off my whole semesters worth of Spanish homework, which is just tedious plug and chug. A whopping 714 pages of tedious plug and chug to be exact, which is due the end of this month, and we've had all semester to do, and I started yesterday. The part that gets me is how little this is helping me with Spanish.

Spanish is another one of those classes that remind of why I never wanted to go to school. Ironically, it's the class I'm doing the best in. My professor, who's name I don't even know, (my fault, admittedly, not his) isn't really a teacher, in that he doesn't really teach, or do any of the things that a teacher is supposed to do. He comes to class, but as far as teaching goes, we basically read the textbook out loud for an hour twice a week. Every once in awhile, for grammar, he shows us a PowerPoint he didn't make. And the tests, those that we have, are generic multiple choice tests he got from the book. When he's too lazy to grade the tests, he has a blog, where ten questions are listed, and students are to comment the answers at their leisure, because he let the class decide when it's due, because he runs his classroom as a Democracy.

Last Wednesday, I was in a hurry to get home because Kellie had just gotten there, so I almost skipped Spanish, but I went, and that was a mistake. We were having a test, on of the in class generic scantron ones. Fortunately, he said that as soon as you were done you could go. I was one of the first done, so I hand in my test and head for the door. He stops me, and tells me to pull up a chair because "we have to make a key". So I ended up being there longer than I would during a normal class, and in that time, of the forty questions, I managed to eliminate ten of them because the multiple choice could have multiple answers. Seriously, one of the most poorly constructed tests I have ever seen. Then, because despite the fact that he's a terrible teacher, he's a pretty cool guy, and given the rest of the class, I'd rather talk to him, so we talked for awhile, and at first, it seems that he wasn't that different from me, until it came to my attitude for school. He was surprised, saying something like "What I see doesn't match what you are." I guess that's true. Deception is my oldest game, and a game I play well. That's something I've gotten a lot at FCC. I still project the guy I was pretending to be in high school I guess, before I let the mask fall off and revealed how little I care about things that I don't see as having any point. Then I thought, no, I really am a lot like this guy. He's a teacher who tries very hard to look like he's a good teacher, when in fact, he lets the book teach his students a whole language. He gets his awful PowerPoints, which have no more information than the book, from someone else, his tests are from the book, tests in which I can eliminate a quarter of the questions because there are multiple answers, his other tests when he's too lazy to grade scantrons are done on a blog, graded by his student aides. The only difference between me and him, I'm not trying to be someone I'm not.

I'm also putting off my math homework due Monday morning. Online classes were a good idea in theory, and I'm sure for someone else, they work fine, but for someone like me, who doesn't self motivate for things like that, terrible, terrible idea. I've done exactly half of the homework assignment, leaving my grade at just under 50%. If I do this weeks, it may or may not raise my grade to a D, passing. I'd do the math, but you know, then I'd be doing math. Apparently I'm good at math, which is the funny part. I tested great back in elementary school, and somehow, got a 4 on the Calc I AP test. Now I'm failing precalc, and I only have the grade I do now because the online homework quizzes tell you the answers after you get it wrong, and if you retry the questions enough times, it starts to repeat the same numbers. I'm just kind of hoping that I get like a C on the final, and then I can get a credit, which I'm pretty certain I will never attempt to use.

I guess the point I'm making is once, I let people convince me that eventually, I would grow up and be ready for school. Either I'm never going to grow up, or I already have, and realized that I was right all along, even if for the wrong reasons. I kind of want to be a motivational speaker. Go around to high schools and tell the kids that if they don't want to go to school, they shouldn't, and even if they do, with access to the internet and a hunger for education, you can learn more than you ever could in a college, and save yourself so much money. The problem is, society is convinced that college makes you a better person, and as much as I'd like to, I can't change that. Not with my unfinished six page essay, and definitely not with my stories.

Real Men Of Genius

2009-04-21T21:28:00.000-04:00

Today we salute you, Mr. Real Men Of Genius Ad Writer.

I was driving home from work when I heard this:

I've heard them before, but I though that I needed to salute the saluters of these great American heroes. So I checked online, and turns out, there are over a hundred of these.

Here are some of my favorites:

These men, all of them, the ones in the jingles, the guys writing these, the dude doing it, the guy in the background (Especially the guy in the background. He sells it.), they are all men deserving of respect and appreciation.

I'm pretty sure that if I ever have to a get a real job, this would be it. Advertising has reached the point where I often times won't buy products because the commercials are terrible. I guess that point is moot, because, I don't buy Bud Light, but I appreciate the work they do.

"The Monkey House" Part II: Cake, King, and Matthew Burke

2009-04-19T21:24:00.000-04:00

So, I talked about the Monkey House, and said that that isn't it. The house itself is more the classic haunted house. Rundown falling apart old house, near the ocean, a place kids go on dares.

One of the other big influences was actual Stephen King's "Salem's Lot". The book was pretty good, for a vampire book. I enjoyed it a lot more before they really revealed the vampires, and the characters just knew there was something going on at a house much like this one, the Marston House.

An apology, about the song. It's happened before, where it only plays the thrity second clip, and you have to go to the sight to listen, and more likely than not, sign up. Not that I;m against signing up for Imeem, it's a pretty awesome site, and I'm not complaining about the service. But since Ben pointed out the first few times it has happened, I always check. So when I saw it yesterday, I tried to see if there was another version of the song, but of course, there wasn't. I briefly considered using a different song, but I wanted to use that one, not only because it was fitting, but because I was listening to a lot of Cake when I first discovered "The Monkey House". Not the actual house, but the story.

Music plays a big part in what I do, and most of my stories have a general theme, or even a soundtrack. Most songs actually have a specific seen. That song, "Palm of Your Hand", is huge, for both the story itself, and the protagonist. But I'm getting ahead of myself, I'll get back to him.

The story itself stems from mainly the feeling of that house, combined with my fixation with both water and other worlds and dimensions. The house is actually a portal of sorts, or really, it houses the door, a stained glass window that looks into the She'ar, a world between worlds, a wasteland that separates one dimension from every other.

The She'ar, and all other dimensions, and what can generally be termed as existence, and the Kaleidoscope, they aren't so important to this story. "The Monkey House" is basically an introduction to this concept, a stepping stone for more important stories.

Anyways, the basic premise is, as a boy visiting his cousins in South Carolina, on a dare, he goes into the house and upstairs, where he finds a stained glass window of a great red, four eyed snake wrapped around a sword. That part right there, I hadn't realized until now what the stained glass window was of, but of course, it makes sense now. I'm going to have to reign this post in soon, as I just got really excited. I have much work to do.

Anyways, I was talking about Cake, and mentioned the protagonist. Matthew Burke, who annoys me now because Matthew is the name of another character from another story. They might have at one point been the same character, though they're quote different now, but anyways, it's too late to change their names now. they are who they are, and so far as I know, they never meet.

That aside, Matthew is, well, I don't really like him. He is a good portion of the problem I had with my parents back in high school. Most if not all my characters suffer, and there is a part of me that idolizes that. What they gain from that experience, I want that, and for a time, I hated my life because it didn't suck. I dragged a lot of Matthews problems into my real life, and well, even now, having got past that, I can't help but say that it was wonderful. To hate that much, to be that bitter, I'm getting chills now.

I've managed to separate myself from Matthew a lot. As I said, I don't really like him all that much. Later, he redeems himself a little, but never one of my favorites, Mattie Burke.

Anyways, while in that house, he finds that window. The window is broken, and he can't help but to touch it, impaling his right hand on the broken shard. A small sliver is embedded in his hand.

The shard lays dormant in his hand for eleven years, while his life goes to hell in New Jersey. Finally, with nothing left, but only an instinctual impulse to go back to South Carolina, one of his last memories before his mother died. He hitchhikes down to that small town near the coast, full of southern hospitality, hicks, and of course, the Monkey House.

Close proximity to the rest of the window awakens the portal, allowing beings from the She'ar to come through the window, and also, giving Matthew strange powers through the shard embedded in his hand.

The portals power in Matthew's world is linked to air pressure, and as the air pressure drops as it does before a storm. beings for which I have no name for are able to pass through the window, but in this world, they need a form to inhabit. They generally possess animals living around the Monkey House, more powerful beings being able to dominate larger and larger animals. This possession also mutilates the host, it's body unable to contain the being possessing it. The first thing Matthew encounters as he's drawn to the Monkey House is a giant frog. Matthew of course kills it, and then, while trying to figure out what is going on and his place in all of it and the power flowing through the palm of his hand, he sets up guard around the house, stopping whatever comes out of the house. He eventually figures out the air pressure thing, and that adds the deadline of hurricane season.

As I said earlier, the music of Cake was a big inspiration. Of course, there is "Palm of Your Hand", having to do both with Matthew eventually having to destroy the house, as well as the shard stuck in the palm of his hand. Another one, the accompanying track for this blost, "Frank Sinatra" was big. Also, "Guitar Man" had a lot to do with a character introduced later, as well as a little with Matthew. "No Phone", as phone booths later have a lot to do with things.

I'll continue to blost about this. I haven't revisited this story and awhile, and it's doing me some good. I'll probably break it up a bit, hit you with some other going on first, not that I ever have any.

"The Monkey House" Part I: The Original Monkey House

2009-04-18T22:23:00.005-04:00

Probably the least of the "Core Stories," I will introduce "The Monkey House".

First, a little background. My sisters know what I'm talking about already, probably better than I do. Well, definitely better than I do, as what I remember is probably mostly my own imagination at this point.

To the point, somewhere in North Carolina, near a river, where at one point, some relatives who I haven't the faintest clue how they are related to me other than the fact that they are on my mother's side, there was at some point in the past, though may or may not still be there, a house.

Yes people, a house, which my sisters and various relatives who I can't even remember what they look like, called the Monkey House. I have no idea why, but to call it anything else now just doesn't seem fitting. It wasn't even that we believed there were monkeys living there, or at least I didn't, and I'm more unaware of the story than I thought. That explanation is too simple, and quite frankly, lame, for me to except, so Kell and H, if it is, keep it to yourselves.

It wasn't really a haunted house either, but that is pretty close. Creepy yes, but haunted, no, and I don't think I ever believed it was. The house itself, well the picture I imagine now, I see a skeleton of a house, with a front put on to make it seem like a real building from a distance. But from the sides, you can clearly see that there are no walls, just the framework. Inside, the floor is covered with dead leaves, but they don't smell. They should smell, a hint of that fall air smell covered by a rank scent of death from years and years of leaves left to rot. There really aren't any rooms. There is what might have once been a bathroom, but now, there is just a toilet, standing alone, by itself. It's surprisingly clean and white, and without lifting the lid, I know there is a dead frog inside, though for whatever reason, be it just freshly dead or preserved by some foul means, it hasn't begun to decay.

There is an elevator. Really, it is just a square section of floor hooked to a wall that raises and lowers. It has no walls or ceilings, and it is clear of the leaves, as though this is the only part of the house someone bothers to clean. Very well might be. The controls, you can see them from the semicircle window on the front door, are very simple; a red arrow for up, a yellow arrow for down. They are dull now, but I know they have lights in them, and for that matter, the whole elevator has electricity running to it.

The elevator goes up to the second floor. It's the only way up, now that all that remains of what must have been a beautiful spiral staircase is the rotting remains of the first three and a half steps. The second floor, well, you can't really call it a floor, because it is just a series of crisscrossed beams. Considering the condition of the house, you wouldn't think they'd hold, but they're sturdy. Why else would the elevator still have power.

This is probably nothing like the house we actually saw. It doesn't particularly matter though, as I will likely never see it again. I'm pretty sure my relatives don't live there anymore, and the house was probably destroyed in a hurricane. And more importantly, it doesn't matter because this isn't the Monkey House I'm writing about.

No, this bizarre structure may have a place in another story, but not this time. I took the name, because as I said, I don't know why it has that name, but it fits. Also, the feeling. That feeling I remember when I saw that house. That's what it's all about.

Anyways, it's late, and this is going to be a lot longer than I originally thought, but here is the tip of the iceberg, just one of the many inspirations that is going into "The Monkey House". I'll try to finish tomorrow, or at least continue. At some point, Ben might have some pictures and stories from Chicago, but it's unlikely, since he's; A. Ben, 2. he forgot his camera, and D. he's worthless when it comes to actually posting.

(I am pretty sure I will not have any stories or pictures from Chicago, but here are some more reasonable reasons for that: I am 700 miles from Chicago, I have never been to Chicago, and I have no plans in the near future to be in Chicago.) ~Ben

Funny The Way It Is

2009-04-18T18:44:00.004-04:00

I heard the new Dave Matthews Band song on the radio, and immediately had to come home and download it for Jo. She loves her Dave. Pretty good song though; the new album comes out June 2.

Still though, Dave Matthews reminds of traveling with Jo. She's pretty belligerent when she doesn't get her way, and for awhile even Giz wouldn't give me back the CD changer, and of course, the three CDs in there at the time were all DMB, and Pittsburgh radio is pretty terrible, so I rocked mostly Dave for a couple of months. It got old, but I can imagine worse things.

That 200 miles of road between my old apartment and my parents' house holds a lot of memories for me. Asides from when I'm running, I do a lot of great thinking while driving. Especially once I'm on the highway, set the cruise control, and just sit back and dream, focusing only enough attention on the world around me to keep me alive.

There was meant to be a point to this blost, but it's gone. For someone who only wants to tell his stories to the world, I'm rather selfish with them. I think I had started writing this because the Dave Matthews song had me thinking about Graham again, and I'd really love to tell his story. I've told a few people a little bit, but I need get over this possessiveness. It's not like it's mine.

So, I'm going to start by giving a gist of the core stories. These are the ones that I've seen play out thousands of times, the ones that are the most important to me, and to each other. I'm going to do it over the blog, onto the internet, for my whopping eight followers, and whoever else happens upon my blog. It ain't much, but it's a start.

Of course, having decided this, I need a run to clear my thoughts, so I will postpone this, but I will hopefully start tonight after my run, provided I don't go straight to bed. I'm tired.

Until then, look forward to it in anticipation.

A Walk In The Park

2009-04-16T22:31:00.005-04:00

So people hate me.

Not true, old people, kids, and most dogs like me just fine. Just, gay dudes and chics want nothing to do with me. Not that I want anything to do with gay dudes. Not that there's anything wrong with that, either.

So, after a delightful meal at China Panda, we went to Baker Park. We walked around the park, and it's funny, because I was under the impression that city people are less friendly than country folk, but everybody and their brother was talking to us.

Then, we decided to go for a run around the park, and after stopping after only a mile or so for a shameful walk (like most sequels, "Orange Chicken II; Chillin' In The Back Of The Throat And Awkwardly Mingling With Citrus Mint Gum" was terrible), we resumed our walk.

At some point, a couple of girls said hi to us. We of course ignored this. There was a second hi when we didn't immediately respond. After a third, I figured they wouldn't stop until they got a response, so I returned a hello. They were quick to inform me that they were talking to my friend, presumably Ben.

It was kind of a slap in the face. I mean, Ben? Low Blow. Fortunately, they weren't particularly good looking either, so it wasn't the worst thing in the world, and some jogging dude, presumably gay, said hello, presumably to Ben.

Needless to say, I'm never talking to strangers again. Chances are if I did, even if I was alone, I'd get a "We were talking to that squirrel." Oh come on! The Squirrel!

Too Rich For My Blood

2009-04-13T22:00:00.003-04:00

So, I decided to see if it wasn't too late for me to sign up for at least the Frederick Half Marathon. Turns out I can, but it is a whopping $65. Yeah the marathon itself is $80, so by my logic, half of that is $40, still too much. I can't wrap my head around it. I'm supposed to spend that kind of money, to put myself through that, when I can do it for free, not surrounded by hundreds of other people, all running, and tired, and sweaty.

I can see myself maybe paying for a marathon, to say I did it. But who brags about a half marathon? Hell, I've run fourteen miles before on the C&O Canal, and it's not something I go around bragging about (not anymore at least; the chics are not impressed by this fact, for some reason). So I will not be partaking in the Frederick Marathon, or half Marathon. The "Fun Run" was only $10, but since it didn't specify what the "Fun Run" was, I decided to forgo said "Fun Run", and I figure I'll get more exercise running around, cheering Kell on.

Still, $65 dollars doesn't seem unreasonable, but then again, my distaste for spending money is why I have the stockpile I have now. I actually got in the habit of not picking up my pay checks from work until I actually needed rent money, so I would let them build up for at least a month or more before going in and picking up a pile of my checks. However, I was unaware that at the store I'm at now, if you don't pick up your checks after three days, they mail them out. A convenient policy, when your address is correct. Mine, of course, is not, nor has it ever been, apparently.

Fortunately, I'm still running on cash moneys from Christmas, because my great grandmother Gigi gives more more cash a week than I can spend in a month. There are a bunch of things I want, but don't really need, like a guitar which I would like to play, and a camera which would take pictures for this blog, but eh, I don't need them.

But anyways, I figured out I had five paychecks, and these are two week paychecks, that had been mailed out to some wrong address, so I went to HR and and explained that I needed close to three thousand dollars of my own money, because I didn't need it enough to make sure I had it back in January, and because I'm an idiot.

So, I have that coming to me, which will be nice. I will not be taking it to my regular bank, Suntrust, because after my last experience there. I had an old check from my electric company from when they overcharged me, made out to Taylor Michael, and two paychecks from work, made out to Douglas Michael. The clerk looked them over, and then told me I had to sign the two checks made out to Douglas as Douglas. I started to, because I'm pretty compliant, and then stopped because I have no idea how to write the letter D in cursive. I wanted to ask her if they made people who's signature is illegible write it out, but then didn't feel like a confrontation, so I just wrote a D, put some squiggles on it, and finished the rest of my first name to the best of my ability, and handed them over. I've made a note to never take checks addressed to both of my alter egos again, but that's inconvenient. I don't need that. What I need is a new bank, and to pick up my money when I get it.

The Blog Trifecta

2009-04-13T00:43:00.000-04:00

Here it is folks. The Blog Trifecta. A union of sorts, of three separate blogs, or the authors of three separate blogs, joining together, to still produce three separate blogs. However, there will now be an intermingling of authors.

Two fellow Bloggers, and friends from school, Rusty and Justin, will now be guest authoring for Remaking Memories, and at some point, we may be blogging on theirs.

So, look forward to some variety, and check out their blogs. We may even accept other guest authors. Applications can be left as comments at any time. Sadly, I don't really have anything else.

Also, this song is from Flight of the Conchords, and they are wonderful. If you aren't familiar, do yourself a favor, and familiarize yourself, ASAP as possible.

Ben's Birthday

2009-04-10T20:27:00.005-04:00

And I'm missing it.

Probably having a better day than him too. Birthdays generally aren't that great. I'm looking forward to twenty five, when my insurance goes down, but I could skip the rest of them and wouldn't mind at all. I don't even know the exact date of mine off the top of my head.

Anywho, I'm in North Carolina right now, visiting my mother's side of the fam for Easter. Good food, better weather, southern hospitality, and tennis, cards, gardening, shopping, and looking forward to a good run later.

Mostly though, I s'pose since I'm missing Ben's birthday, I should do somethng for him when I get back. as awesome as we are, it doesn't really get boring being just the two of us, but still, going somewhere or just hanging out with other people would be nice.

Also, I found out today that I will be taking another trip to Maine next month, so that's awesome. I've been back in Maryland too long, and the wanderlust is getting out of hand. It's nice, being down south now, and heading up north next month. At some point, I should try getting off the east coast.

Anyways, Happy Birthday Ben. I didn't get you anything.

The End Of An Error

2009-04-08T22:44:00.000-04:00

The Grand Am is no more. I would like to inform you that I piloted it directly into a brick wall and leaped valiantly from the flaming wreckage, but alas that would be a lie. I merely sold it. I sold it for some mad cash moniez.

Previously mentioned mad cash moniez.

This is what my wallet always looks like.

Now my previous statement should leave you thinking I hated my first car. I suppose I did, too. But I suppose I loved it at the same time. It was aggravating, but it was exhilarating. A worthless piece of junk, but a pretty nice car. It was also a massive drain of time and money, but so is any hobby.

If I had to do it again I would leave this car sitting on the car lot for some other poor fool to deal with. There are any number of better cars I could have had for the same money. The list of problems I had with this car in the two years I had it is longer than it should have been for a lifetime.

The electrics were faulty and the battery used to drain itself every few days.

The stereo would not work, so I had to wire my own stereo system throughout the car.

The transmission would not shift properly due to faulty wiring at the computer side of the intake air temperature sensor.

I had to buy a new body control module at one point, and I don't even remember why.

There was no dipstick on the transmission fluid because GM decided a "sealed system" was a good idea. Let's just say it was not.

I had to change the transmission fluid at one point, which involved dropping the entire transmission pan, while it was full, ~7 liters of fluid.

The original exhaust would not come off without a saw.

The new exhaust manifold ended up being a three day project, it should have taken one.

There was an unexplainable clicking noise in the cabin every time the car started which would eventually go away.

Even when I was not driving the car I paid more in insurance than my father does for his AMG.

And even now after the car is out of my hands the check engine light is on, one or both O2 sensors are crap, or no longer communicating with the computer.

Cheaper to insure than an '03 Grand Am.

The back of the exhaust manifold.

Engine bay, front exhaust manifold.

The problem now is you all know why I hated my car, but why I loved it is not quantifiable. Maybe in part it is because it was the first car I bought for myself. Maybe it is the blood and sweat I put into it, or the permenant scars I received from it. But more than that it was just fun. It was fun to drive, it was fun to look at, to work on, to talk about. Every one of those oh so aggravating problems was a project for me to figure out and fix. I've always liked cars, but I have learned more from owning an awful, and fully typical, example of GM "engineering" than I ever did from reading about the best cars in the world.

In short: I am glad it's gone, but I'm not upset that it was here. So, a fond and yet resentful farewell to the GranDizzle.

Memory Chains

2009-04-07T20:47:00.005-04:00

A whole lot of memories today, flooding back, a tidal wave of nostalgia.

For starters, they have closed the road between Ben's house and mine. It's inconvenient, as he lives in the middle of nowhere, and the detour is ridiculous. So I had vowed to just not go over to his house until it was over and done with. That would have been doable, but of course, when he sold his car, he needed me to pick him up in town.

We hung out at my place doing our typical stupid stuff, this time involving me getting us both covered in rotten pumpkin, but SSDD, right?

Anyways, when I finally took him home, I refrained from dropping him off at the closed off intersection and making him walk the rest of the way in the crazy April snow showers we were experiencing off and on all day.

The detour took us by my old neighborhood, and while that is usually enough to trigger memories, nothing. The important ones were further down the road. The rest of the detour took us down a road I almost never took. Though I did have a very vivid memory of two of the times I took it.

The first, conveniently enough, I was with our most recent follower, Rusty. We were at our friend Steven's, and for we either had to take his brother somewhere, or pick his brother up from somewhere. I don't remember the details, but I was always ferrying him, which was understandable, and his younger brother, for no reason I can think of, around before Rusty got his license. Anyways, this was after he came back from a summer in California with his makeover. His ponytail was gone, he had a goatee, a new pair of sunglasses and a closet full of Hawaiian shirts he was convinced he looked sexy as all get out in.

We were barreling down this back country road at about seventy five in the "Dragon Wagon", my first car. The dragon wagon is a story for another day, when I manage to find pictures of it, but, point being, we were flying down the road, Rusty was hanging mostly out of the passenger window, being navigator because my poor direction sense, and we were singing Bon Jovi's "Shot Through The Heart". I even remember arguing with his brother, Rydog, about the lyrics. Rusty and I were convinced that it was "Shot through the heart, and you're so lame", even though it is "and you're too blame". And I remember yelling at Rusty for directions, and him responding that he couldn't see the road signs. He refused to take off his sunglasses, because they made him look so cool.

As I was driving tonight down that same road, I could almost hear that song, and I could almost feel the Dragon Wagon's steering wheel cover under my fingers. It was a good memory, and it was real.

A couple hundred feet down the same road, I was struck by a memory even further back. It was the summer after eighth grade, and I had just discovered that I could easily bike to Ben's house. So I was over a couple times a week, and we would go biking on that same road. There was a little farm pond off the road we would go and stand at, much like we do now. I remembered another time, when I came over, and I helped him babysit his neighbors. The idea of Ben and I being in charge of children now frightens me. Us doing it almost six years ago is unimaginable. I do recall the kids weren't too young, and mostly Ben and I shot each other with nerf guns while the kids played outside.

I guess that was the real beginning of our friendship. I mean, he moved here in second grade, and even though we went to different elementary schools, I knew him and was friends with him through church, and then in middle school we had the same group of friends. But it was that summer (and the many years at PetLoft a few years later) that defined our friendship.

When I left Maryland a year and a half ago, Ben was one of my few friends who would still talk to me. I've changed a lot, but Ben was one of the only people who was there for me through everything. It was really good to remember why, as I drove him home on some ridiculous detour, still covered a little in rotten pumpkin, whining about how much he was inconveniencing me.

That pretty much sums us up though.

Great Parenting

2009-04-06T23:03:00.003-04:00

Ben's witnessed this before, but tonight was my first time seeing it.

The best mother in the world.

Truly, this woman is the only person deserving of the title "World's Best Mom", and all the mugs and sweatshirts and paraphernalia that goes with it.

Ben and I were out for a run, and we had just finished up in my folks' neighborhood. I had gone ahead of Ben, so I missed it on the first lap or so, but when I met up with him, he told me if we stayed out for a bit, we should be able to see it. We were not disappointed.

At first, all I could see in the evening light was a van, driving ridiculously slow towards us, pretty much riding its brakes. Then, as it came closer, I saw why it was going to slow. Running beside the van was a girl, probably only in middle school, running along while her mother drove beside her in the van. Now, I couldn't hear what the mother was saying to the daughter, but any parent that is driving beside their kid as they force them to run is not shouting words of encouragement.

It got even better, as the van passed us, and we could see into the back seat, where an even younger boy was asleep in the back seat, and a baby was in the car seat.

Oh, also, it was pretty cold and windy, and it appeared that the girl was wearing jeans. She might have been wearing blue sweatpants that wore like jeans, but still, she wasn't decked out in proper running attire.

Having a father that made me run track as a kid, despite how much I hated it, I can sort of empathize with this poor girl. Fortunately, my father never hated his kids enough to drive along beside us and yell at us as he made us run, so I could get away with not running more often than not. I cannot imagine how much worse my relationship with my father would have been had he done this. All I can say is I hope I haven't gotten the hell out of dodge before this kid snaps.

We salute you, "World's Best Mom", and we hope your daughter puts you in your place somewhere down the line.

More Fun In The Wind

2009-04-03T20:52:00.014-04:00

We felt bad that we really having done anything besides fly kites lately, and since Ben made our Monthly goal for April to "Be less lame", so we decided to do something else. And of course, after a brief debate over what we should do, my only idea being build a windsurfer, and Ben's only idea being "apple" and "butter". Since I had no idea what he wanted to do with either of those things, and I'm pretty lazy, we ended up just flying kites. And because of said laziness, we stepped it up a bit.

The epitome of laziness right there.

We had brought the chairs from the get go, but as it started to rain, I went back to get the umbrella. I'm pretty sure next time, we'll have a boom box, a cooler full of drinks, and maybe a grill.

The water is nice. Problem is, when our kites crash, we have to actually use the fishing rods for their intended purpose. And Kites are not easy or fun to reel through the water.

I had to go in and get Ben's at one point because his line broke. Once I was already wet, I saw no reason not to stand around in the water.

We actually had some kids come up and ask us whether we were fishing or flying kites. Obviously both. Then, one of the kids proceeded to argue with us about whether or not their were fish in the pond. Considering the pond was bone dry a week ago, the kid assumed there couldn't be fish in there. I may have to go buy some cheap goldfish to put in there to support our argument that there are indeed fish in that pond.

Just some more shots of our wonderful set up.

At one point (I think I was getting my kite off of a neighbors roof) Ben discovered that I wouldn't even need to build a sail for my windsurfer, the umbrella would be more than enough. So, we headed back up and I immediately attempted to use wind to propel myself along on a skateboard.

It is hard to stand on a skateboard while holding onto an umbrella that is being pulled in the direction of the wind.

I suppose the sidewalk didn't help, but I can't see anything in front of me because of the umbrella, so instead of trying it on the street, I capitalized on an idea I had earlier on how to make said windsurfer without tools. This is what I got.

So, I decided that duct taping a scooter to the skateboard, so that I would have a pivoting handle. Apart from the whole using duct tape, it wasn't a terrible idea.

About twenty seconds later. As I said, duct tape wasn't my best idea, but I'm too lazy to use tools. after all, it was only a prototype.

Twenty seconds later again, I had managed to flip the umbrella inside out.

Ben of course, was no help. Despite how much I look like I'm enjoying myself, this was quite frustrating, and I hate Ben. Useless tool.

And then, I finally manage to get it working, if only for about fifteen feet. Ben of course, fails to capture this on film. He has no problem pulling out his camera when my moment of success turned into painful defeat.

So, I can see that it can work. For starters, I need a new umbrella, I kind of destroyed that one. Preferably, one that is clear, so that I can see. Also, I will utilize tools to better fix something to the skateboard. It can happen, and it will. I promise you this.

Bad Karma

2009-04-01T14:29:00.005-04:00

I believe I mentioned my getting a ticket for failure to stop at a stop sign the other day. Well, today was the court day, and I wasn't planning on going; my dad said I should, it's always worth fighting, but going to court, just seems, oh, I don't know. I'm guilty I did indeed fail to stop at that stop sign. Nor do I have an excuse. Something about trying to fight something like that, even a ticket as ridiculous as failure to stop at a stop sign, seems wrong to me.

But I didn't have class today, and I left work at around eleven, and it was only a few minutes from Gigi's so it wasn't out of the way or anything, so I went. Turns out I was wrong about the cop; he didn't show up, and I walked. The judge wasn't pleased by it either. For the most part, she was letting everyone off with a lighter sentence, but the few people like me with less than stellar records she had no mercy for. She warned everyone at the beginning that they could just go and pay the fine on their ticket, or, if they stayed, there was a chance the fine might go go up if she found you guilty. Had I not been boxed in by two fat guys, I would have left, but no one else did, and I didn't feel like making a scene, so I stayed, and was glad I did.

The judge called my name, and I went up. I was the first name on the roster for my cop, and I never even looked at him when he gave me my ticket, so I had no idea what he looked like. But I didn't hear anyone walking up behind me, and after a moment or two, the judge realized my cop hadn't showed up, nor did he have an excuse. Some other cop was sick, and so everyone who pleaded innocent for him had to postpone, and that was something I did not want to do. The judge told me it was my lucky day., there was no one to testify against me, no fine, no court fees, and no points. I win again.

Still though, there is karma for such things. I went out to my car, and what should be under my windshield wiper? A parking ticket of course. Apparently, I was parked in a loading zone. I don't know, I pulled into a space, saw a sign for court parking, but then I would have gotten back into traffic again and merged over two lanes to go left, and it just seemed like more of a hassle than it was worth, seeing as I was already parked in a parking spot.

I'm pretty sure things would have gotten ugly had I actually had to pay for my $90 ticket and gotten more points on my license, and then came out to find a $35 parking ticket, but all in all, I suppose if this is all the punishment I get for lucking out and bypassing the system, I suppose I'm lucky.

Rainbows, Clouds, Rains and Planes

2009-03-30T18:19:00.009-04:00

We tried to go for a run before it started to rain, but we were too slow. Barely though, we were booking it. It was a short run, as it was poring so hard it hurt, but man, we were were hustling. Of course as soon as we got back, the rain stopped, and the next couple of hours were some of the prettiest skies I've seen in awhile.

Yeah, it's a rainbow.

Suspicious Jules

I had to get Ben's kite out of a tree (I was the one who got it up there, in fairness to Ben)

I took off six feet off the top of the tree on the way down. Sweet victory!

A low flying plane. We got our hopes up, thinking we we'd see a plane crash. We aren't the best of people.

We did witness a kite crash. Less destruction, and consequently less satisfaction.

Ironman, resisting his own watery demise.

I'm too lazy to sort the rest of the pictures, but enjoy nevertheless. And do yourself a favor and get outside.

Justice Is Served

2009-03-28T21:12:00.004-04:00

A while back, I got a ticket for "Failure To Stop At A Stop Sign"

I was coming back to my parents after work one day, and at the stop sign at the entrance to their development, I slowed down, made sure there were were no cars or kids I was in danger of hitting, and rolled on through, as I always do. However, because of an inconveniently parked van, I failed to notice the pig parked a little ways down the block.

It didn't even occur to me until after I had driven past him and pulled out and followed me that what I had done was indeed illegal.

Needless to say, it wasn't fun. I got a $90 fine a couple hundred feet from my parents house, my guard was done, and that stupid cop was out there, not only for the rest of the day, but the next day too, cleaning up. Clearly in Mount Airy, the cops have nothing better to do than sit in neighborhoods, giving tickets to people doing the ol' California Roll.

I still haven't decided if I want to go to court in a couple of days and hope he doesn't show. My dad says he should, because anything could happen, like his wife could be having a baby that day. I don't know, a guy like that would probably let his wife have her baby in a ditch to make court, but then again, a guy like that probably doesn't have a wife. I'm a little bitter.

Another thing my dad said, when he was giving me grief, even though I pointed out that he had just failed to stop at the same stop sign, was that while stopping at stop signs is unnecessary, he always stops when there's a cop present.

Now imagine my joy when my parents get home, and, well, first of, my father warns me that my mother has a story, but it's not very good, and I probably don't want to hear it. I guess this isn't the part when i want you to imagine my joy, because there was none, and sure enough, my mom comes up, insistent on telling me a story I believed I didn't want to hear.

Turns out I did. You can imagine my joy again. Apparently, my father had been driving, and right as he was about to roll through a stop sign, my mother pointed out the cop parked, waint for idiots like me and my father to fail to stop at stop sign. SO my father, already pulling out, slmas on his brakes and hastily puts on his seat belt. At least I had my seat belt on.

So, not only does my father not stop at stop signs even when there are cops present, he also failed to "Be Aware Of His Surrounding", another thing my father used to tell us kids to do constantly. To be fair, all of us teneded to have our heads in the clouds, so he was justified, but still, the irony of this story was wonderful.

The only way it could have been better is if he had actually gotten a ticket.

Justice is served.

This Is Why We Were Hot

2009-03-27T21:12:00.006-04:00

Due to some sweet technology you can now experience all the fun of running, right from your chair. In fact I daresay I would have more fun in your position. Point being Taylor and I are running pretty much on a daily basis. I'm thinking maybe we can put our route up on the side or something, but today and when we have nothing else to post, or have done a particularly cool run there is some cool stuff I can do.

Sweet Technology

This is a graph of our elevation.

If you click on these graphs you can see them nice and big.

This is a graph of the grade of hills in the route.

View Larger Map
This is a google map of today's run. You can put it in google earth, which is pretty cool.

I had to make that map based on the one the GPS made for me, so it's a little bit off. Anyway point being I ran about 5.5 miles of that route and Taylor probably did about 6.25 miles. But, I am perfectly willing to add in the 1.5 miles I had done earlier, meaning I totally win the day. Plus I got some sweet blisters from my new shoes, which have crazy arch support. In a bad way. Oh, and the title is in reference to how it was a little warm today, and we are not looking forward to summer runs.

Watership Down!

2009-03-26T22:44:00.003-04:00

Actually haven't read that book, but I know it's about rabbits. Which brings me to my point, rather quickly.

I was walking out of my film class at FCC tonight at 10:30, and as I was walking down the sidewalk to my car, I saw a small black shape moving in front on me. I stopped, and the guy walking behind me asked what was up.

It was difficult to come up with an answer. That black shape multiplied to two, and I realized they were rabbits, and one had come out from behind the other. Seeing two rabbits, a little, weird, but then, I noticed, between me and the two rabbits, was another rabbit, sitting there just a few feet from where I was standing.

"It's herd of bunnies," I told him.

"A herd of what?"

"A heard of bunnies."

"Wha- Oh, jeeze, that's a lot of rabbits!"

I guess three isn't a lot, but it was weird to see three of them just chillaxing on the sidewalk at 10:30 p.m. on the FCC campus.

We Need an Intern

2009-03-24T19:20:00.004-04:00

So it has come to our attention that our awesome plans have exceeded our capabilities. This was of course, fully expected, but fortunately, this isn't something we cannot fix. We just need more people, or an unpaid intern.

Ideally, John Lithgow. Unfortunately, we still have to see many, many more of his movies in order to become big enough fans to attract his attention. We just saw "Harry and the Hendersons", after seeing it referenced on "30 Rock". Eventually though, once we have seen everything he's in, we're pretty sure he will gladly be our unpaid intern, but until then, we're willing to set the bar a little lower. Basically, can you operate a camera, take obscure orders, and a sense of humor would be nice.

Basically, our plans have grown, or "ambitified" - well, I got real excited there, because Blogger did not tell me that is not a real word when I thought I had very clearly made it up, but a bit more research proved that no one has made this word up before I have, and it's just so awesome that Blogger chose to accept it. Point being, we have become more ambitious with our Blog, and are being held back by the fact that we are only two people.

I saw on the news that, due to the current unemployment rate, many people are choosing to take positions as unpaid interns, just so they have something on their resume and to learn new skills. I can't guarantee you'll learn anything, in fact, I can almost guarantee you won't unless you, like us, have little to no common sense. And also, working as an intern for us might not be the best thing to put on your resume. It just might cost you a potential job. It could also get you that potential job, but the odds are not in your favor.

Still though, if you just happen to be near Mount Airy and are looking for something to do, let us know.

Makin' Steak

2009-03-23T14:42:00.008-04:00

This is "Cooking with Ben: Act II"

It was pretty nice out yesterday, so after our run I busted out some mad steak grilling skillz. Now there is not much advice I can give on grilling, you either know what you are doing or you don't. If the directions are written out, it just looks like I am being a dick: You throw some meat on the grill, then you flip it, and pour tasty junk onto it.

I'm not sure if that second shot looks the way it does due to my mad skills or Taylors apparent lack of skills with food photography.

That is what steak looks like. I am being a little facetious, but honestly I can't imagine how I could give a tutorial on steak like I could with an omelette.

The one piece of advice I can give you, should you endeavor to make steak: Apparently you should be dancing or something. I don't really remember dancing, or being photographed while doing so, but I guess it happened. It was probably while we were talking about "This is Why I'm Hot" by MIMS. Or more accurately, my version with the same melody "This is How I Steak."

Anyway, I am pretty sure Talyor enjoyed it. He can attest to my ability to steak. And in case you were wondering what that red drink is, it's the watered down blood of my fallen enimies. Or as you might know it, Hawiian Punch.

What're You Gonna Do?

2009-03-22T23:44:00.004-04:00

Ben went running with me today. He's in decent shape, or so I was told. Truth be told, I was worried at first; he was gunning it up the first hill, and I was having trouble keeping up. And I couldn't let him put me to shame.

Not to worry folks, I'm awesome, and as per use, I prevailed in the face of utter defeat. That first hill that had me worried nearly killed him.

That's a bit of an exaggeration, but we did end up doing more walking than running.

Still, there were perks to walking. First off, it was good to run with someone else. It was easier to stay in reality, and, biggest bonus of all, Ben's lack of stamina forced us to take a shortcut that revealed something we wouldn't have found otherwise.

The other day, I said I saw what looked like a kite tail about a mile away. Well, today, we found a whole kite, one of the ones I lost when the fishing line ran out, a fully intact Ironman, with fishing line attached! Total score right there.

We did some other stuff later, but more on that later, as I am tired. So I leave you with this, one of the smaller of the many new things coming to Remaking Memories.

Worst Case Scenario

You are stuck in a dumpster with Big Foot, and he's got your gun. What're you gonna do?

Any responses are appreciated. Bonus points if you know what this is from. The winner as judged by Ben and myself could win anything from nothing at all to something awesome, including but not limited to guest authorship on the Blog for a given amount of time, or perhaps a an epic poem dedicated to the winner. I just might do it to, I'm bored, and I want some audience participation here.

Fortress Of Solitude

2009-03-21T21:59:00.005-04:00

I figured out, with a sudden epiphany, that staying with the folks and not getting my own place was indeed a mistake.

I guess part of me has known that all along. I mean, I've been back in Maryland since Christmas, so what now, almost three months, and I haven't even unpacked my suitcase. Each load of laundry just goes back in, so I'm ready to bolt again.

And man am I ever. I let people convince me that it wasn't such a bad idea, not paying for rent, and when Ben failed as a prospective roommate, I just kind of settled back a little and waited for the situation to change. And when I got home from my run today, that change hit me. There was a felling of excitement I haven't felt in a long, long time. I had the house to myself. No one for me to have to a force a conversation with, no one to ask me questions I don't want to answer, no one ask me how my day was. Most importantly, there was just no one. The only sound was the occasional conversation between Jo and Jules, not something I mind in the least. And it's not like I did anything different, I just in near perfect solitude.

It's more than solitude. I like people, I like my job where I worked surrounded by people, even if for the most part I want them to leave me alone. But when I'm at home, I just want to be, not alone, because Jo's company is more than welcome, but I guess lonely is as close to what I'm thinking of as I'm going to get. And Loneliness has such a bad connotative meaning, but I love it. That's not to say I want to be lonely for the rest of my life, but, right now, there are more important people to me than the real one's I have to interact with. The people who's stories I have to tell.

Maybe I'm doomed to be a hermit, or maybe it's just my family. I don't know, I suppose I'll have to live with someone else to test that theory.

And it's also just the relapse that's occurring, and this place, those people, they only hasten it. While I'm still making good progress, and my spontaneous lying is at a minimum, though not nonexistent as it was in Pittsburgh, I'm quickly finding that before, I had wanted to kind of heal the relationship with my parents. Now, I got nothing. I really don't care, and that apathy scares me more than a little, but that's just the thing. I don't care enough to do anything about it.

Well, now I suppose I do, or at least in moving out, the by product of that might be the reversal of the relapse I feared so much.

So, on to Craigslist to look for apartments. I'm in the unfortunate position of having very little intention of sticking around here, at least in Frederick and Mount Airy, for a year, so this will be difficult, but now that I've felt this again, this solitude, I can make something work. Because now, I need to make something work. This, this just isn't working.

I'm sorry that I had to miss your Birthday, Jack, but I'm so glad I stayed home for this. Otherwise, I might not have realized it until it was too late.

Side note, Twilight came out on DVD today, and despite the mad rush of people waiting outside the Frederick Target at 8 a.m., I didn't care. I was a little perplexed at the sheer number of people who had to be there when the doors opened, and the fact that more of them were middle aged women rather than teenage girls, as I had suspected, but whatever. I suppose at least in that aspect, I'm doing ok.

Teaching a Dumb Cat Dog tricks

2009-03-20T22:10:00.005-04:00

It occurred to me that Jo isn't a very "fun" cat. I mean, she runs from me, and attacks me, but she doesn't really do anything cute like play with string. I'm not saying I'm not grateful for what she is, a great companion, but still, I was at my old neighbors for pizza tonight, and Kim showed us that her car, Nala, will play fetch.

Nala, or Bast, as i want to call her because of her Egyptian-cat ears and demon tail.

Nala, an adorable cat with a forked tail, will, time and time again chase after and retrieve a ball when thrown like a dog. Unlike a dog, she won't bring the ball back to you. If you're lucky, she'll deposit it next to your outstretched hand, or if you're unlucky, she will leave it halfway down the hall for you to retrieve. She's nobody's fool she knows that she's doing all the work and she's having none of it.

Her creepy forked tail. It's really awkward when you're petting her under the table and the tail slips between her fingers. *shudder*

Also, unlike a dog, she's not an idiot. I tried the pretending to throw the ball trick, the one where any dog will go running off after nothing, but she was not fooled; her eyes never left that ball.

I was having a great time with this (she actually got bored with it before I did, but that says more about me than the cat, doesn't it? Conveniently, she got bored as soon as I got my camera out too. Unfortunate), and thought to myself, why doesn't Jo, or even Julius do something this cool. That's not to say they have their own tricks. Jules has to get up, no matter what, if you whistle at the right pitch, and Jo, well, she knows every possible way to get under my skin, and also, she can open the handles on my parents old fashioned ice box, where we used to keep her food.

As unimpressive as that is after seeing it a few hundred times, it still proves something. She can be motivated by food. So, starting tomorrow, I shall begin trying to teach Jo to play fetch.

Against the Wind

2009-03-20T16:01:00.004-04:00

Sorry about the silence of late. I've been, well busy isn't the right word, but it's close enough.

Anyways, I was right about running the other day, and how sore I'd be. But I've been keeping at it. More progress than I've made in almost two years now. I think I might do at least the Frederick half marathon. So what if I can't do a full marathon, if I can crush a half, what's to stop me from pumping out two back to back later. Something to strive fort anyways, and a reason to continue, to not quit. Something to commit to besides myself.

Today was mildly annoying though. I ran in a big loop near my parents' place, and while I usually enjoy the wind (kiting is my favorite activity ever) it was rather chilly, and the wind was less than pleasant. Also, thee real frustrating part was, when running in a glorified circle as I was, you expect full well to be running against the wind for some of the time, but at the same time, you expect there to be a roughly equal amount of time spent running with the wind.

Not the case today. There were a few brief moments when I was shielded from the wind altogether, but the wind was not once at my back, and probably three quarters of the way, I was running against the wind, thinking of good ol' Bob Seger, and thinking about how awesome it would be to have a windsurfer. Seems the wind gods wanted me to by flying kites today, but that would require either buying new kites or repairing the mess of busted ones in my trunk. Not likely to happen today.

Also, speaking of kites, I saw a long piece of red plastic that looked suspiciously like a kite tail, stuck in a tree a mile or so away from where we were flying kites.

Also also, it is my nephew Jack's second birthday today. Unfortunately, I had agreed to work for my boss this weekend, so I won't be going to Pittsburgh to see him. Jo and I will have to give him our regards via webcam later, a lame substitute, but what are you going to do?

Despite this, Ben and will have to try and do something interesting this weekend. It's been a while, and the blog has suffered this week.

Without Limits

2009-03-17T20:03:00.004-04:00

I know I had started running earlier, like, almost a month ago, but of course, I promptly got sick, and then just stopped, as is the usual trend with me; find an excuse to stop and never continue.

Despite this, I started running again, partly because I saw that my sister Kellie ended up having to sign up for the Frederick Marathon instead of the Pittsburgh, and while it is still too late for me to get in shape for that marathon, there is also a half marathon and all that jazz. I don't know, God hates a coward, and while I'm not opposed to running thirteen miles, it seems kind of wrong when I could easily train to do a marathon, and on the same day that a bunch of people are dropping down 26.2 or so odd miles, I'm doing a leisurely thirteen. Also, I'm running again because I do some great thinking while running.

There are no distractions while running. It's not like when I'm driving, or at work, or home doing other things. When the only things I really have to worry about are staying on the road and not getting hit by cars, and even that, most of them are kind enough to do my job for me. So it's easiest while running for me to not just let my mind wander, but to lose my mind to those who do a better job of telling my stories than I. After all, they're their stories.

It's truly wonderful, with a few exceptions. The first of which is when I'm out of shape. When I let my characters run wild, that's generally what they do, and my own physical limitations are left where I started.

That's what happened today. I ran way too far, way too fast, and I'm already hurting. It's a fair guess to say that I will have some serious issues with just getting up tomorrow morning, let alone going to work and class, and of course, running again.

It occurs to me that I could probably do a marathon like this. I might die afterwards, but while I'm running, I feel nothing, at least nothing that's happening to me anyways.

Still, I'd have to say, as I massage my aching legs (I was surprised to see my calf muscles are already back, in all their former glory), that it was totally worth it.

Mr. Linganore

2009-03-15T21:09:00.005-04:00

I went to the Mr. Linganore Pageant at my old high school last night. I had nothing better to do, and my mother was going, so I figured why not. It wasn't until I was already in the car that my mother reminded me that i haven't been to the new school.

"Turn the car around."

I almost had her do it to. I had seen the new building from the parking lot once, and had seen the wreckage that was my high school on more than a few occasions, but something about actually going in, doing something that I had done before in the old building, it seemed like admitting defeat.

Not that I wasn't defeated, or could have done anything besides refuse to acknowledge it. I don't even know why I cared so much. It's not like I really liked high school.

That's not true, nor is it fair. I didn't like learning, so much that it created a rather bad atmosphere, but it's where I saw and met most of my friends, and while the building itself was in bad, bad shape, despite this, I have a lot of good memories, both real and fake, that happened in that school.

The new building, well, it looks all efficient and modern. I was surprised to see they already had portables behind the school, seems they wanted a repeat of the problem they had at the old school, but then again, I had forgotten that they are still building another school to shove the kids in.

I'm told there is no way to get in the tower. Why?!

Still, I wanted to go, as as this years group of seniors was the class that were Freshmen when I was a Junior, probably my best year, and the year I "adopted" many, many freshmen. Three of these were in the pageant, and another one was working behind the scenes, so I figured i might as well. Maybe I could take credit for their awesomeness, my influence got them where they are.

It didn't, but it was nice to see them, and remember some people I was almost entirely nice to.

Another thing about those Freshmen that I adopted, I nicknamed them all. Well, actually, for whatever reason, I never nicknamed Danny French, but he was in it, and he should have one, and I didn't personally give Bobby Rankin the name "Sweet Pea", but he was also in it. I did give Bobby Martin the name "Sweet Cheeks" (a long story, for another day). Also, Kevin Cole, dubbed "Studmuffin", was in the background, with his awesome voice, befitting a guy called "Studmuffin" working lights. I also managed to see Ryan Barron, aka "Rydog", Adam Eisenstadt, given the name "Munch", but not by me, Rusty Martin, named "Cap'n Abilicious" (he made me attest to his abs in front of his girlfriend, it was to say the least, awkward), and Eva Creswell, who was, due to creative inhibitations on my part, named aptly "Minion Number Two" (Minion Number One was not there, sadly).

Also, it is necessary to mention, should you be in some sort of talent contest, aand are able to do a Rubiks cube while blindfolded, don't waste everyone's time doing it once first with you're eyes open. It was too long, we were already impressed before the blindfold, and then were dissappointed that you couldn't do it with the same stellar speed whilst blind. And should you fail, which he didn't, we would remember your failure over your success. Also, I'd like to ask the question, how is that possible.

I shouldn't complain about that kid, as there were a few who actually had no talent. I'm sure they did, they just failed to display it. One kid, who I believe was wearing crutches to both get out of the awful, awful square dancing competition, and to get some sympathy votes. He needed them. FOr his talent portion, he had some other kid (who had apparently just become a father, having knocked up a girl who my mother tried hard to hook me up with) act like a vantriliquist dummy for the worst comedy act I've ever seen.

Then, to top this kid, some other kid I didn't know got up on the stage with a guitar, giving us fair warning that he had just learned guitar two weeks ago, and then proceeded to render a second of the night, and also the worst, Star Spangled Banner, I have ever heard. I was ticked when I realized what he was doing as it meant I had to stand again (I didn't come to this thing to stand, for my country or not), and then it was just awful. I could tell he tried to do it Jimmy Hendrix style, but he got nowhere fast.

Also, I should close saying that I have now seen six dudes in person doing the Beyonce's "Single Ladies". I was less thn impressed.

Happy One Month Blogiversary

2009-03-13T20:35:00.005-04:00

Yeah, I've been at this whole Blog thing for a month now. Not really that long, I suppose. Some days anyways. Time's funny. My year in Pittsburgh seemed at least twice as long as my four years in high school. So I've had my long months. This one though, well, today it seems pretty short.

Well, I said earlier that last night I went to some seminar on communications as technology. It was, well there were some interesting points, to say the least. One of the panelists made the mistake of accidentally implying that Bloggers would replace professional journalism. I think was talking about how online media was replacing print media, but he made a poor seguay to talking about Blogs and other forms of non-professional broadcasting. They were quick to try and clarify, but they weren't the most coordinated group of five people I've ever seen, and their audience was less than wonderful. Still, it was interseting, as most of them clearly saw that while Blogging and the like aren't meant to replace professional journalism, many, like many people among me in the audience, would make that very mistake. I don't know. What I blost here is most definitely not news. I've read some Blogs that are news based, or more specifically, opiniated, unobjective people ranting about the news, but what I'm going for here is purely entertainment. SO if you're looking for news, your're in the wrong place. If your're looking for the antics of a couple of guys who are way too easily amused, yeah, this is the place. Please support us.

One of the other panelists, easily the best one, was very supportive of everyone having a Blog, for a multitude of reasons. The practice in writing alone he said was worth it. I'm mostly in it for the commitment. I'm doing things that I might not normally do mostly because I have committed to this Blog. I'm doing som other things to aid in my commitment issues, but more on that at a later date.

Anyways, I thought I'd just give a heads up on some of the things I'm planning on doing.

Build a windsurfer on a skateboard. It should be legendary.

Run a Marathon. If both of my sisters can do it, so should I.

Help Jo find her birth mom. Or at least, a cat I can convince her is her mom. I'm not perfect.

Learn to play the Guitar. It's something I've been meaning to do.

Build the Solar Death Ray. The power of 1,000 suns!

Learn to do Magic. I probably can't. But I'd at least like to give it a shot.

Finish writing one of my stories. I've started dozens, but never finished. After that, comes publishing.

At some point, a road trip. Doesn't matter where.

And there's a few things left up my sleeve, quite literally actually, that I will reveal when the time is right. After all, I can't let you now everything I plan on doing. Then you would have a little less reason to keep reading what I have to write.

So I'll keep blosting, whether or not you keep reading. I guess I'd prefer it people read, but it's not necessary. As always, suggestions are more than welcome. And if you're in town, give me a call. We'll do something stupid and fun, maybe fly a kite.

Where Am I?

2009-03-12T23:05:00.003-04:00

Sometimes, it's really frustrating to be me. I mean, despite the fact that I am overflowing with pure, unfiltered awesome, I have flaws. Among them, probably the one that hinders me most on a regular basis, is that I have no concept of space.

Directions, distance, even just the simple concept of right and left, are beyond my grasp. It's pretty much a condition, even a handicap. Today was a bad day. On an average day, when I need to figure out right from left, I just make the L's with my hands, and quickly recognize right from left. In the car while driving, it's even easier. My brain will never be able to instinctively know right from left, I've given up on trying to learn long ago.

Anyways, today was a bad day. On a bad day, when I need to differentiate between right and left, I look at my hands, and then have trouble processing what an L looks like. Then I try to imagine myself drawing an L, but without a pen in my hand, I have idea which is my hand. So I have to get a pen out of my pocket, if I am lucky enough to be carrying one, figure out what hand it feels right in, fortunately, once I've found my right hand, I've figured out which was is right, and drawing the L is pointless. Still, a tedious task, for trying to figure out a simple direction.

Fortunately, routes I normally take are easily committed to memory, and right and left and directions of any sort play no part. However, whenever I have to go somewhere new, or even somewhere old, but going a different route, even the reverse of a route I normally take and know, It's almost guaranteed that I will get at least a little lost.

My GPS helps, but only so much. Especially when, for no good reason, I feel confident enough to go without it. Today was one of those days. Ben and were going over to China Panda this afternoon, and while I can get there from work, I was at my great grandmother, Gigi's, and I had never gone to China Panda from there.

Not a huge problem, I figured. I would just get back over near Target to the point where I knew where I was, and then backtrack. Of course, at the time, I didn't realize that while I went from Target to Gigi's a lot, I had only once been from Gigi's too Target, and not the way i was trying to do it, and not during the day. When I realized that I was going to have issues, I whipped out my GPS, knowing I would need Mr. T's aid in getting me where I needed to go. i went under favorites, and told it to take me to Target first, because the last thing I need to be doing while lost is fiddling wiht my GPS. And immediately, of course, TomTom tells me that no route was found.

Needless to say, at somepoint, I found myself on 70 going west, towards Hagerstown. Frustrated, I made it there, and few things aleviate stress like China Panda, and more specifically, building things out of toothpicks and cup lids.

Then later, I had have a class on Thursday nights, but of course, I forgot that this week, before class, we were supposed to go to the communications technology seminar thing, when I got to class, the room was empty. I remembered then and i checked the paper and saw I was supposed to be in the JDK theatre. So I found a map. Maps aren't the most helpful thing in the world to me. If they are laying flat, lined up with whatever they are a map of, I can follow them pretty well, but if they are on a wall, or the orientation isn't right, I can't move it in my mind to where it should be, and then I can't find anything. But this didn't turn out to be a problem, because the JDK theatre was not on the map.

I decided finally to try my luck in the arts and communication building, and after going the wrong direction and into the wrong building and having to turn back and go in the opposite direction, I found the building. It had it's own map of the building itself, where conveniently, the JDK theatre was not listed.

Had I not remembered that I had in fact been here once before, many years ago, to see a firend's dance recital, I probably would have just gone back to the classroom and waited for an hour and a hlaf for the seminar to be over. But I did remember a theatre, and more specifically, having trouble finding it the first time. Armed with that knowledge, I found the theatre, and it was actually a pretty interesting smeinar, and I was glad I was able to find it. Because, I am, after all, a guy, and therefore, cannot ask for directions.

Too Windy For Kites!

2009-03-11T21:48:00.003-04:00

So we were kiting again. If it seems like that's all we do, it's probably because it is. At least for now, because it is March, and therefore windy, and we now have kite fishers.

Actually, that windy thing kind of turned out to be a problem. We were having trouble flying kites because it was too windy. I noticed the windy conditions on my way to class today; it was gorgeous, mid seventies, with good strong winds. I almost skipped class to go fly kites, but I decided I might as well go, so I sat through Spanish, staring outside, feeling the wind through all the open windows on my face, wishing I was outside.

finally, I was able to go outside and go back to Mount Airy for some kite flying action. Of course, by then, it had become overcast, and looked like a storm was blowing in. But that of course never stops us.

Well, despite our awesome kite fishers, our kites failed to stand up to the sheer force of the wind. They tend to fly out almost completely horizontally, as opposed to the preferred, you know, vertical flight, and then, they just turn over and take a nose dive into the dirt. It's frustrating. And then, the kite abomination. Owly McBird and Elmo started going at it, and once they got tangled up, there was really nothing to do but watch. Then, Spiderman got sucked in, and things got ugly.

Their tails are a lost cause. Ben even had to amputate Optimus Prime's to prevent him from getting sucked into the ever growing tangled mess that was the kite abomination. Mostly though, it was a beautiful day, and we got some great pictures.

Also, we believe we found evidence of some great bird, or mayhaps a dinosaur. Check these tracks out.

Oh yeah, and we took Roma with us. It was depressing, because I had to teach him how to fly a kite. I thought those were skills everyone was born with, but maybe that's just an american thing. Anyways, I wasn't there when it happened, so I can't fully understand why, but somehow, he managed to get his kite stuck in not one, not two, not three, but at least six trees. It was like a kite eating forest, I guess. It seemed reasonable, well not reasonable, getting a kite stuck in more than one tree is never reasonable, but plausible, as the trees were all in a line in the path of the wind. But after his kite cruised through the trees in a row, it turned around and looped backwards, against the wind, to get stuck in three more trees.

That's him, trying to get it out of the last tree it got stuck in. The string is still up the rest of them, and I found it fitting that a Spiderman kite left webbing everywhere. Man, I wish I had been there, but I was busy almost getting eaten by a small dog. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Jo's Quest

2009-03-10T20:47:00.007-04:00

Every spring we go through this. Jo, for whatever reason, decides she needs to find her birth mom.

This is, surprisingly less funny than it sounds. She can be very, very annoying when she wants something, and I know that when her food dish is full and she still insists on not letting me get any sleep, there is clearly a deeper issue.

Look at that face. How can you say no to that?

A bit of history. I got Jo over four years ago, back when I was working at the PetLoft. It was the near the end of my first summer, and some woman and her daughter came in with this tiny, tiny kitten. My boss guessed the little thing was probably only four weeks old, and since they're a pain to keep alive when they're that young without their mother's we had a policy of not taking them. My boss, Sarah, encouraged me to take it home with me for two weeks until it was old enough to bring back in and let it be the store's problem. And that's how I got stuck with this one.

Needless to say, I didn't take her back after two weeks. It wouldn't be fair to say I intended to keep her from the get go. After all, I didn't name her for a whole year.

But anyways, being seperated from her mother so young has left its mark on her. I have this one blanket that she likes to try and nurse on. I guess it reminds her of her mum, but still, I keep telling her she is way too old for that to be cute, but does she ever listen to me?

So finally, in the interest of getting a full night's sleep, I looked into those organizations that help reunite seperated parents and children. It took me awhile, but I found an organization based in D.C. that seemed pretty legit, and was about to give them a call.

Now, I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like to talk on the phone. Not being able to see the other person doesn't do wonders for me, so I like to mentally map out where the conversation will possibly go. And no matter how I looked at it, I was pretty sure I was going to be making a prank call.

"My friend Josie is looking to find her birth mom. It's difficult for her, so I'm helping out."

"Does she know where her birth mother might be."

"No. Some woman found her on the side of the road when she was like, four weeks old, and brought her to my store, so I took her in."

From here, things start going downhill. I have no idea what I would say to that, let alone what someone who does this kind of thing for a living would do. I almost called anyways, figuring I could just run with it, and worse case scenario, just hang up. What do I have to lose? Nothing really, but at the same time, this is an organization that is doing great things, and in the end, I really couldn't bear to waste someone's time for this. I considered sending an e-mail, but I'm still wasting someone's time, and I'm not likely to get a response.

But we'll get by. We always do. And pretty soon, it will be warm enough for me to leave the windows open at night, and she'll forget all about her lost mom, and be transfixed with the outside air. She is, after all, a cat.

Knight Kiting

2009-03-09T21:21:00.006-04:00

Mondays aren't a great day for Ben and I to do stuff. I work all morning, then go to class all afternoon, and then he goes to class in the evening. So generally, We don't do anything, but today, we had to make an exception. The weather is still nice, but not so nice that my entire awful neighborhood is outside. Also, the moon is near full, and most importantly, it's fairly windy. Not as windy as it was earlier today, when I was tempted to bust out my kite fisher in the middle of the FCC parking lot. I didn't but I totally could have. So we were forced to laugh in the face of the pigs who told us we can't fly kites at night, and we went Night Kite Fishing.

An awesome exposure shot.

These shots weren't easy to capture, by any means. Getting a kite to cooperate, and find it, in the scope of a camera in the dark is no easy task. Ben and I (mostly Ben) are just awesome enough to make it work.

On the downside, I lost yet another kite. The upside, I guess, is that I will now have a different kite than Ben's. I might make a real Frankenkite, literally taping broken parts of other kites together. I don't know, I'll have to look through my trunk, which might permanently become a kite graveyard. Also, while I'm at it, somehow attaching glow sticks, or even painting it with glow in the dark paint, seems like a wonderful idea.

Transformers, Robots In Da Skies

2009-03-08T19:55:00.012-04:00

So, Ben and I are geniuses (clearly), and this time, we finally outdid ourselves. We took a relatively boring activity, fishing, and combined it with the thrill of possibly the best recreational past time ever, kite flying, and created an even bigger thrill.

Kite Fishing

It was inevitable, really. For as much as Ben and I fly kites, eventually, we had to find a way to make the process more efficient. Nobody likes to wind in a kite, but people actually seem to enjoy reeling in a fish, so much so that it is a televised sport. So we figured, why not reel in a kite. It's faster, more fun, and more satisfying. And it's so much easier to get a kite up in the air when all you have to do is release a little button to let string out, and push it down again to stop it, and with the flick of the wrist, you can direct your kite into drafts.

This, admittedly, wasn't the first time we went kite fishing. Unfortunately, Ben didn't bring his camera the first time, and this story is better told with pictures to illustrate the sheer awesomeness of what we have stumbled upon. And it's a mixed blessing that we didn't have a camera that first test flight, as kite fishing is more complicated than it seems. Gizmo's trunk is full of the corpses of kites that have fallen in the line of duty, failed trials in our attempts to touch the heavens with thin sheets of plastic. In fact, the reason we both have the same kite is that Ben's is actually a Frankenkite, a poor, miserable creature fused from the bodies of lesser kites.

From left to right, Frankenkite, Optimus Prime

Frankenkite in your face!

Ben's first Kite of the day, Cars, was nearly cut in half, by my 10 lb fishing line kite string. That is one of the more unfortunate things about using fishing line rather than kite string. The other, is that, once you loose sight of it, you will most likely never find it again. In addition to Cars, two Ironmans, like, three Spidermans, Elmo, and Nemo all fell or were lost in in our efforts to perfect this, as well as two whole fishing rods and one reel were ruined. Biggest problem was that you can't let fishing line out all the way, or it will come off, and your kite will just fly away, if you're lucky, to get stuck in a tree, or worse, it just is lost, never to be found again. And then then, the whole reattaching it gave us near infinite troubles.

"You attach the string, and then you reel it in." -wisdom of Ben, the wise old sea captain.

In our first attempt, I had managed to find my first kite after it had gotten free, stuck up in a tree. I realized how odd a scene it must have been, for one of my neighbors to look out the window, and see some young guy standing in your backyard, just reeling in a fishing line. Naturally, they called the cops, and for the first time, we were doing nothing wrong. By the time the cops showed, we were back on public property, successfully flying kites. So they sat there for a few minutes, and then left, defeated, without even getting out of their pigmobile. Victory was was almost as sweet as the success of our kite flying.

"I'm standing on the most ineffective dam in the world, flying the most bad ass kite in the world, and somehow, I am breaking no laws. And I'm not wearing shoes!"

Still though, the sacrifices were worth it. By the time today that we had everything ready, and a camera, we had no problems flying our kites in the best way possible. Well, that's not entirely true. I think I suck at flying kites, but Ben is the best in the world. Even though he had an awful frankenkite, he still managed to fly it. I don't know, I guess I am just a giant douche. Something like that. It was pretty funny though. I had little difficulty getting Optimus to his optimal range in minimal wind, and then had time to sit back, tool around with Owlybird, my little, Jewish owl kite, and let Optimus just do his own thing whilst Ben rocked the entire world for the better part of a half hour, maybe more.

Owlybird, wearing his purple yamika.

My kite, doing a wonderful job of flying, unattended.

"I would rather have E. Coli than this kite."

Now, for those of you who wish to try this at home, and you all know you do, as of yet, we have not copyrighted the kite fisher, so we're all right with you making your own. Patent it yourself, and their will be hell to pay. Consider yourselves forewarned. Anyways, some advice. don't waste your time buying the cheapest thing available. It's not an expensive toy, but, you get what you pay for, so be prepared to buy the second least expensive thing and save yourself a second trip to Walmart. The first trip was bad enough. I'd stay away from kits. Again, you might think you're saving yourself a few bucks, but really, your costing yourself enough frustration to cause real actual stress, and that's not what kite flying is all about. We've been kind enough to endure the stress so you don't have to. At Walmart, we were able to get a cheap reel for around seven dollars, and with rods, I'm reasonably sure you can't go wrong. We recommend taking off the top half of the rod anyways. True, you may get a bit more control, but it didn't seem to be worth the extra hassle. It's up to you though.

"Buy a Zebco reel. Avoid anything named after famous playwright Bill Shakespeare. He had nothing to do with fishing"

As far as kites go, don't waste your time with the little diamond ones. Again in this situation, cheaper is not to your advantage. They work fine, provided you have a strong wind. And your kite fisher is something you should be able to enjoy in even the most minimal amount of wind. The bigger, delta shaped kites generally run around $3 to $3.50, which isn't terribly expensive, cheap enough so you won't be hurting if you only lose one. And it does happen.

"If I didn't get it right on the first try, who are you to think you might do better? Just remember, god hates a coward."

Last but not least, you're going to need to some cool shades. Staring up on a sunny day is inconvenient at best. You should probably own these, but if you don't, don't be afraid to go cheap. Ben found these in the car door loose junk holder of his Paseo.

"I usually don't wear sunglasses, because my face is crooked."

All in all, you're looking to spend around $17 on your kite fisher, provided you have to buy everything, less if you have on old fishing rod lying around in your garage or a trunk full of kites.

We's Makin' Ice Cream!

2009-03-07T19:16:00.008-05:00

Not really. We're eating it, a lot of it, to be precise. That's actually why we decided that we must be in the ice cream making business.

I think I may have had Ben and Jerry's ice cream a total of once. So, despite the fact that H loves the stuff, I was relatively unaware of their wonderful flavor selection. That may be their only redeeming quality, as it was ridiculously expensive, too expensive too justify buying, despite Barrack Obama telling us that, "Yes, Pecan".

As wonderful as that was, it was more than twice as expensive as some other, less colorfully named ice cream brands. But still, it was enough to get us thinking, if these guys can have ice cream flavors, why not us.

So, just tossing it out there, we may have to make Ben and Taylor's Mount Airy's Finest Ice Cream. At the very least, we demand our own flavors of Ben and Jerry's. We are at the very least as famous as anyone else who has their own flavor of ice cream. And if not as famous, then twice as awesome. Try these on for size:

Ben's Apple Sauce
(picture may or may not be forthcoming)

Taylor's Purple, Green, and Orange Sherbet

So yeah, look for it.

Electronix.

2009-03-04T22:18:00.006-05:00

First thing is first, naturally. Obligatory music appreciation:

So the fingerprint reader on my parents laptop stopped working. After the typical troubleshooting I determined it was a hardware issue. In order to fix it I had to do some "research." That, of course, means I got to tear something apart. Tearing things apart is something I quite enjoy. Whether today or when I was twelve if I own something there is a decent chance I have pulled it apart and figured where everything is. And typically I have replaced something.

Click on this picture, if you don't mind.^

The most interesting thing about newer laptops is either the space efficiency or the heat transfer. Simple dissipation mixed with heat pipes and fans, well it's interesting for me anyway. I pretty much have nothing more to say on the subject, just enjoy the intricacies of electronics and the music it has helped create.

Oh, and in case you cared, which I know you did not, the fingerprint reader is hooked up to a usb hub behind the LCD screen, along with the webcam.

Do You Ever Question Your Life?

2009-03-03T14:14:00.005-05:00

So I heard this song today on the radio on the way home from work today, and it took me back, oh, I want to say four years, time is funny, to a time when every Tuesday, was Techno Tuesday.

I'd like to salute man who was, well, he made enough of an impact on me that I can remember him, and I associate no bad memories with this man, or fake memories.

Mark Lastova. He taught, and as far as I know still does, the technical drawing classes at Linganore High School. I had him one semester for some engineering class, and it was definitely one of the best classes I took at that school.

First off, anyone who bases his decisions purely off a Magic Eightball clearly has clearly got it all together. Any time someone had a question, be it could they use the restroom, or could they turn in an assignment late, his response was the same. "Ask the Eightball. I don't make those kinds of decisions." The only time I didn't ask the Eightball for permission to do something, I was feeling pretty sick, and I didn't want to risk having the Eightball deny me the ability to go to the bathroom to vomit. Of course, as karma, and the awful administration of LHS, would have it, the door to the restroom in the basement was locked, so I ended up going outside and ralphing in a bush. So I guess there really was one negative memory associated with Mr. Lastova, but it's forgivable, as it wasn't his fault I was sick and they didn't trust the students enough to leave the bathrooms unlocked.

And then, there was the music. Tuesdays of course, being what has made me remember all of this, were the best. I mean, it can't get any better than Techno Tuesday. I don't remember what the rest of the days were; they might not have even had names, or strict themes. I do remember we weren't allowed to touch the radio that. That was forbidden. Unlike mundane decisions that he left up to fate, when it concerned the music, be it the selection, volume, or even whether or not we even had it, his word was law.

The class itself was pretty awesome, too. For the most part, we just tooled around on this pretty cool design software, though there was definitely some playing with blocks, some coloring, and for one project, we built something out of Legos, and then built each individual piece on the computer, and then rebuilt the entire model. Best project ever!

Point being, Mark Lastova, I salute you. You are, more or less, what I want to be. Not a teacher, not a cool guy, just, someone, who could, after any amount of time, be forcefully remembered like that. He left an impact, and managed to create a hole of truth in the irreality that was my youth. Someone who defied my ability to invent my life, and just let me live it. Thank you, for that. Thank you so much.

We Got "This" Much Snow

2009-03-02T18:49:00.009-05:00

It's hard to say just how much we had, here in Mount Airy. I actually didn't think it had snowed this morning, as when I woke up and looked out the window, the roof outside my window was clear. further inspection revealed that it had indeed snowed, but it did not appear to be snowing, so I got up and got ready for work.

It had started snowing again, but unfortunately, I didn't decide that trying to go in was a bad idea until I was already about halfway there, and turning back would have been just as foolish as going on. And there was no way I was going to pull over and sleep it out on the side of the road. I couldn't even tell where the side of the road was, most of the time.

Anyways, Giz and I made it to Target, and only five minutes late. And I beat everyone else with their SUV's and their four wheel drive enabled vehicles. 'Cause Gizmo and I are that awesome!

As I was saying, I have no idea how much snow we actually got, reason being some ferocious wind. It would have been an opportune time for kiting, and the gloves wouldn't have been a huge hindrance due to Ben's and my new innovation in kite flying (more on that at a later date). But I didn't, because glove accessible or not, I have discovered that my parent's closet eats left handed gloves. So I rocked a right glove, and a left mitten. Admittedly, the mitten was warmer, but the left handed glove eating closet might also be a right handed mitten eating closet. I'll need to see it eat at least two more mittens to be sure.

So I trekked out into the snow, with my father, who I believe had been wanting someone to go out with him all afternoon. He wouldn't say it, but he wouldn't let me sleep. I guess, until I stop being lazy and find my own place, this is something I'm going to have to live with. The folks, my father in particular, have a problem with letting me sleep. Last night, my mother woke me up to inform me that it was supposed to snow, saying she didn't want me to not notice in the morning. I'm pretty sure I would have noticed when I went out to my car if by some reason I forgot over the night and didn't notice when I woke up. Then, my father, who has always had a problem with me sleeping, woke me from my nap at least three times today. I can't remeber why he woke me up the first time, but the second time, he asked me if I wanted a french fry. Just one. He told me later he would have let me have more than one. I of course, was unpleased at being woken up from my nap, something I love, to see if I wanted food, something I don't particularly enjoy, so much in fact that I will sleep to conserve energy rather than refueling my body by eating. Then later, he woke me again, to let me know that he had eaten the offered french fry. By then, I realized that he wasn't going to let me sleep, so I had to get up, and take some aspirin (I was sleeping off a headache, B T Dub).

Now, finally, the original point of this Blost, which I guess was moot from the start, seeing as I lack the pictures of what I wanted to show everyone. Hopefully, it isn't supposed to get that warm, and I should be able to go out and get some pictures, but usually, snow that's been chillaxing around for a couple of days isn't as beautiful as a freshly fallen snow. It's quite nice, what with all the drifting. I was walking with my father around the dam of the drainage pond, where the grass was visible, and if I walked two feet to the left or right, I was standing in a two feet deep drift.

God, I wish my camera worked.

Cunningham Falls

2009-02-28T22:07:00.004-05:00

We heard this song on the way to Cunningham Falls, and immediately decided it had to be the song for this Blost.

So, Cunningham Falls. It took us far too long to find it. And not because of my expert ability to get lost (we did take an unnecessary detour through Frederick, compliments of my inability to get anywhere). My GPS figured that the address I found on the internet was a big rock on the side of the road, where it told me there was no parking any time. So we stopped at the closest parking area, which happened to be for a mostly frozen over lake, where some old dudes were fishing. This was less than interesting, we've seen our fair share of completely and partially frozen lakes, so we got back in Gizmo and turned around and backtracked to where we saw a visitor center.

We saw no signs pointing out the falls, so rather than ask in the visitor center, we just decided to follow the first stream we saw. This turned out to be less than wonderful, as we walked up to Blue Blazes Still, which was just lame. No moonshine. Just a couple of leaf filled barrels, and the path ended. We tried to continue to follow the stream, but that also ended.

Then we went up a big hill, and when there was nothing but more hill up top, we went back down. Then we went across the road to another, bigger stream, saw some more fishermen, both found different ways to cross that stream, followed it for a bit, skipped some rocks, skipped some more rocks, followed it somemore, found some big rocks, and didn't really do anything. We were about to call the day a bust, but then, we got got back in Giz, and drove a little bit farther until we saw signs promoting the falls we were there to see.

Good thing we did to.

The signs said swimming was prohibited, and walking on Maryland Route 77 is not allowed, but clmibing the rocks by the falls was only not advised. So of course we did.

I climbed up onto the huge rock in the middle of the falls, and, when realizing the tremendous view, beckoned for Ben. He got that I wanted him to take a picture of me, and did so, and then we proceeded to have a lengthy pantomime conversation, where I attempted to get him to come over and take some pictures, and he thought that it was too far away to be worth it. He finally came over, and admitted that I was right, which usually isn't the case, and even if it is, he usually won't admit it.

There was a picture somewhere of the falls, and they appeared much more impressive, but still, the ice everywhere had a cool effect. We'll have to return when it is warm. It was cold, and we had not had the forsight to dress more appropriately, and it was too cold to even consider doing something dumb enough to get me wet, which is where most of the fun usually comes in.

Also, I fell, somehow, and while I managed to avoid killing myself on that branch next to my head, I did stab myself pretty good on my thigh, and hit my bad shoulder. It hurt, a lot. Ben was quick to photgraph me on the ground in pain before helping me up. Admittedly, I would have done the same.

Roy Rogers Restaurant Review, Really!

2009-02-28T19:29:00.011-05:00

That's some decent alliteration.

And we really did review a Roy Rogers.

We fully intended to review someplace better that a Roy Rogers, but on the bright side, it wasn't a Burger King. We went with a classier fast food establishment. Anyways, we were in Thurmont to see Cunningham Falls, and we were starving, so it was decided that we should check out the local diners and see what's what. But after driving up and down Thurmont, and having really only the option between Fast Food, and places that were both way too classy and way to crowded, we went to Roy Rogers.

Anyways, as far as Fast Food goes, Roy Rogers is the way to go if you want fast food that doesn't make you feel sick afterwards. It's a bit on the pricey side, I spent $7.52 on the double bacon cheeseburger combo with fries and a soda. Unfortunately, we were not at the one in Frederick where our FCC student ids would earn us a sweet %15 discount.

The food was pretty good. I guess our review would be a little better if we had ordered different things, but selection, not wonderful at Roy Rogers. To be fair, I specified that my double bacon cheeseburger not be a cheeseburger, since that don't offer a comparable meal without cheese, but that's pretty general across the board, and something, as a person who doesn't like cheese on most things, that I have learned to live with. I will note that it appears that they started to put cheese on it anyways, and then remembered and took it off, as I could see cheese on some of my bacon. That, or they took that piece of bacon off a different burger, one with cheese. I like to think that's it, but there's no way of knowing.

The fries were much better than most other fast food fries. I have much praise for their fries. They aren't too salty, and they have a seasoning on them that I couldn't place, but was rather good on fried slices of potatoes.

Also, the Roy Rogers in Thurmont has the soda fountain behind the counter, so if your looking for the refills, this is not the place for you. Also equally inconvenient for making building designs out of cups, lids, and straws.

The service, well, it oversteps its bounds. We knew walking in that we were at a Roy Rogers, and not some classier restaurant, so we were a bit taken aback when one of the staff came to our table, told us she would have asked us how our food was, but we hadn't started eating yet, and then offered us an after dinner mint. It was just an awkward moment. We didn't go to a restaurant where we expected to be waited on, we were not obligated to nor had any intention of tipping this woman, and we already had our food, so having someone check up on us was less than desirable. The mint was good though. I will give them that. I wouldn't be opposed to it being commonplace to have a basket of mints on the way out the door like they do in most pizza places, but I don't want someone to bring it to my table.

Roy Rogers is also a apparently not getting on the going green bandwagon. For my meal, I got four receipts. One that tells me what I ordered, one that tells me what I ordered and that I paid, the customer copy of my credit card transaction that's also on the other receipt saying I paid, and the store copy of the credit card transaction. I think I would have been fine with the one with everything on it, but you know, wasting paper is cool too. Not to mention the paper they lay down on the tray. I'm pretty sure, well at least I'm hoping that they have washed the trays and they are safe to east off of. I'm already in the restaurant, eating, so there is no need to advertise themselves further. I just ate off of it, so I'm not going to take it home (well I might, if I use it to design something awesome, not unlikely). While some people can get annoying in their showing off about how much they're going green, saving the earth is not something I will be too upset with you for.

Also, the fake flowers take some serious inspection before you are %100 positive that they are indeed fake. It adds an almost cheery atmosphere. The country music playing was pretty terrible. What made it better was Ben's imitation of all country music. (Look for it in the near future! Ben's putting out a country album) The western cowboy theme seemed a little too much, until I saw that they have fry holders shaped like holsters, that you can actually wear! I didn't enjoy this idea at first, for some reason, but it grows on you, as I'm sure all sorts of molds, bacterias and fungi would be growing on your hip should you actually wear a holster full of fries around. Brilliant.

Roy Rogers also leaves this handy comment card on the tables. I suppose if I were to rate it based on the standards they set down, it would be like so:

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being poor, 3 being good, and 5 being excellent

1. Taste of Food: 3
It was pretty good, but a far cry from excellent.
2. Speed of service: 4
It's tough to say, but I was pleased because my food was ready by the time I came out of the bathroom. And you don't want your food ready too quickly anyways, because then you have to wonder, how long ago did they make it?
3. Order Accuracy: 2
Yeah, I definitely saw where they had started to put cheese on my burger, when I specifically said, multiple times, no cheese.
4. Attentiveness & Courtesy: 3
They greeted us once we came in, but not as we were walking in the door, which is nice, but then, as I said, they overstepped their bounds.
5. Cleanliness: 4
Their bathroom was pretty clean, and I liked how it had both the air dryers and paper towels.

Well, I saved the best for last. As enjoyable as the fry holster is, the regular shaped small fry container is even more wonderful.

The Roy Rogers small fry holder.

You're going to want to open it up along the seams.

Fold the little side lip thingies down.

Fold it in half longways.

Fold it in half again shortways.

And BAM, you have a cardboard frog, curtesy of Roy Rogers. Good for hours of fun. I'm sure this is totally feasible with most any fry holders, but I would have to see them. Anyways, enjoy.

On Comments and Following

2009-02-26T23:32:00.005-05:00

Nothin' much, just thanking you for reading, and encouraging you all to comment more if you are already doing so, and to start if you aren't commenting at all. Because, after all, only about 70% of this blog is for Ben and myself. And of that remaining 30% or so, 2%, of that 30% mind you, just might, maybe, be for you.

Point being, we read and appreciate the comments. Feedback, be it on my many typographical errors, questions, or suggestions for us. Just today, we decided we needed to do something (turns out we most likely can't, sorry to say, at least not something that would involve leaving Mount Airy) but we were at a loss for what to do. Suggestions, ideas, events we are unaware of, all these things would not go unrewarded. Even recognition of an obscure reference is cause for commenting.

On a related note, according to "Blogger Buzz," someone is following a blog every second of every day, which I took to mean that someone follows a new blog every second. And yet, despite these incredible numbers, we've been stuck at seven, for like, awhile. Pretty much since we started anyways.

So, thank to you who are following, but we're going to have to ask a bit more of you, and that's to encourage others to get in on this; it's going places. I can't say where, or even when, but you know you'd feel guilty if it left and everyone you knew wasn't on board and you hadn't put forth the effort. And if you are reading this but haven't committed to following, get on that. You get out of it what you put in.

A Real Vampire Slayer

2009-02-25T19:47:00.004-05:00

It's a pretty fair assessment to say that, of all the people I interacted with, I hated at least 50% of them. A few of them, I had a reason for. My aunt says that hate destroys the vessel that carries it. And while I'm pretty sure I was in no danger of destruction, it was doing me no favors.

I left that here, along with most of my other tendencies that I was sick of.

That's not totally true. there was one person that I hated, and I focused all of the rage that was normally spread out among hundreds on this one woman.

Stephanie Meyer.

If the name doesn't strike a bell, let me give you something with which to associate her.

Twilight.

I used to work with books, so the initial annoyance came from having to stock hers books. I'd get in boxes and boxes of them a week, and yet I was still out of at least one of them at any given time. The premise, a girl who falls madly in love with a vampire, seemed awful, but it was only after they announced a movie that it became a real problem.

Other people began to realize that people were reading this stuff, and there was a nonstop flow of books very likely even worse than Stephanie Meyer's list coming in every week, books about vampires and undead, and their love stories. It was more than a little sickening. Every summary on the back read much the same thing. Some teenage chick has met the man of her dreams. There's only one problem. He wants to suck her blood.

Some awful Vampire romance novels. My favorite, the one of the right, with the tag line "Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea..." She got paid for that book.

My problem with Stephanie Meyer wasn't so much her books, though I won't read them. Any book you can pump out in less than three months can't be all that great. I hated her because she opened the door for countless other hacks to write books that suck. I'm sorry, but when, and more importantly, how, did it become acceptable for teenage girls to fall in love with vampires. I remember watching blade as a kid, and that, Wesley Snipes, is what vampires are supposed to be. Terrifying, bloodsucking demon spawn. Not vessels of teenage angst. I suppose Joss Whedon is also partly to blame, but I'm willing to let him go by the wayside, as he is responsible for the creation of Firefly as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

How are these two even comparable. One is clearly overflowing with awesome. The other is a pasty teenager. And yet people want to pass this ugly kid off as a vampire.

Anyways, the point of this is, recently, this hasn't been too much of an issue. The movie is no longer in theaters so its popularity has fallen a bit, and more importantly, I no longer work in books. However, on Tuesdays, my workload brings me through entertainment, and so I can usually get a little worked up once a week.

Yesterday was different though. I scanned all of books, and nothing. There were plenty of new vampire romance books, there were still a thousand copies of every Twilight novel, and I really didn't care.

I didn't mind hating Stephanie Meyer. I knew where all that negative motion was, and I could account for it. Now though, what's happening with all that emotion. Because hating things, unlike some of my other old habits, hasn't come back as soon as I found myself back in Maryland.

So do I really not hate anything now. It's hard to imagine me as a person who doesn't hate. It provided balance, offset my overly compassionate side. Is that, too, going to go by the wayside?

Then again, it could just be because I'm sick. I haven't been feeling any strong emotion all week. We'll see.

Makin' Bacon

2009-02-24T18:46:00.009-05:00

More specifically a bacon and cheese omelette. And just because we like music on this here blog, this is a sample of what I was listening to while creating this delectable fuel.

See, unlike my juice loving counterpart, I quite like food. I like making it, and I especially like eating it. It was only recently that I decided to learn how to make on omelette, and before that I had only eaten one. That was in a hotel no less. Before I get too off topic the point is omelettes are tasty, and it is well worth a try if you haven't made one before.

This particular omelette will consist of two eggs, two thick cut bacon slices and some cheese. Chesse is pretty much a nessesity, it is the gule that holds the omelette together. Aside from that pretty much anything can go into it. Vegtables, meat, mushrooms, whatever goes with eggs.

First thing is first, I'm using two pans, one for the bacon, one for the eggs. The bacon is made to taste, so you can figure that one out. The egg pan should be at a medium high setting, greased in whatever fashion you desire.

The eggs go into a mixing bowl with about 1/4 cup milk and that gets mixed until it is consistent. That mixture goes into the pan, and you can leave it sit for a while.

Once you see some white spots and big bubbles forming in the eggs it is time to give the pan a swirl. The idea is to get a filmy skin of egg around the edge of the pan. Let it sit for a couple more minutes and then repeat the swirl, by now most of the egg should be solidified.

Now you stick a fork between the skin you make earlier and the pan, slightly lifting the egg. Slide the fork around the edge of the pan and then you are ready to add the innards.

As I said before the cheese holds it together, so don't skimp on it. Everything other than the cheese should be situated on one side, for ease of folding.

The next step is to fold the egg over, ideally this would be done with something other than a fork, as you can see I ripped my egg a little.

Leave it sitting long enough to melt the cheese and get everything to a nice warm temperature, flipping it at least once. And that is it.

Delicious Omelette.

I have nothing more to say to you for now, go make an omelette.

Forgettable

2009-02-23T16:26:00.006-05:00

I was inspired the other day. A few weeks ago, I saw a friend from high school. A, I guess eccentric is as good a word as any, kid, we were still fairly good friends, and when I saw him at FCC, a mere two years since I saw him last, he didn't appear to recognize me. When I called his name and started to talk to him, he seemed really surprised, and immediately excused himself to get to class. This bothered me a little, but who knows, maybe he was just in a real hurry to get to class.

And then, while recounting this story to Ben, who both saw and was recognized by him at FCC, I recalled that this wasn't the first time this kid had forgotten my existence.

Sixth grade was where I made most of my friends I had throughout high school. I really only had two friends from my elementary school, and when all of the elementary schools merged together into New Market Middle School, I was finally able to find a large group of friends. In addition to the Nerds, there were a few other people I acquainted myself with.

Now it's quite forgivable that this kid should forget being friends with me in that sixth grade gym class. I was a pretty terrible friend to him. And I guess, that's really the first time I remember being a real jerk to my friends, a pattern that would get progressively worse through high school. So yeah, I think it all might have started back in sixth grade, trying to make new friends in the sixth grade, with a kid I called "pacifist".

I don't really remember why I called him that. I mean, he was a quiet kid, but really Taylor? Nicknaming is something that I'm usually hit or miss with, and this was a miss. And it was really untrue, because I pushed him to the point where he hit me. I don't remember why, but I can guarantee I deserved it.

Anyways, the next year rolled around, and half the kids transferred to the new school being built, the pacifist among them. Fast forward two years, in high school, when once again the schools are all one again. I see a kid with dyed black hair, a trench coat, and a Nightmare Before Christmas lunchbox. It only took me a second to recognize this as the kid from sixth grade gym that I had pissed off enough to hit me. So what did I do? I stalked him for about a whole semester. He didn't seem to recognize me, and I guess by ninth grade I still retained some guilt about what I was, so I of course didn't say anything. The next semester, I had a class with him, so after a few few weeks it became clear that he did not in fact recognize me, and finally, I recounted sixth grade gym, and not only did he not recognize me, he didn't remember me at all.

To not remember someone, who pissed you off enough to hit them... And then forget them again after being good friends with them in high school!

Anyways, it gave me a good idea for a story. A guy who returns to the small town he's from, only to have no one remember him. And not just not remember him, he's been erased from existence in this small town. He's not in the yearbooks from his school, no record of him or his family having lived there, his old house gone. And, he keeps getting forgotten. People he's had to reintroduce himself will have forgotten him again by the next day. Everyone just forgets him.

Well, not everyone. A retarded kid, an old woman with Alzheimers, anyone with a mind effecting illness, and also people not from that small town.

I try to imagine how awful that must be, to try and leave an impression on people, and just get absolutely nothing. To be so temporary. The dark part of me that is attracted to suffering and feels the need to suffer myself loves it.

Now if only I had a plot.

He Only Eats Guitars

2009-02-22T15:13:00.013-05:00

I may have a new favorite song.

Rapture - Blondie

I thought about putting Tom Cochrane's "Life Is A Highway", which I totally heard (what road trip isn't complete without it?), but I heard this song too, which I had, for some inconceivable reason, forgotten. I mean, listen to this song. "And out comes a man from Mars, and you try to run but he's got a gun, he shoots you dead and eats your head, and then you in the man from Mars". Thank you Blondie. Thank you so much. The only unfortunate thing was that I couldn't sing along. The list of people whose presence I will sing in, Kellie, Mike, H, Jo, Gizmo, and Rusty, does not include my mothers van, which I was, most regrettably, driving.

In order for my trip to Pittsburgh to happen, unfortunately, I had to leave Gizmo behind for the second time in a week and borrow my mother's van. This injustice was not even remotely offset by the fact that I also had my mother's credit card to pay for gas.

A few things about my mother's van. I had to drive it last week to pick Kellie and the wee ones up in Breezewood. And, for those of you don't know, I personify my car to the fullest extent of the word. Naming is only the beginning. And really, for as much driving as I do, and when I can't take Jo, it really makes the trip more enjoyable if I have someone to talk to. And Gizmo is perfect for this. And when I got behind the wheel of my mother's Toyota Sienna, I got absolutely nothing. I don't know if her car is shy, rude, or just mute, but seriously, considering I only made it half way to Pittsburgh and then had to turn around and come back to MD, it was easily the worst solo road trip of my life.

And then, on Thursday, I had to once again leave Giz behind and hit the road in the Sienna (It doesn't even have a name! It doesn't even have a gender!!!) Going to Pittsburgh wasn't too bad, because Kell and Jabigail were in the car, and I passed out for the second half anyways. But then, it was all me and the van driving around Pittsburgh.

For starters, I really miss driving in Pittsburgh. For no explicable reason, I yearn for the god awful roads, the six + way intersections, the over-enthusiastic crossing guard on Versailles (the L's are silent, it's French!) where I used to live, and most of all, I miss the the billboards. Frederick is not a billboard city.

This one (not the same exact billboard, but the same ad) is my personal favorite. It brightened my day on the way home from work every day.

And I also witnessed something that made me regret even more not having Giz with me. Something we've always wanted to see, but for some reason have never witnessed. it was getting to the point where I believed there might be some magic to it, when, in the middle of the day, I witnessed the spectacle that is the changing of the gas prices.

Never, in all my time driving, and at all hours of the day, have I seen this happen. But two days ago I saw it with my own eyes, a man in a cherry picker truck changing the prices at the Sunoco. Don't ask me why he was changing them at four in the afternoon; that seems like an awful business practice, but I saw it, and I had to share that moment with not my faithful car Gizmo, but a minivan with zero personality. It was wasted on that vehicle.

So that brings me to the return trip. For starters, I was getting sick, and driving while sick is never fun. As I stated earlier, I wasn't paying for gas, so there was little temptation to drive 55 mph to get the best possible fuel economy. I was in a hurry, so I set the cruise control to 72 and sat back and took advantage of my two other techniques for fuel efficient driving.

I would have driven Ben nuts. While I don't condone my father's driving in the middle of the road, I am a fan of cutting corners, if and only if it doesn't involve in driving in opposing traffics' lanes, regardless of if there are oncoming vehicles or not. My father has no qualms with this and it bugs the bejeebus out of me. But most of my trip is through whindy mountain roads, where I shaved .8 miles off of my 113 mile trip on the Penna Turn Pike alone simply by cutting corners. And for those of you who think .8 miles is no big deal, that's about $.07 worth of gas(be impressed with me, I did the math). And of course, when your constantly switching lanes, signaling becomes a chore which I have long since given up on. Now, If I was passing or pulling in front of someone, I would signal, but most of the time I could see not a soul in front of me nor in the rear views.

And then there's drafting, an even more efficent way to drive, albeit more dangerous. I think that rather than "If you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you" as the trucker motto for driving too close to them, it should be "If you can't see my mirrors, your risking life and limb to save the earth and money. You are my hero". These "No Zones" as we were taught in Driver's Ed, are "No Worry Zones", because all your worries melt away when you're being that fuel efficient. Mythbusters did a special on this, and while I can't remeber the numbers, you can get quite a bit more fuel economy by drafting, even at a relatively safe distance. The only way you could be getting better gas mileage is if you and your passenger were gutsy enough to climb out onto the hood of your car while driving a few feet behind a truck and attach yourself to that sucker. You could just pop the car in neutral and turn the car off, getting yourself an average of an infinite number of miles to the gallon. Be sure to make sure that you're on a long enough to trip to offset the heavy fines that come from this behavior.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Why Is That Horse Truncated?

2009-02-21T23:03:00.013-05:00

Let me explain.

So, while in Pittsburgh, among other things, I caught up with my Friend Matt. I met Matt when I first moved to Pittsburgh and started working at Target. And besides starting a tradition of rocking matinees for five dollars and in general making working at Target a more enjoyable experience, he co-created easily the best idea for a sitcom.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity (or the apt acronym, STD)

I'm not totally sure where the names came from, but the rest of it was pretty close to what we were doing there, apart from work. The general plot is as follows. Two guys, working at Target (We'd have to change the name more than likely, but I think we can get away with Targit), solving the many mysteries that crop up when working in retail. To give you an idea, some favorite episodes of ours our:

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: What's for lunch?
In which we try and figure out what to eat for lunch.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Who's working tonight?
In which we wonder who's working with us that shift.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Where's Team Lead Todd?
In which we ponder how it could be that Todd shows up at two thirty, but doesn't make it to the sales floor for two hours, minimum.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Why are we working here?
In which take a look at our lives and how we ended up here, and not some place considerably better.

And they're not all questions. For instance:

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Remembering the Good Times.
In which we have flashbacks.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Backroom Buffoonery.
In which we waste an entire evening fooling around on ladders because neither of us are certified to use the real equipment.

And one of the best, multiple episode story arcs:

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: What's the name of the guy who does the Subway commercials?
In which we try and figure, and bet money, on the name of the guy who did the Subway commercials.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Where's my money?
In which Skeetch tries to get the money Tay Diggity owes to him from the bet in the previous episode.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: At the movies.
In which our heroes first discover cheap Matinees as Tay Diggity tries to pay his debts.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Opportunistic Driving.
In which Tay Diggity gives Skeetch a ride home to continue paying off his debt, and makes some very opporunistic (and illegal) choices while driving.

Skeetch and Tay Diggity in: Paid in full.
In which Skeetch finally calls off Tay Diggity's debts despite not having paid up the full ten dollars.

So anyways, while I was hanging out with Matt, first off we saw a Matinee of the new Tim Burton flick, Coraline, which was a pretty wonderful movie, and definitely up there with The Nightmare Before Christmas. Then, we went to Panera, or what Matt called "The Bread", something that I'm pretty sure I could get behind, where we discussed Skeetch and Tay Diggity and got caught up. And outside of The Bread is a restaurant called P F Changs, with two huge horse statues. Only, they're not horses, at least not any horses I have ever seen. I tried to call them short, but that wasn't true; they were in fact really tall. Then I thought about thin, but that also didn't work, because while not fat, they definitely weren't thin. Matt finally gave me the word truncated, which was perfect. Of course, that still left the question of why.

The Champion

2009-02-20T20:56:00.007-05:00

I will never eat my fruit again.

Well, that's just not true, but after having enjoyed the luxury of drinking it, it will be most difficult to go back to the old, primitive way of consuming the recommended three to five servings of fruit.

This is The Champion. Humble looking, but powerful enough to turn fruits, vegetables, fregetables, and just about anything you can fit down its tube into liquid.

Anyways, my one sister Heather gave my other sister Kellie a juicer, and last night, Kellie, Mike and I were playing with it. And may I say, well, anyone who knows me knows I really don't enjoy food all that much, I mostly eat it because I have to. But this, this was fun.

Look how excited we are. I don't think I got this excited for Christmas.

So, first of all, you know this thing is heavy duty before you even set it up, just from picking it up. It weighs, easily, twenty pounds; thing is a monster. And once you set it up, the real fun begins. you just take anything, and I'm pretty sure I'm being quite literal when I say anything, and ram it down the pipe, and BAM! You got juice.

Little known fact. Up there with shooting small animals and doing jump kicks, juicing things is one of the most masculine things you can do.

We started simple, chucking a couple of apples in, and when we were thoroughly satisfied with the outcome, we stepped it up to blackberries. these were less enjoyable on all accounts, as the "juice" was more of a sludge, and it was just kind of a mess. Still, after the blackberries, we found some tangerines. Now Mike, being the voice of reason, suggested we clean out the blackberries before throwing citrus in there. Of course, Kellie and I ignored him and just started feeding in the tangerines. And of course, before any tangerines juice fell out into the juice receptical, quite a bit more blackberry sludge come tumbling out. Not perturbed by this in the least, we proceeded to add a couple more apples, and then, also against Mike's advice, some carrots. And then, a banana. See, the banana is just not a juicy fruit, and about, yeah pretty much all of it came out the other end where the waste comes out. Not wanting to waste the banana, Kellie quickly caught it and put it in the bowl. Then, while Mike was in the other room, we tossed in a few more carrots, because we could, and we were finally ready to try our juice.

Here's me trying to mash up the banana bits into the juice.

I really wish we had gotten pictures of our reaction to this juice because it was, well, I don't have words for it. I mean, awful doesn't really some it up as well as I'd like, and to say that it tasted like a mountain lion had vomited rotten oranges into my mouth is both too verbose and still does not accurately sum it up. You get the idea though.

My nephew Jack, drawn close by its hypnotic power. Had we not intervened, it probably would have juiced him whole.

Fortunately, Mike and I have a secret cure all, that tastes good in about everything (though not coffee, and most definitely not as a substitute for the cheese powder in mac and cheese, even though the powders look the same). Yeah, we fixed it with tang. There was still a mildly unpleasant aftertaste, but as I've said, tang fixes just about everything. (There was even a "Tang Saves Santa" Christmas Special)

All in all, the most fun I've had in awhile, and easily the most fun I've ever had with food. I may just have to invest in a juicer myself.

Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect

2009-02-18T19:39:00.016-05:00

Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect - The Decemberists

Do me a solid and push play up top. ^ It's for effect.

I haven't thought about being an architect for a long time. It's one of those childhood dreams I gave up when I realized that it might take a combination of effort and talent that I would just never be able to muster.

Well, I was wrong.

If it isn't obvious, it's a prototype of the building I will build. Keep in mind that this isn't actual size; the prototype is roughly the size of a small beverage cup at a Chinese restaurant. More specifically the China Panda, where my latest brainchild was first conceived. Anyways, if I had to give a scale for the actual building, which will be in Cleveland, OH, I'd have to say 1:a lot. Numbers ain't my thing. anyways, tedious details aside, it will be a Chinese Restaurant/Lighthouse, overlooking the city, very likely a China Panda Restaurant (and I'm pretty sure I can totally do that because I'm reasonably certain China Panda is not the actual name of the restaurant). It will slowly rotate like that one famous restaurant in I believe Seattle, but that may be the Space Needle. Point is, it rotates, and above the restaurant area, rotating faster in the opposite direction is the light, guiding travelers and Ohians to the restaurant. It's going to be awesome, and it's going to happen. That's a promise.

The actual building may or may not look exactly like this. I apologize about the terrible picture quality, but it is what it is, and this is what it says:

"Nothing washes down
Orange Chicken like
more Orange Chicken."
- Tom Tom

Now the picture makes it look like Tom Tom is the Panda because of the speech bubble coming from its mouth, but last time I checked, A, Pandas can't talk, 2, Tom Tom is a terrible name for a Panda, and D, Tom Tom is the name of my GPS, which conveniently has the voice of Mr. T. Now imagine that quote again, only this time, instead of the voice of Jack Black, imagine the voice of Mr. T. It was a bit better that time, wasn't it?

Out of Shape!

2009-02-17T15:17:00.005-05:00

Despite my earlier vows to run in the Pittsburgh Marathon (in May, b t dub, yeah, that's not goin' to happen) I haven't run since like, October or November. But, in addition to my one sister Kellie who is down from Pittsburgh, my other sister drove down last night from Maine. Well anyways, it's much easier to run when you have someone to run with, so I went with her to drop her car off at the shop and ran home. It was only like, maybe, at best, three miles, but likely less.

When you first start running again, it's the worst; not because it's hard. Quite the contrary, it's far too easy, and I have a tendency to push my body past its limits. I expend more energy holding back than I do running. All told, I'm going to be hurting tomorrow.

And of course, it wouldn't be a run on Buffalo Road without the cleverly concealed Pig, waiting to catch someone doing over twenty five, as ridiculous as that is to do on that road. I make a point to never, ever drive on that part of the road nowadays.
Still though, I'm seeing speed traps everywhere; I saw someone getting pulled in Frederick this morning at six. I hate pigs.

Jo's real admirer

2009-02-15T20:43:00.005-05:00

Don't look too hard for that sack Ben. It seems the polls were irrelevant.

My sister Kellie and her two kids Jack and Gail are staying at my parents this week, and well, Jack is enamored with "Kinny." Any Kinny, to be truthful, but Jo seems to have a soft spot for him (she's more tolerant of him than she is of me, anyways, if that counts as a "soft spot").

Still, Jack is only here until Thursday, and they don't see each other very often (that's probably what makes the relationship work), so if you've already bagged Cross Eyed Cat, don't release him.
Speaking of "him," check on that.

The winner is:

2009-02-15T18:33:00.005-05:00

Just a quick update on our "win a date with jo" contest. The winner, by popular demand, is:

Yes, the illustrious Cross Eyed Cat.

Well, I'm gonna need a sack.

Harper's Ferry

2009-02-14T19:48:00.024-05:00

Maybe I'm an idiot, but when We're standing on something, and Ben gets out his camera and says jump, I usually have to. (There were a few exceptions, mostly when we were over open water, but other than that, yeah, I'll do it.)This was some cool stone, I guess formation is the word, but anyways, it wasn't too high, but I think there are some great shots of me flying through the air.

It hurt, more than a little. Ben pointed out some rocks before I jumped, so I avoided those, but there were a bunch of small sticks which I didn't notice and he neglected to warn me of, so yeah, almost impaled myself on one of those. Still worth it though.

So anyways, we went to Harper's Ferry today. It was different, because we usually don't leave Mount Airy, but today we were in three different states! How's that for fancy?

This is, I believe, the Shenandoah. It was incredibly cold, and both earlier and later that day it was snowing, so I made a conscious effort to not get wet, so it's less exciting than usual.

And this, most inauspicious of trees, was the shoe tree. It was, a tree, covered in shoes.

And also, there was a flipper, so it wasn't really just a shoe tree, more a foot accessory tree.

And who am I to not follow these ancient customs?

We're the worst tourists ever! As we drove into Harper's Ferry, we pointed all the West Virginians, getting as excited as humanly possible. This was on the shore, where Ben was tyring not to be obvious about photographing some West Virginians, who were more likely than not, not actual West Virginians.

Here's another shot from a hidden vantage point of more West Virginians (These I'm almost positive were tourists; they were getting on a bus).

This was a pretty cool tunnel thing we found. This picture here is supposed to explain what it does, but I didn't get (read) it.

And that picture there in the bottom right corner, looked a little like Stephen King.

And, not wanting to go back out the way we came in, as it was dripping foul smelling water, we had to climb out. Ben had a bit more trouble with this one than I did.

"I am stuck in a hole."

"There's no footholes!"

"There are still no footholes!"

"I cannot get out!"

"I am so much worse at this than Taylor!"

Still, karma hates me.

And then we met... Herbert the duck. We'd seen plenty of Geese and Ducks on the water, but Herbert was different.
Herbert was awesome. We felt pretty bad, because we didn't have food, and he followed us down river until we turned around, and then tried to follow us back. We will be back Herbert, that is a promise, and next time, we will bring food.

2009-02-13T23:41:00.011-05:00

So tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and Jo is single (if you can believe it). So, being the great people we are, Ben and I have decided to try and fix her up, and since Julius has already declared his complete and utter disinterest in her, we had to go with a couple of the cats that roam his neighborhood and sit on his porch. These are the potential bachelors.

This is Cross Eyed Cat. His obvious turnoffs are that he looks retarded, but he seems like he's curious enough to actually give Jo the time of day.

This is White Cat. He's obviously better looking than Cross Eyed Cat, but more standoffish, so we'll see.

It should be noted that we don't know the gender of these cats, or more importantly, if they are fixed.

If all else fails, and it probably will, here's a squirrel. He's pretty cute.

There is also the whole matter of getting Jo over to Ben's, getting the potential suitors to show up, and it's all going to be a whole big ordeal, so chances are, it will be Valentine's day as usual...

Not a real holiday.

Still, a cat can dream.

Sign of the Beaver

2009-02-13T19:30:00.009-05:00

So last weekend, Ben and I went over to my old neighborhood and went exploring through the woods behind the lake. We saw a beaver damn (This was actually the week before, when it was still cold and there was snow and ice out)

And here's some fire and ice.

As seen in one of the videos, we found a vine that we could swing across the river on. We found another one later...

That's me falling into the water, if you can't tell from the picture. Ben should have gotten a video, but I really can't complain. It should be noted that Ben does do everything that I do, provided I don't either end up in the water or hurt myself. He is carrying the expensive equipment that can't get wet, and I already have metal reinforcing parts of my body, so the arrangement works pretty well.

BLOG!

2009-02-13T18:42:00.000-05:00

So I'm writing a blog. With the help of Ben, Jo, and Gizmo, I will be broadcasting my life.
Look forward to chronicles of our adventure's and run ins with the local fuzz, film and television reviews, and ideas of mine for books, shows, and movies.