Rantings from the Corner

The Adventure Continues!

2007-07-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

Man, did I sleep well last night. I think that may have been the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. I didn't even sleep that long and I woke up feeling completely rested. It turns out that there were in fact vacancies in the hotel I was staying at for anotehr night, so I cancelled with the Super 8 I had reservations for, and booked another night with this one, the Ramada in Black Hawk. I did have to change rooms, but it's all good. I recommend this place.

After getting in the swim I promised myself this morning, I set out for Mt. Rushmore in the middle of the Black Hills. There is some really pretty country in there, but it is really hard to get a good picture of it. Also, the air is fresh and clean and actually have a nice pine scent from all the trees.

Mount Rushmore is about what you would expect, which should be something awesome. I don't really know what to say about it that you wouldn't already know. I'm sure you've seen pictures (and if you haven't, look below). I spent a lot of time there, though. There is a trail that kind of goes into the woods closer to the monument, and museums, and all kinds of stuff around the site. It was also only $8 to get an annual pass to get in, which makes it a real bargain. I didn't feel it was overly crowded either. Definitely a highlight of this trip (which is good, because it's kind of reason I came out here).

After Rushmore, I made the short hop down to the Crazy Horse memorial. This one was started in 1948 and is still a work in progress. It was started when Lakota elders asked a man named Korczak, who had worked on Rushmore, to make a monument to the famous chief. He started working on it all by himself, and later with his sons. The size of the monument dwarfs Rushmore, but it is completely funded by private donation, as the artists (following Korczak's lead) will not except any kind of govenrment funding. It is slow going and no one knows when it will be done, but their goal is to only continue making progress for however long it takes.

It was getting late in theday by this point, but I still wanted to see Devil's Tower in Wyoming, about an hour and a half from Rapid City. My plan was to head directly north through the Hills from Crazy Horse, and pass through Deadwood and Sturgis, but somehow I made a wrong turn and ended up back in Rapis City. It was a setback, but I pressed on and made it to Devil's Tower about 7:30, just in time to see it at sunset. It's a pretty cool effect to see it at that time, but it did mean I didn't get to spend much time there. I really didn't want to be hanging around the park after dark. But I did get some pictures, which is what I really wanted.

Ok, seeing Devil's Tower at sunset: GOOD. Making your way back to I-90 after the sun has set: NOT SO GOOD. Well, it could have been better. See, Devil's Tower is a bit off the beaten track and about a 40 minute drive from I-90 through some winding roads through the hills. Really pretty stuff, even in twilight. But those roads can be a little nerve-racking, especially if you just want to get out of there before it gets completely dark. Strangely, on the way there and the way back, I hardly saw any other cars, so I was feeling kind of lonesome. Oh yeah, and when it gets harder to see the wildlife in the dark, that can be kind of harrowing. Two occassions on the way back I had deer trying to cross the road right in front of me. And I didn't know when another might jump out; maybe too close for me to stop in time. Not fun.

But I did make it back to my hotel in one piece, just in time for me to get in a swim of about 3 minutes before they closed the pool at 10:00. It felt good just to get a dip in though. I had dinner at the Sonic drive-in I passed on the way down to Rushmore. The food there is pretty good and there aren't too many drive-ins anymore. They either need to put on in Minnesota, or stop showing us their commercials. It looked like it was a hang out for all the teenager hot rodders in town, though. I saw quite a few muscle/sport cars around, including someone with a real classic-style hot rod (open engine, big tires in the back, you know what I'm talking about).

On the way back I took a moment to look at the sky. They have a lot more stars out here! I didn't even manage to find a particularly dark spot and could immediately see the Milky Way. Also, the moment I looked up I immediately saw a shooting star and a satellite making its way across the sky. That was special.

Tomorrow, I hit up Wall Drug and make a second pass at the Badlands. The I head home, probably getting in pretty late.

Anyway, this is getting long and I need to get to bed. Here are some pictures:

Mt. Rushmore:

Crazy Horse Memorial:

Devil's Tower:

Q. How can you tell a car is happy?
A. You can see the bugs in its grill.

Adventure in the Hills

2007-07-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

The odometer says I drove 671.8 miles today. I guess it was kind of a spontaneous decision that put me here. I only made arrangements last night, though I had been kicking the idea around for a couple days. Nonetheless, here I am in Rapid City, South Dakota, gateway to the West.

I started out at about 8:30 AM this morning. That's important, because I found out that Rapid City is a really frickin' long way away from Minneapolis. I made good time though, stopping in Owatonna for breakfast, then in Blue Earth for gas. I intended to stop in Souix Falls for lunch, but somehow I missed the exit. You'd think the exits for a town like Soiux Falls would be more obvious, but you would be wrong (there was also road construction going on all over the place). Instead I got off at a small town called Salem, SD. The road side promised food, and it looked like a fairly large town (I've seen smaller towns with a Subway), but there were no grab-and-go type places anywhere to be found. I found a "Farmer's Market", which was really just a grocery store and managed to put together the implements to make some peanut butter sandwiches. The local car dealership did have a Shelby GT 500 sitting in its lot, though. No fast food, but some amazing fast cars. Strange town.

After eating my makeshift lunch at a nearby rest stop, I continued on to Mitchell. No trip out this way is complete without a visit to Mitchell's Corn Palace. Yes, they use real corn on the outside and it is redecorated every year.

It was a logn way yet to the Badlands. I pulled into the park at about 6:00 PM local time (Mountain Time) when the sun was just starting to get low. Now if you've never seen the Badlands, you really need to. Amazing landscapes. And they are even more amazing at dusk. The only problem is there is a lot to see, and that dusky sunlight does not last long. It took me almost 3 hours to get through and I still felt rushed. I will probably have to hit again on my way back.

I did make a quick stop in Wall Drug for dinner, just before they closed down the grill in their cafe. I had a buffalo hot dog and a side of some of the best fries I've ever tasted. I also had several cups of their famous ice water, which I desperately needed. It looked like they were shutting down though (it was about 9:30 at this point) and I was anxious to get to my hotel, so I didn't stay long. I will also have to hit that on my way back.

I am currently staying at a Ramada in Black Hawk, which is just outside Rapid City. All I wanted was to get to my hotel and go for a swim, but they close the pool at 10:00. I didn't get in until about 10:20. The scally wags. I guess I'll have to go in the morning. They do have sort of a casino/bar (read: small room with some video machines and they serve bottled beer), and that Budwesier Select tasted damn good!

That's pretty much sums up the day. It was a lot of driving and I'm kind of tired. Tomorrow: Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, and maybe Devil's Tower.

Here are some pictures from the day, though I don't know how to do captions on this (I have a lot more):

Random Thought

2007-06-13T23:21:00.000-05:00

Have you ever considered that Pokémon, Nintendo's hit franchise about kids who raise and train creatures to fight other creatures, rather endorses and glorifies the idea of sports such as cock fighting and dog fighting? Just an odd thought that struck me today while I was out watering my garden. That is all.

Carry on.

Pining for 'Roos

2007-05-30T21:32:00.000-05:00

It can be fun to surf around on Flickr. There are a lot of pictures out there and some very talented photographers. A lot fo times you can find the photos involving similar topics grouped together in what they call "pools".

I found there is a Wollongong pool. For those just tuning in, I did a semester of study abroad in Wollongong back in 2003. I also went back for a visit about a year and a half ago. God, I still miss it. It is just a wonderful place. Looking through the pictures in that pool there brought back a lot of great memories.

Damn, now I want to go back again. Anyone have a winning lottery ticket I can borrow?

Beyond Wayzata

2007-05-29T00:04:00.000-05:00

I decided to go for a drive today (Monday...I'm not sure what timestamp is going to get put on here as it is after midnight). The weather outside was beautiful - perfect for a cruise with the top down in my convertible - and I had some things swimming around in my head that I needed to try and come to terms with, or at least forget about for a while, and I just didn't feel like sitting around inside anymore.

I started out heading south on Highway 100 then cut over westward on I-494. Then it occurred to me that I couldn't remember the last time I had been out on west on Highway 12 beyond Wayzata. So that's exactly what I did.

The Twin Cities are curiously designed in that they have suburbs stretching out for quite some ways to the south (Eagan, Burnsville, Apple Valley) and some distance to the north (Blaine, Champlin, Coon Rapids, etc.), but if you head just a little bit west of the freeway loop (that one formed by I-694 and I-494), they just stop. If you take Highway 12 out west, you will pass through Wayzata, which is only about 15 minutes from downtown, and then the city just stops. You are suddenly in the country passing by farms and seemingly untouched wilderness.

It's actually kind of cool. You don't have to go very far to get out of the city, if that's what you really want to do. All the towns along the way, even though you are still in Hennepin county, feel like small towns far away from the city even though it is literally just down the road. There are a lot of lakes out that way too, so there is some pretty scenery. I really should remember to bring a camera along when I make excursions like this.

I just followed 12 for a while; about 40 miles I think. It was peaceful and it felt great to just be driving along with the top down and not having to deal with the world for bit. I made it as far as Montrose before deciding it was time to turn around. I made a stop in Delano on the way back to have dinner at the local Dairy Queen. They've improved their burgers. The sign says Delano has a population of about 3800 people, but it is one heck of a bustling town. It could be all the traffic coming through on 12, but I'm not sure.

So that pretty much concluded my trek. Not one of my more adventurous excursions, but I wasn't really looking to get lost or anything (that can be fun sometimes though), just to get away for a very short while. And that's easy to do if you just head west.

New Wheels!

2007-05-27T14:27:00.000-05:00

I got some new wheels yesterday. Check it out:

Now I just gotta work up to being able to ride it any appreciable distance. Prior to this, I haven't ridden a bike since I was about 12, so I got some work to do. My god, I am out of shape. But I am going to work on it.

On a side note, yes, I realize it's been a month since I have made a post here. This is right after I said I wouldn't take a month for my next post. So much for promises (oh, wait, I specifically said I wouldn't make any promises. HA!). I have a few other things lined up to post about though, so hopefully it won't be that long for my next post.

Steven Lisberger Where Are You?

2007-04-28T01:47:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen it, Tron is a movie about a computer programmer who gets sucked into the inner world of computers where he meets some of the programs he created (yes, they are people)and teams up with them to take on the Master Control program (the main villain) in order to escape. Almost the entire world inside the computer is done in CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), and is pretty well-done. That may not sound impressive by today's standards, but this movie was made in 1982 and such a feat had never been done before. It wasn't a bad movie otherwise either.

I was talking to a friend tonight about various topics, including movies we had seen recently. He mentioned that he had watched Tron with another guy and had really liked it, so they decided to look at what other movies the director had done. Surely the director of such a ground-breaking movie would have quite a list of films on his resume. Here it is from IMDB:

Animalympics - 1980
Tron - 1982
Hot Pursuit - 1987
Slipstream - 1989

After that? Nothing. He disappears from the radar. Well, ok, he apparently came back to help Buena Vista make Tron 2.0, a computer game that came out in 2003. But otherwise, his film career drops off the map.

So we figured that Wikipedia, tireless font of knowledge that it is, would have a good comprehensive article on what happened to this man. Here it is. Here is another article on him from elsewhere on the 'Net. That's about the most we were able to find on him. If you can't be botehred to link the links, let me put it this way: We didn't find squat.

He just disappeared. He made a spectacular revolutionary film and then just disappeared. No one seems to know where he went. Did he retire from filmmaking and take a crappy desk job somewhere? Did he go on safari in the African Serengetti and stay there? Did he get abducted by aliens? Who knows? It's a mystery.

Steven Lisberger, if you are reading this, please let somebody know where you are. It's getting late and we're worried.

Awesome

2007-04-16T00:02:00.000-05:00

A coworker sent this to me the other day. I think it may be the most awesome thing I have ever seen.

This was actually posted by another blogger, who also explains a bit about where this picture comes from. As if Chuck Norris needed an explanation.

An Update (Can you Believe It?)

2007-04-15T22:40:00.000-05:00

I guess I have been neglecting this blog. It's been, what, a month since my last post? Sorry about that. I really don't even have a good excuse beyond my own damn laziness. I've been busy lately, or at least feel like I've been busy. I can't say I've been working excessively long hours at work, or have any major projects sucking up my time. I have just felt very lazy lately and haven't really done anything about it. Perhaps I should get more sleep?

Writing has never been very easy for me. The act of gathering together my many scattered thoughts and ideas and putting them together into an actual cogent sentence takes some amount of effort and inspiration. I guess I haven't really felt very inspired in the past month. This is not to say that I haven't had stuff to write about. I just didn't know how to write about it in a manner that would be interesting and/or entertaining for the reader (that's you), and there's really not much point in writing about something if I am just going to bore you to tears with it. Of course, I probably already have done that, but at least I bored you with effort!

A couple weeks ago I went back to my old college (University of Minnesota - Morris, in case you were wondering) and attended Jazz Fest 29. I think I wrote about Jazz Fest last year, but I will give an overview of what this event is to prevent you from having to search through the archives. Jazz Fest is an annual event at UMM and is the biggest event on campus. It lasts 3 days, over the course of which the school hosts a number of high school jazz bands who come and play and receive critique and advice from clinicians and the guest artists invited in, who are very accomplished jazz musicians themselves. This year we had Chris Vadala (saxophone) and Allen Vizzutti (trumpet). Then, in the evening the college's own jazz bands (there are 4, plus a large number of small combos) give a performance along with the guest artists. The highlight, for the UMM graduate jazzer like me anyway, is the Alumni Band that gets to play during the Saturday night performance. UMM has an awesome jazz program and I think it's a testiment to that that so many of us are drawn to come back every year to be a part of it again, even if for only a couple nights. It was an absolute blast. It is worth noting that this is the first Jazz Fest without Doc Carlson, the great director for the Morris music program. Doc started Jazz Fest 29 years ago and had been going without break ever since. This year is his first sabbatical. Much deserved, but it will be good to see him back next year (not to say that the bands didn't sound great without him; the interim director has done a spectacular job this year!).

I also got to hang out a bit with my college roommate, who moved back to Morris last summer to work for the ambulance service. He has kids now. It was good to see him, but very strange for me to see him as a father, since I have lived in perpetual bachelorhood since graduation (incidentally, I'm available).

I have been on call this weekend, which has kind of put a damper on my fun. For those not familar with this concept, it means I get to carry a pager for work and wait for it to go off so I can go fix someone's problem. It doesn't usually keep one really busy (the system my group supports has gotten a lot more stable than it used to be), but it does mean I am limited in my actions, as the pager can go off at any time. Case in point, a bunch of people went out to a comedy show last night, but I couldn't, as a theater is not really where you want to be if you have to answer a page (we try to maintain a 20 minute response time). Of course, the pager didn't go off all night, so I ended up missing it for nothing. The pager would have gone off if I had gone though. It only goes off when least convenient, like at 7:30 on Saturday morning (2 pages at 7:30 and another at 8:00 yeasterday, grrrr...) or when you are ready to eat dinner. You might say the pager and I have a rather tenuous relationship. The least it could do is buy me some flowers and say it's sorry.

I'm not really sure if there is anything else to write about at this point. I mean, sure, there is stuff that has happened, but nothing that I think would be terribly interesting, or could be made interesting. I've probably rambled on long enough though. I'll try and make sure it isn't another month before my next update, but I make no promises.

The Magnicent Return of Sol

2007-03-12T23:30:00.000-05:00

Today was a good day. One could actually go outside today and feel the sun coming down. Now, if you don't live in Minnesota or the cold reaches of the world, you may not be able to appreciate just how wonderful this feels. To go outside and actually be able to feel warmth. It is not something to take for granted. Especially when we were buried under 2 feet of snow just a week ago.

I realize that this past winter was actually milder than most we have had in the past, but for some reason it just hit me harder. We only had about a 2 week stretch where it was really and truly cold, below 0 degrees (on the Fahrenheit scale), but those 2 weeks seemed to last forever. It was miserable. An ever-present, permeating cold that you just could not get rid of.

Today the temperature reached into the 50s. Some might consider it sad that that temperature is considered warm, but I almost felt like I could go without a jacket today. I took a walk around the Arbor Lakes Mall in Maple Grove, an outdoor mall, and it was just terrific. I believe Spring is almost here and I welcome it with arms wide open.

Snow Storm!

2007-02-28T21:15:00.000-06:00

It's supposed to be snowing hard for the next few days. It just started tonight. Nice, wet, sticky, heavy stuff. It's going to be fun shovelling out tomorrow morning. The wether report I just read is also listing "freezing fog" as a condition happening right now. I don't know what freezing fog, but it sounds Just took some pictures of the the snow coming down. Not sure how they will come out here, but it is worth a shot. Note, the little flecks in the picture aren't all artifacts from the low-light conditions.

Game Theory

2007-02-13T20:36:00.000-06:00

I was over at SomethingAwful.com looking through the the forums (the "goons" there often post some funny/interesting stuff) when I ran across an interesting problem someone posted there involving game theory. If you don't want to you don't want to click the above the link, here is a copy of the problem:

A priestess at Delphi has a record of .99 accuracy in her predictions of human behavior. On an altar before you are two boxes: an opaque one whose contents you cannot determine and a transparent one obviously containing a silver coin, which you judge to have the market value of $1000. She gives you two choices: (1) take only the opaque box or (2) take both boxes. As she correctly tells you, she has or has not previously placed inside the opaque box a large gold coin worth 1000 times the silver one, depending upon whether she expects you, as a rational agent, to take only the opaque box or both boxes. Should you take only the opaque box or both boxes, knowing that 99 out of 100 agents who took both found the opaque box empty? Or should you forego the silver coin and take only the opaque box, knowing that some- although only 1 out of 100- came up with nothing? Why?

The problem is more complex than it looks on the surface, and that becomes apparent if you read through the thread on that discussion. It is easy to say "take both boxes" (a guarenteed somehting is better than a chance at nothing) but then there are a few goons in the thread that show mathematically how it is better to take only the opaque box. Very interesting stuff.

Another game theory problem I remember is called the Prisoner's Dilemma. Basically, you and an adversary are competing for a prize. You have to make one of two choices: either cooperate with your adversary, or betray them. If you both choose to cooperate, you get to split the prize evenly, but if you choose to betray while your opponent chooses to cooperate, you get the whole thing (it works the other way as well). If you both betray each other, you get nothing. So what is your best option?

There was a game show based on this problem at one time called Friend or Foe. It wasn't a very good show, but I thought the premise they used for it was cool. I haven't studied much on game theory (will have to add it to my to-do list), but I dig what I have seen.

Addendum: It occurs to me now, though (after reading further), that if you can mathematically show that it is always better to take only the opaque box, wouldn't the "rational agent" always go for it? Therefore, wouldn't the oracle choose not to put the gold coin in that box 99% of the time? Therefore, the rational agent would be best off going for both boxes. But knowing that changes the way the rational agent should behave in the first place, and you end up right back at square one.

Apparently, this is a variation on Newcomb's Paradox, which is explained very nicely by Wikipedia (Wikipedia rocks!). Go ahead and read it.

I also just realized that certain readers (you know who you are) may find that I am sticking my foot in my mouth big time by posting this, or at least being inconsistent. I don't know how to reconcile that other than to say that if my college philosophy course had gone into game theory, I might have been able to take it more seriously.

Skinny Longfeet

2007-02-13T00:12:00.000-06:00

I went to the Acadia Cafe last Friday. It's a neat little coffee/sandwich/beer place near Uptown. I had never been there before, but it is this awesome, chill little place. Though I did not have any of the food, what I saw looked excellent and well worth checking out. The beer selection, of which I did partake, though, is quite impressive. They also have a mini concert hall in the back complete with stage and stadium-like seating, which judging by their performance calendar, is utilized quite often. It's an enjoyable little spot and I highly recommend checking it out.

The whole reason for going, though, was to see a band made up of a bunch of guys I went to college with and even had the pleasure of playing with at one time. They are Skinny Longfeet. The evening was headed up by Brian Just and his band, followed by Kirsten Melrose, both delivering nice low-key folksy performances. Then Mary Bue performed solo with just a keyboard and her voice. Awesome. The night was capped off by Skinny Longfeet giving their debut performance in the Cities (go to their above linked MySpace page to hear some of their tracks). It was great to see those guys again and hear them play.

It was a lot of fun, and it was great night to just sit back, relax, and take it all in. The Acadia was a good venue for it too. I'll have to do it again sometime.

Superbowl

2007-02-05T00:00:00.000-06:00

I went over to Karin and Nick's to watch the Superbowl tonight. It was a lot of fun with lots of food and friends. Which was good, because the game itself was pretty much a let down. Aside from the incredible number of fumbles and interceptions, there really wasn't anything remarkable about it. Well, I guess there the return for a touchdown on the firts kickoff, but that's usually kind a bad omen. Not something you expect to see when what are supposed to be the two best teams in the league play each other.

Of course, the highlight of most Superbowls is the comercials. Well, the marketing companies must have decided to take this year off, because they were mostly suck as well.

So the highlight here was the party at Karin and Nick's. But of course that was really the point anyway. And I had a good time.

Warm Hearth

2007-02-04T23:50:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I finally got tools for my fireplace, and with as cold as it's been (below 0 degrees Fahrenheit all weekend), it seemed a perfect time to fire it up. It's very nice. In fact, I decided to move my laptop out from my office into my living room just so I could write this post in front of it. There is just something about a fire to keep you warm...

Hypnotic

2007-01-24T22:55:00.000-06:00

This song haunts me in my dreams. But then Weebls-Stuff is good at doing that.

True Minnesotan

2007-01-23T22:59:00.000-06:00

After living in Minnesota for 26 years (and I am 26 years old), one might find it hard to believe that I had never been ice fishing before. And if you had asked me before last Saturday, it would have been true. But it is true no more!

Last Saturday, I got up early (yes, I consider 9 AM on a Saturday to be very early) to help some guys put their ice fishing house out on Medicine Lake. They had built the pieces for the house themselves, and was mostly modular, so it just needed to be constructed out on the ice. It took a couple hours, but the result was a resounding success. So of course, we needed to try it.

I bought a cheapo ice fishing rod from the nearby Holiday gas station as well as some necessary snacks. The house actually gets fairly warm on the inside with the clear plastic tarp roof creating a sort of greenhouse effect. And with a large stock of beer on hand to complete the set, I felt thoroughly Minnesotan.

We didn't even get a nibble, but that OK. I am an ice fishing virgin no more.

Peaceful

2007-01-14T23:39:00.000-06:00

There is something about being outside during a snowstorm at night. Even in the city, everything just becomes so serene and quiet. The normal crazy bustle becomes muted to soft whisper. When you are out in it, it's almost as if the world is yours. No one else around amonst the silent shimmering of the snow falling from the sky. It's wonderful.

(Hey, how about that, first post of the year.)

2006 In Review

2006-12-31T16:25:00.000-06:00

So we now find ourselves at the end of yet another year. I suppose it was a pretty good year for the most part. I find myself in a new house, which I actually own (well, actually the bank owns most of it, but you know what I mean), which I guess is a pretty big step. I also started a new position at work which has been giving me new challenges (and frustrations). It was an eventful summer, though for the life of me I cannot tell you what actually happened then. It went by pretty fast.

Actually, the whole year seems to have gone by pretty fast, and I am not sure what I have actually accomplished. Even with the new position, I am still pretty much doing the same job. I am still single, which was something I had aimed at trying to change this past year. I can't say I've really done anything earth-shaking or even all that terribly important.

But I guess that's what New Year's is all about. A chance at starting over again and trying to change yourself for the better. And there is a whole year ahead to do that.

See you next year!

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T21:33:00.000-06:00

Something Fun

2006-12-02T01:22:00.000-06:00

Ok, just to show not all my posts have be depressing or decidely partisan, here is something fun. No doubt, you have seen this Christmas many, many times in your life. How well do you know A Charlie Brown Christmas? Click here to find out.

I scored a 5

A Chill Wind, It Blows

2006-11-29T23:48:00.000-06:00

Who knew that going into the third week of November you could have temperatures reaching into the 50s in Minnesota? For a time, it seemed as though perhaps winter would not come this year. And while this thought gave rise to fears about the phantom of global warming, it was still pleasant to be outside.

That fantasy was shattered today. Puddles left behind from yesterday's rain have turned to sheets of ice, which for the first time this season did not melt at high noon. Today was our first real taste of winter for the year, and judging from the forecast (a dubious source of information) it has finally settled in for a long stay.

Having grown up in Minnesota, you would think I would be used to this by now. In fact, there once was a time when I looked forward to the winter. It stood for good fun like sledding and throwing snow balls and drinking hot chocolate. And of course there was Christmas, who couldn't love that?

But now I look at the winter and all I can think about is my inability to enjoy the sun and cursing the wind as it cuts through you like an icy razor. In fact, we only get see the sun for about 9 hours in a day. Most of that time is spent behind a computer in a cubicle. No more shorts and sandals, now I must encase myself in bulky, thick pieces of cloth just to get from one warm building to another, shivering uncontrollably the whole way.

Perhaps it has been my past adventures that have turned me from my heritage Minnesota ways. I spent the better part of December last year basking under a glowing summer sun with the sound of the ocean waves crashing behind me. To lay out on a hot beach in the middle of December was nothing short of utter bliss. I enjoyed that. Perhaps too much.

I suppose, though, that it is only appropriate. Just as the coming of this past summer gave me a feeling of optimism and confidence, so must its passing dash my hopes and leave me with a lingering, though dull, sense of dread. I can already feel the chill...

A moment...

2006-11-08T22:07:00.000-06:00

Let's break this down. The final tallies from yesterday's election are in. The Democrats have official secured a majority in the U.S. Senate, have more than a majority in the House, they gained on their majority in the Minnesota Senate and gained the majority in the Minnesota House. As delicious as this is, the whipped cream topping is the announcement that Donald Rumsfeld has finally resigned his incompetent ass. Considering the inexplicable surge of neocon support just two years ago, this is sweet vindication.

I'm giddy.

Results

2006-11-07T22:12:00.000-06:00

(Yeah, this post may piss some of you off.)

The polls closed two and a half hours ago, and the results for many races are already in. While I am dissappointed in the decisions on propositions by some of our neighbors (shame on you Wisconsin), I am quite happy with the good people of Minnesota.

We kept Kennedy from taking a seat in the Senate, which pleases me more than anything. And by a very large margin. And since he gave up his seat in the House for the camapaign, here's hoping this is the last we see of Mark Kennedy. I think Senator Amy Klobuchar is going to be a good thing for Minnesota, and the country.

My hat off to our Independence candaidates: Tammy Lee who took 21% in a traditionally overwhelming Democratic district (meaning no disrespect to Ellison, but I liked Lee better) and Robert Fitzgerald (a Morris graduate!) who managed to get 3% of the vote working with a budget of only $6300. It would be nice to see a viable third party rise in power, and these are a couple candidates I'd really like to see again (especially Fitzgerald).

Still waiting to hear from other parts of the country, but so far things are shaping up. It's about time this country woke up.

The Daily Show Rocks - Midterm Elections

2006-11-07T00:25:00.000-06:00

This was originally shown 4 years ago, and perhaps it was funnier then (the message is much less true this time around), but here is an entertaining little video about midterm elections.

Laugh About It, Shout About It, When You've Got to Choose...

2006-11-06T22:56:00.000-06:00

Election Day tomorrow! I have my candidates picked out for Senate and US House and for once, am actually looking forward to voting for them. I don't know why, I just get a good vibe from them (which is more than I can say about people I have voted "for" in the past). I am also very anxious to see how these elections turn out on a national level. Will we finally see a turn from the past 6 years?

Now if only the Minnesota gubernatorial race didn't seem like such a no-win situation...

Irony Deficient

2006-10-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know, Paul Wellstone was senator for Minnesota for 12 years until 2002, when he died in a plane crash while campaigning for reelection, less than a week before the election. He was known to be very liberal and very outspoken, reputed among those who loved him to be a hard fighter for what was right rather than what was simply popular (yes, I am one of those people). A lot of people in Minnesota still mourn him and lament his passing and you can still see people sporting Wellstone campaign bumper stickers and other ones reading "WWWD?" (What Would Wellstone Do?).

So tonight I passed a truck with a bumper sticker reading "Wellstone's gone, get over it." While I was sitting there, silently cursing him out (he can go fuck himself, really), I noticed something else. The rest of the back of his truck was covered with Dale Earnhardt stickers. Now don't get me wrong here, I liked Dale Earnhardt too. You'd be hard pressed to find a better race car driver and he had a certain gentlmanly, yet rebellious appeal. But he's been dead for more than 5 years now, and while he is still often memorialized in NASCAR, the sport has moved on.

I told my guitar instructor about this incident, and he gave me a phrase for it: "irony deficient." Other examples of irony deficiency would be the parent in Texas who wants to ban the book Fahrenheit 451 (a book about the dangers of censorship) or people who drive very large gas-guzzling SUVs with "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers on the back (that one he actually pointed out to me, but I get it now).

He wants to coin this as a common phrase, so pass it on. And keep up the war on irony deficiency.

26

2006-10-16T23:19:00.000-05:00

I turned 26 today. I can't really tell you how I feel about this, as I'm not really sure I feel anything. If it weren't for the lingering significance the date October 16th hold in the back of my brain, I almost would have missed it.

But I can no longer say I am 25, because I'm not. In some ways, it feels like I've crossed some sort of threshold. After all, I am now officially past the midpoint of my '20's. The trouble is, I don't think it was a threshold I was ready to cross. I'm not ready to be 26. Twenty-six is damn near adult. And I'm not.

It also comes with the realization that in only 4 years I will be 30. Now maybe that sounds silly to those of you already past that point, or those of you who have already come to terms with it. But there was probably a time when you thought the same thing. There are certain things, though mostly intangible, I feel like I need to accomplish before I'm 30. I now have less time to do that.

But more than anything, it's the fact that turning 26 yields no real benefits. It isn't the first time you get to vote, you've already had alcohol legally, you don't get any more break on your car insurance. You're just older, nothing more, nothing less.

A Good Day for Music

2006-10-04T00:21:00.000-05:00

Today (or rather yesterday, since it is now after midnight) was a very good day for music. A bunch of new albums were released today, but of particular interest to me was the new Decemberists CD, The Crane Wife. I love this band and was very excited to hear they were coming out with another album. So I rushed right out and got it. I've already listened to it one time through, but like their other work, it definitely needs a few runs through to fully take in.

But it doesn't end there, it turns out Sean Lennon, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, also released an album today. I had not known he was even recording again until I saw him by chance perform on David Letterman last week (I don't normally watch Letterman, but my dad and I were outside the theater last week while they were shooting something and we wanted to see what they had done). I am listening to this one right now as I write this (and it is very difficult to write and concentrate on the music at the same time). It's good stuff. You can definitely hear the influence of his dad, but the music is his own.

Lastly, I got a tip that the new Hold Steady album was very good and decided to give that a go as well. I don't know much about the band or their music, but there's only one way to fix that. I haven't gotten around to that one yet.

I've never pounced on new releases in music like that before, but there was just too much good stuff out there today. It was very exciting. Now I have some new tunes to listen to, which keep me busy for some time yet.

You Can Run, But You Won't Catch Up

2006-10-01T23:31:00.000-05:00

I have quite a backlog of stuff I've been meaning to post about, some of which includes pictures (ooooo!). Like my recent trip to Long Island last week with my dad. And the pictures I took up in Duluth a couple weeks ago. But, alas, such things will have to wait. I have other matters I must attend to. But I'll get back to this blogging thing eventually. Just hang tight.

Trendwhore

2006-09-20T22:48:00.000-05:00

If I were a lemming, I'd be learning to swim in the English Channel.

Remembering 5 Years Ago

2006-09-11T20:22:00.000-05:00

I remember where I was when I heard the news. I was still in college at the time and staying in the dorms. It was about 11:00 (CST, so it had already been about 2-3 hours) when I woke up as my roommate, Corey, was coming into the room. He said something along the lines of "There’s been a terrorist attack. The World Trade Center is GONE, and they’re declaring martial law." (Of course, they never did declare martial law, but who khat was really going to happen then?) Our school was in the middle of rural Minnesota, way out of the way of anything, but my mind immediately brought up images of army troops stationed on our campus. I didn’t know what to think. Who did?

My mind flitted back to a discussion several of my friends and I had had in our dorm, I think sometime the previous year. Being keen on stuff like history and politics, we often had discussions centering around those topics. So we talked about the Cold War and how that had been our country’s focus of threat for so long. Now that the Cold War had been over for about 10 years, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, what was the biggest danger to the US? We had concluded that international terrorism was what we had to fear most. We also concluded that it was only a matter of time before there would be some kind of major attack.

Of course, I don’t think any of us imagined, even in our wildest dreams (or nightmares), that it would, or even could, happen then. It was just one of those things, we had thought about only in a detached, intellectual sort of way. One of those things, where even though you "thought" about it, you never really believed it (or at least wanted to believe it). We had never considered the ramifications, the horror, the fear, the utter shock of such an event. We never discussed what it would actual mean. Watching the news reports, I could only think "It wasn’t supposed to happen this soon."

I called my parents to see what they knew. I have relatives on my dad’s side who live in New York, so I wanted to know if they had heard from them. They hadn’t been able to get through as the phone lines were all tied up. I imagine everyone who knew anyone in New York was trying to call into the state. I found out later my dad’s sister actually worked in a building right across the street from the Trade Center. Thankfully, they had been evacuated after the planes hit and she reached safety. No one else I knew was anywhere close to Manhattan at that time.

I went to my 2 classes that day, even though administration said we were free to stay home, if for no other reason than to try and maintain some sense of normalcy. Of course, that was impossible. I remember watching CNN and other news on and off throughout the day, grasping for every new tidbit, looking for any sign of hope, any sign that things weren’t really as bad they looked. Of course, they were.

Our world changed that day. I knew even then that things would never be the same again, though it was impossible to know what would come next. I think that was the scariest part of all.

The Crane Wife

2006-09-02T02:26:00.000-05:00

So I heard from a friend a while back that the Decemberists are releasing a new album, and sure enough, they are! I am totally excited about this. This band is awesome. And they are coming to Minneapolis on tour in November. Exciting news indeed.

Time is Tissue

2006-08-18T01:49:00.000-05:00

Tonight I saw Snakes on a Plane with a bunch of people from work, along with my sister and her boyfriend, who are in town from Canada for a couple weeks. The movie doesn't technically open until tomorrow (or rather today, I guess, now that I look at the clock), but somehow the movie theatre was able to do a showing at 10:00 tonight.

Let me say this: The premise was sketchy, the story was nearly non-existent, the dialogue was horrible (except for a select few great lines), and the acting was mediocre (except for Samuel Jackson, but you knew he was going to be brilliant). And it was AWESOME!!!

It was such a fun movie to go to. We had a great crowd and the movie was hilarious. No one expected this to be be a good movie, and that's what made it fun. It was excetly what everyone expected.

Ironic Advertising

2006-08-11T00:33:00.000-05:00

Anyone seen the commercial where the guy is carrying a bottle of Sierra Mist through airport security? The lady guard uses the metal-detector wand over him and voices "waa waa" noises when she passes over the bottle, ultimately confiscating it ("It's that refreshing" is the tagline). Kind of ironic, eh?

Update:
I found a copy of it on Google Video.

Annual

2006-08-02T23:35:00.000-05:00

It was one year ago today I started this blog. Yay blog! I don't know that it has quite taken the direction I originally intended, but then I'm not too sure of what direction I originally intend. I think I was going for it to be more a repository of my random thoughts (and rants, hence the name) than as a record of my everyday life, which I sometime feel it has regressed into. Recording the events of one's life is important too, though.

It is kind of fun to look back at some of the posts I've writting over the past year. Some of them I remember, but there are some I completely forgot about. I think I'm going to scan through the archives some more on this anniversary. And lets hope I can do I better job of keeping up with it in the coming year.

The Return of Paul Reubens

2006-08-01T23:34:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it, Cartoon Network Adult Swim, the late-night programming on Cartoon Network, has started showing reruns of the old Pee-Wee's Playhouse show. Now, I don't know if you remember this show, but it was my favorite show as a kid and watched it religiously every Saturday morning. I even had my own foil ball (and later wanted to make a rubberband ball, but it never quite worked out), not as big as Pee-Wee's, of course, but I had my ambitions.

And now it's back! Oh, the golden memories. And it is just as good as it was back then. If only the kids of today could experience the joy of this show, and get away from the absolute shit they have for kids today.Paul Reubens is a genius.

Spectacular!

A Baptism By Fire

2006-07-31T00:00:00.000-05:00

I got to try out my grill for the first time last Monday. I bought a propane tank at Cub along with the makings for a fine feast: burgers seasoned with Worcestershire sauce and sharp cheddar. On the side was some fresh sweet corn with cherries for dessert (the cherries were not grilled, however). I love having a grill.

Pictures from Home

2006-07-30T23:00:00.000-05:00

I promised pictures, and it is a promise I intend to fulfill.

Here's the house from the front while the movers were here. Two Men And A Truck did a very good job of moving my larger items and the move a whole lot easier. You can see I also have a nice garden in the front. I also now have a garage for both my cars so my poor Malibu doesn't have to bake in the sun anymore (it had to sit outside at the apartment as I only had garage space for one car).

I have an awesome, huge backyardthat looks like it was ready-made for some serious games of Bocci. ne could also set up a volleyball net, I reckon. It also has a fire pit with a good supply of wood (which can also be used in the fireplaces inside). There's some really nice landscaping and a huge cement patio on the back with seating for quite a number of people. I guess I'll have to have a party at some point.

I was quite pleased to find that the furniture I already had fit the decor of the living room so well. I also now have my own office where I can set up my computer.

The kitchen rocks and so does the dining room.

The basement used to actually be used as a seperate aparment the previous owner rented out, so there is a spare bedroom down there. There is also a second kitchen, which I have already decided is going to be the new brewery for me and Dave (it comes complete with a full-size frig, so now we will be able to do cold fermentation). There is also a very large room down there which I reckon I can make into some kind of recreational room. I'm not sure what kind yet (billiard room, home theater, dance studio?), but there is a lot of potential there.

So that's the house in a nutshell. If you are one of the people out there that actually knows me (as opposed to random Internet people who may wander in, not that I have anything against you), you should come over and check it out.

Tumuluations

2006-07-30T22:56:00.000-05:00

Between starting a new job (intra-company transfer), moving into a new house, and all the other stuff I've had going on, I feel I've been running full speed for almost a week now (the oppressive heat hasn't helped either). I meant to get out a post early last week, but stupid Comcast tunred off my service by accident again (apparently they meant to turn off someone else), so I was without Internet until Wednesday. I haven't had much time to myself, which includes time to write here, and what time I have had, I've been too exhausted to want to do anything but sleep. But I think the dust should start settling soon. My parents and I just finished moving the last of my stuff out of my apartment today. Now, I just have the long process of getting everything unpacked and organized.

But I have to say, having my own house pretty damn sweet.

WHERE YOU HANG YOUR HAT!!!!

2006-07-23T11:17:00.000-05:00

OMG, I'M A HOMEOWNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CLOSING!

2006-07-20T22:39:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I am moving this weekend. I close on my new house tomorrow! This is such a huge thing, it really hasn't sunk in yet. Oh, man...

Comcast is Stupid

2006-07-20T22:30:00.000-05:00

I'm moving this weekend, so I called my cable company to have the service transferred to the new place this Saturday. Somehow, over the phone they heard me tell them to turn it off last Friday. So Friday afternoon, bith my TV and Internet go down. I promptly call them to find out what happened and arranged for a repair guy to come out on Sunday (I was busy Saturday). So the repair guy comes, about an hour late (I got up at 9:00am to wait for him too), and tells me that the service was infact turned off, but he is unable to turn it back on because in order to do that he needs to get into the maintainence room, which is locked. The main office, who holds the key is closed, so there was nothing he could do. I make another call to their customer service to arrange for my service to be turned back on Monday, which they did. Of course, one would think this would imply that they turn on all my services, but apparently not. I got my TV back, but my Internet is still turned off.

At that point, I just said 'screw it'. Hopefully, my service will be back on time this coming Saturday. But in the meantime I have been without an Internet connection. Right now I am typing this through a dial-up connection I managed to get. I meant to make a few posts this week, but I think they will have to wait (I think I forgot what I was going to write about).

Comcast is stupid.

Burning Issues

2006-06-27T23:22:00.000-05:00

Today the Senate failed to pass an amendment to the Constitution which would outlaw the burning of the flag. By a single vote.

Let me say first that I am ever so happy to see our legislature debating such important issues as whether or not people should be allowed to burn a flag. You know, with the huge epidemic of burning flags and all. It is vital that we keep our priorities straight despite such pesky distractions as our increased reliance on foreign oil and sky-rocketing fuel prices, the deterioration of our environment, the growing deficit in our national budget, the mounting death toll in Iraq (both military and civilian), and the countless untruths passed down by our elected administration. Just to name a few.

Second, let me point out that failing by 1 vote means 66 of our 100 senators voted for the amendment. (Constitutional amendments need a two-thirds majority to pass.) In other words, a very large portion actually believe we need this amendment. When did we lose such faith in our country?

I had always thought that this country was strong enough to be able to take anything someone might "say." That's all that burning a flag really is. It's just a form of expression, usually in protest about the policies of our government or the actions of our people. And let's face it, there's a lot to protest about.

But more importantly, what are we so afraid of? So someone burns our flag. Do you mean to tell me that this actually damages us, as a nation, in some way? Are we that brittle? We're the United States of America. We have more flags. And it will continue to wave proudly.

If someone disagrees with the policies of this country so much, if they are so angry that they feel the need to burn a flag to get their point across, will prohibiting that act really change their feelings? Will it make them all of a sudden happy with the way things are? No. It will only limit the means by which they may express themselves. They will just some other method which will be equally as "offensive."

May I remind you that this nation was founded by a league of protestors. The ability to freely question and denounce the policies of our country and its leaders, to express our pleasure, and even more importantly, displeasure, of the way things are is at the cornerstone of our nation's foundation. Protest is not an act of unpatriotism, but rather a key ingredient in a democracy. There is a reason it was written into the very first amendment in our Bill of Rights.

To limit our rights of political expression is unpatriotic.

Philanthropy

2006-06-26T01:04:00.000-05:00

I was quite surprised to read this story this morning, especially coming just weeks after the announcement of Bill Gates' intentions to step down from his role at Microsoft to devote the rest of his life to his foundation. That's right, the richest man in the world, who is now going to use his fortune for the betterment of the world, is now being joined by the second richest man in the world with support for what is already one of the biggest philantropic organizations in the world.

I think that's just awesome.

The Longest Day

2006-06-21T22:33:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it, today was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. So with all that sunshine, I of course....spent most of the day at work. :P They ought to close all the offices during the summer. Especially on nice days like we had today. Yes, when I am president, that will be the new law...

This is also my 100th post for this blog. Pretty spiffy, eh? I the think the Summer Solstice is worthy of having such a place in my blog. And thus, it is so.

Poutine

2006-06-17T00:21:00.000-05:00

I got back from Montreal on Tuesday night. Between the 12-hour day at the plant on Saturday, the 18-hour day on Sunday, and the rest of the my time there, I didn't get a chance to do much sightseeing. I did get a chance to check out the mall next to our hotel, where I bought a couple French CDs (I have no idea what they are, but they looked intersting and I think the bands are at least from Quebec.), but that was about it.

I did get to sample poutine though, which is a Canadian delicacy consisting of French fries covered in gravy and cheese. Also had "smoked meat" which I was told was a sort of a local thing. It was pretty much like corned beef. So I at least got to have some local color, and the constant language barrier at least kept things intersting.

So I suppose I will have to go back someday and actually see the city for real, but it was a pretty good trip. I at least got some experience that will come in handy for my upcoming job transfer. And that was really the point of the trip anyway.

French Maple Leaves

2006-06-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

This weekend, my work has sent me to Montreal to observation the installation process of a piece of software at a plant we have up here (hoping I can learn something). I've only ever been to Canada once in my life, and that was many years ago. It was also in a part of the country where the predominant language was not French, so this is completely different.

I have travelled in Europe on several occassions, so the idea of going around in a country where I do not speak the language is not new, but it is still interesting. So far, most of the people I have had to deal with (aside from my co-workers from America) are at least bi-lingual, so I haven't run into any communication problems yet. I guess a lot of people at the plant tomorrow are not, however, so this should be fun.

Hopefully, I'll get to see a bit of Montreal for real while I am over here. I sat next to a chiropractor names Judith on my plane ride over here. She grew up in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but has lived in Montreal now for 38 years now. She had a lot of nice things to say about it. I've heard it's a nice city. I hope my schedule will allow me to check it out some.

We just had dinner at an Italian restaurant across the street from the hotel called Le Four. I had the veal medallions with goat cheese and pasta prima verra. And then the parfait creme de menthe for dessert. Very minty. Excellent food.

I think I like travelling on business.

My House

2006-06-05T23:59:00.000-05:00

Speaking of my house, I mentioned putting up pictures earlier. Here you go.

Summer Days

2006-06-05T23:48:00.000-05:00

Summer is off to a great start this year. We just had the most spectacular string of warm, sunny days. It was perfect, especially having bought that little convertible pictured down below. Man, that thing is a blast to drive around in this.

Having already taken in 2 barbeques, and a concert by the Hopefuls at the Mill City Ruins Courtyard, I am quite pleased with how it's gone so far and I have great hopes for the rest of this season. We are no longer imprisoned in our cozy, enclosed living spaces or forced to encase ourselves in bulky layers of heavy clothing while we shiver. Summer makes me happy.

I can't wait until I move into my new house, where I will have my own backyard and can go outside and enjoy the sun in peace any time I want. Summer makes me very happy.

Go to Hell

2006-06-05T23:20:00.000-05:00

Well, tomorrow is June 6, 2006, or 6/6/06 if you like numbers. Thus, it is only fitting that there be a big party in Hell, just to the west of Detroit. Sounds like they have quite a festival planned. It would probably be a fun time, but it doesn't look like I'm going to make it.

Oh well. I reckon that's a town I will still have to visit some day. If for no other reason than to say I've been to Hell and back.

Offer

2006-05-14T21:26:00.000-05:00

Some of you out in readerland already know that I have been looking into buying a house and getting out of the apartment-style life. I had met with my agent yesterday to look at a bunch of houses. I saw some nice houses and there were a couple that stood out, especially this one in Crystal which was just awesome (extremely close to work too), though it had just come onto the market. I wasn't ready to make any commitments yet.

So I get a call from my agent today telling me that someone made an offer on this house. Well, crap, I didn't want to be forced into any decisions (I am an extremely indecisive person by nature), but I knew this could happen. I would either have to act now or lose the house forever. I thought it over (and called my mom) and decided this was the house I wanted.

So I met with my realtor (I was with my parents and we were going to go to dinner in Rogers for Mother's Day, but made a detour into Maple Grove and ate there instead so I could get the meeting set up. I love my mom.), made one look around the house (this was the first time my parents saw the house and they loved it.), and then sat down to fill out the paperwork to put in my offer.

Long story short, I got a call from my realtor just a bit later telling me that, though nothing had been signed yet and there still some formality to go through, the seller has verbally accepted my offer. As of July 21st, assuming nothing unforseen comes up, I will be a homeowner.

I gotta take a moment to let that sink in....wow...

Hutt River Province

2006-05-13T00:38:00.000-05:00

It is amazing the things you can find cruising around the 'net. I especially like browsing through the various articles in Snopes. It's more than just a reference guide to urban legends and myths.

Today I learned about the Hutt River Province, an 18,500 acre piece of land contained within Western Australia that has declared secession from the Australian government in 1970 after a dispute over crop quotas. The principality is ruled over by Prince Leonard who claims protection by Royal Prerogative under the British Royalty system (if I understand how that all works. Those crazy Brits...). They print their own money, their own postage stamps, have their own flag, and are now a popular tourist location, apparently near Geraldton.

How did I miss that when I was over there (I passed through Geraldton)? That is awesome.

Neglect

2006-05-12T22:30:00.000-05:00

I know I have been neglecting my blog lately. For that I apologize. I don't know what it is, but I feel like I have been very busy lately. I can't tell you exactly what I've been doing. I'm not really sure myself. Just that my free time has dropped off quite a bit and during what little I have had I am often exhausted. So I just haven't felt like writing. It doesn't help that I am inherently lazy. Hopefully things will settle down again, though.

In the meantime, here is a little Internet video that has often helped me through the difficult times.

Two Years

2006-05-12T22:24:00.000-05:00

This weekend marks the2nd anniverssary for me graduating college. Actually it was last Wednesday (since I graduated May 10th), but I graduated on a weekend and it was Thursday before I even realized it. I can't believe it's been 2 years already, but the other hand, school seems so far off. I have some friends who have gone on to work toward various master's degrees and graduate work, but I just can't concieve of it. I just don't have it in me anymore. Two years off, and I still feel burned-out. I wonder if I ever will get it back?

Dull

2006-05-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't posted here in a while. It must be boring for you. But the fact is I just haven't felt the inspiration to write. It isn't that there isn't stuff to write about (thoughy, truth be told, there really hasn't been that much that's interesting to write about the past couple weeks), I just haven't felt like writing. I'm still here though, if that's any consolation.

About the only thing I have to say is that it has been raining the past three days straight and is lookng to continue raining nonstop for several more. I miss the sun.

Zoom-Zoom

2006-04-16T22:45:00.000-05:00

I acquired something this weekend. I'll let the picture do the talking. Let's just say the lessons in driving stick came in handy. :)

Jazz Fest 2006

2006-04-09T22:49:00.000-05:00

I went up to Morris this weekend for the 28th Annual Jazz Fest. I got to play in the Alumni Band this year, which was the main reason for going. It's the one time a year I get to really cut loose with my trombone like back in my college days. I can't express how much fun I had this weekend.

I also got to catch up with some people I hadn't seen in a long time. A couple of them I didn't even expect to see and I'm really glad I ran into them. And then we partied in the way you only can when you are in a college town. Lots of people crammed into a small house or apartment. Just like old times.

This wekeend brought back a lot of really good memories. And I know this is a crappy post, but the fact of the matter is I just don't know how to adequately write about it using words.

I miss Morris. And I can't wait for Jazz Fest next year.

Vernal Wonders

2006-03-30T22:20:00.000-06:00

For the first time this year, I noticed it was starting to feel warm in my apartment. Warmer than I find comfortable. The temperature on my thermostat had actually risen without the aid of my furnace. So I slid door to my balcony open a bit and was greeted by the wisps of the cool, moist, rain-drenched rain from outside. I sat in fron t of the door and continued playing my Playstation 2, allowing the air to wash over me and breathed in deep of its splendor. I dreamt of the wonderful time of year that is to come.

Spring is upon us. The season of renewal. The long Minnesota winter is over. It is a time of rejoicing.

My New Toy

2006-03-22T21:40:00.000-06:00

Having some money from my tax refund and a promise for a belated Christmas gift from my parents, I went out shopping tonight with my guitar instructor and found myself a new toy. What do you think?

A Truly Wonderous Punch

2006-03-20T00:38:00.000-06:00

I went to with some friends last night to celebrate J.C.'s 25th birthday at a place in Uptown called the Red Dragon. The food was excellent and the drinks were even better. It was a good time, in fact one of the best times I've had in a while. I had a lot of steam built up that needed to be blown off, and it felt good to finally let loose a bit. I didn't realize before how much I needed that. Thank you.

Happy birthday, Christian!

Deferred

2006-03-08T22:30:00.000-06:00

Well, I got the call today. The one that I have been digging a hole in the bottom of my stomach waiting for for the past week. I understand many of you are curious as well. (And if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about it.)

I didn't get it.

I don't think I need to tell you this is a rather large disappointment. I won't go into the particulars or the reasons why. Such things are not suited for a public forum such as this. I will say that the reasons aren't all bad, but that doesn't really make me feel any better about it in the here and now.

The upshot is at least I finally know where I will be 2 months from now.

13:55

2006-03-06T23:32:00.000-06:00

I hit the treadmill tonight and managed to do the mile in 13 minutes and 55 seconds. That may not sound impressive to you, but it is my fastest time since I was about 12 years old, and this is after laying dormant for about the past 4 months. Now to bring that time down even further!

Of Lodi

2006-03-06T23:02:00.000-06:00

I actually got back from Lodi on Saturday night, but I haven't really gotten a chance to write about it until now.

Now, I know you're going to ask, so I'm just going to get it out of the way. The interview went about as well as it probably could have. I honestly don't know my chances of actually getting the job, and I'm not going to offer speculations in this medium. I'll just say that they should be letting me know in the next week or two.

Back to Lodi. Lodi is located about an hour south from the Sacramento Airport (which is on the north end of the city) in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley.
On my way down I passed through Elk Grove, a burgeonung suburb of Sacramento which reminded me a lot of Maple Grove back here in the Twin Cities. Lot's of new construction and shopping centers typical of American suburbia.

Lodi is a relatively small town of about 60,000 people. They have a cute little downtown area (pictured above) filled with all kinds of restaurants. The outskirts of the town are lined with the same suburban-like shopping centers, which includes just about everything one would need. This includes an In-N-Out Burger which was a new experience for me. Fairly decent burger and extremely fast.

Once you get out of town it's vineyards as far as the eye can see (the picture was taken from my car while heading down the highway, so I apologize for the crappy quality). Lodi is home to about 85 wineries, most of which offer tastings either for free or for a nominal charge. I visited one that was recommended to me called Michael & David. I went in to taste a couple of their white wines and ended up tasting just about everything they had in stock. The girl just kept giving me samples. She was really helpful though and I ended up buying their three-pack which includes the 7 Heavenly Shards (Chardonnay), 7 Deadly Zins (red zinfandel), and 6th Sense Syrah, all of which I approve of. And I don't normally even like wine. I also bought a bottle of a late harvest symphony from the Lodi Wine & Vistors Center, which was promised to be very sweet and very good.

So Lodi is a nice little town. Pretty quiet, though I am told it has the second highest incidence rate of car thefts in the state of California (the highest being Modesto not far to the south). It is fairly close to San Francisco and really close to Sacramento where the Govenator lives, though. It also isn't too long a drive to the mountains or the ocean. And despite the pictures depicting clouds and rain, I was told that it is actually very sunny most of the time. Sounds nice.

Bags are Packed

2006-03-02T00:45:00.000-06:00

I haven't written about this before, but I think most of my readers (all 3 of you) know that a little while back I applied for a certain job transfer. I don't normally write about work here, I like to keep my professional life and my private life seperate. But in this case, one has no choice but to have a drastic impact on the other. The job transfer is for a position in Lodi, California.

Lodi is a relatively small town just a bit to the south of Sacramento and east of San Francisco, right in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley. Wine country. Tomorrow (or rather today - I just looked at the clock) I fly out there for an interview and a look around. Should be a lot of fun. We'll see what happens.

Dream

2006-02-27T07:07:00.000-06:00

I just woke up to my clock radio playing a song by a group called Big Star, though at the time I was convinced it was John Lennon (maybe the haze of not being fully conscious, though it did sound a bit like something Lennon would write). The radio had been going quite some time though and I think it gave me the visions of my waking dream.

The dream was like a fully realized music video. Interspersed with images of singer just generally being happy (I now realize the person in the dream was definitely not John, but I don't know who he is), the overall theme was the main character (respresented by the singer) attempting to learn how to ride a bike. He just keeps bumbling along, most of the time scooting with two feet and running into things along the side. There is someone behid him helping him along, the way a parent would help their child the first time they ride a bike. This is all happening on a scene that is like a board walk along the coast in a massive pine forest. It is very sunny and generally pleasant and cheerful. The character keeps bumbling along until he reaches the end of the dock where there are several whales in the water, and I hear the line "I can't get back home this way" (I think it was in the song), thinking it is referring to the way he is just bumbling, as he wasn't making very fast progress like that. Then I hear something to the effect of "This is only one-way anyway" (I don't remember the line exactly, it was almost subliminal. I don't think it was in the song) and with that, the character gets off the bike, climbs up the railing of the dock, and dives into the water. When he hits the water, he turns into a penguin - not a realistic penguin, but sort of a rounded cartoonish penguin (though this did not strike me in the dream) - turns around to issue some cheerful farewell, and then swims off. Then I wake up.

Back in Good Old Morris, But Different

2006-02-26T23:37:00.000-06:00

I went back to Morris yesterday to catch a concert put on by the UMM Jazz Ensembles. It's been almost a year since I last visited my old school, the last time being when I went back for the annual Jazz Fest last April, so it was really nice to see the town again. It was strange that I had been away so long considering there once was a time not so long ago I spent just about all my time there. At the same time it seems like a lifetime ago.

Let me give some perspective on this. I joined the band my first semester of college and stayed in it for the full five years I went to Morris (except for the one semester where I went to Australia). It was through the band that I managed to make 3 trips to New Orleans and 2 trips to Europe during my college years. I also even spent a couple years on the student-run guiding council. I spent more time doing stuff in the band than anything else I did in college and it is probably the most fun I had those 5 years. It was certainly the most rewarding. It was an honor to play in the Morris Jazz Ensemble.

As for the band itself, there are actually 4 big bands at Morris because of the number of people in it. Three of them directed by Jim "Doc" Carlson (everyone just calls him "Doc"), and the fourth by a student director. The concerts also feature a number of smaller student-directed combos which round out the show each concert. It is by far the largest student organization on campus and the best attended. Not even the football team attracts the audience the Jazz program does. The annual Jazz Fest, which was started by Doc 28 years ago, is the single largest event on campus all year. This is all because of Doc.

So it was with some despair that I read down the list of students in the band at on the back of the program and the number of names I no longer recognized. After all, I used to know almost all of them. Things change in two years. But I was surprised by the number of people I did still know in the band. I noted, however, that almost all of them wore the rose corsage that night, the traditional symbol for the graduating seniors in the band. They will be moving on themselves this May.

So I guess the strangest thing about going back was just looking around. The campus and the town have hardly changed at all. But the people are all different. All the people I entered school with have long since graduated. All the people I considered to be the "young'uns" in my final years are all seniors themselves now, almost ready to enter the dreaded "real world". I thought back on all the days I spent on that campus - going back and forth from class and my dorm, worrying about those papers that are due, wondering how I am going to fit everything into my schedule, stressing about the next homework assignment, hanging out with friends at Turtle Mountain Cafe. That was only 2 years ago, but it seems so much farther away. And yet, not so far. It was worrysome and exciting at the same time. It was an amazing time in my life. But this time is gone now.

But despite everything different there was one thing that did not change. The music was still amazing. It was fun. Doc is still his same old self, always excited about the band's performance even though he has been doing this for 28 years. It was at this concert that several members of the Jazz Council came forward to announce that Doc had been inducted into the MMEA (Minnesota Music Educators Association) Hall of Fame and presented him with a framed copy of the newspaper story. Anyone who has worked with Doc knows that this distinction is well-deserved and long overdue. He received a standing ovation and Doc, who rarely shows anything but an undying enthusiasm for what he does, was visibly moved.

It was a good night.

GH: Small Victory

2006-02-22T00:15:00.000-06:00

I also wanted to take this opportunity note that after several days of battling with it, I finally beat No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age on Hard level (it was the event that actually spurred the the last post. I figured I better explain what I was talking about before making this post). I don't know why it took me so long, just the note combinations are really hard to pull off on that song, and it was the only one holding me back from advancing. It wasn't pretty, but I made it through the song. So now I am in the final 5-song section of Hard mode. I actually managed to make it through the first 4 songs on the first try (including Cowboys From Hell which is a real bitch), even if they aren't pretty. My new nemesis is Bark at the Moon by Ozzy Osbourne. Don't know how I'm going to get through it, but it is the last song I have to conquer before moving on to Expert level (except for the bonus songs. But they're a whole different story).

Corporate Shill

2006-02-22T00:12:00.000-06:00

Man, did that last post make me sound like I was paid off, or what? I wish I had been. But the game really is that good.

Of Guitar Heroes

2006-02-21T23:50:00.000-06:00

So I've mentioned this game I've been playing in passing before, but I promised to make a post specifically about it. The game I am referring to is Guitar Hero for the Playstation 2. Let me just say that this game is fun.

Here's the set-up: It comes with a guitar-shaped controller specially made for the game (you can see a picture if you check out the above link) with 5 "fret" buttons on the neck and a "strum bar" down on the body, along with a whammy bar to liven up the long notes. Then you pick a song and watch the notes come at you on the screen; you have to "play" them when they reach the bottom. It is kind of like the infamous Dance Dance Revolution, only you don't have to jump around like an idiot (though I often do just because I get into the music).

That's the other thing. When you nail the song, it feels like you are actually playing it. Miss a note and the lead guitar (that's you) part dies off in the music as well. It makes it feel really rewarding when you can actually get through a hard song (and there are a lot of them) and play it well. I don't remember the last time I actually worked up a sweat playing a video game. This one does it routinely (as well as make my left hand hurt).

The songs included in the game are chosen well. You've got everything from More Than a Feeling by Boston to Cowboys From Hell by Pantera. Some other of my favorites are Iron Man by Black Sabbath, Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie, Killer Queen by Queen, Spanish Castle Magic by Jimi Hendrix, I Wanna Be Sedated by The Ramones...There's like 30 songs from well-known artsists. But then there are an additional 20 from small-time local bands (most seem to be from Boston, must be where the development studio is located), some of which are really good. I actually ordered the CD from Shaimus after hearing their track on this game. Just came in the mail today. I am quite pleased with it.

I can't stop playing this game. You have to try it.

...And on the Lighter Side (of the Force)

2006-02-18T03:12:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so that last post was a little heavy (it's like a misery sandwich!). Here's something a little more enjoyable.

Tragedy as a Marketing Device?

2006-02-18T02:37:00.000-06:00

So as I was driving back from St. Cloud tonight, I passed by a used car dealership kind of on the outskirts of St. Cloud. I was struck by the rather large sign positioned in front with bright day-glow lettering on black background, though I had but a split second to digest it as I zoomed by on the highway. It read, simply, "Remember 9/11". So I started thinking back on that horrible incident 4 years ago, waking up in my college dorm room to learn that something terrible, something unthinkable, had happened. I remembered the news feeds that day forever replaying the images of the hijacked airplanes crashing into the Twin Towers, and then watching those towers come crumbling to the ground with over 3000 people still trapped inside. I thought about the loss of our national sense of invincibility, being replaced by an ever-present sense of fear and paranoia. A fear that has taken an icy grip on nearly all aspects of our lives since then. I thought about our response to the attacks, about the homes in Afganistan and Iraq that have been reduced to rubble and the other countless, nameless, lives lost in the names justice and safety amid cries of "never again!" I remember the events of September 11, 2001, or "9/11" as it has come to be called, all too well. Having contemplated this and the tumultous times the past 4 years have been, there was but one logical conclusion to be reached...

...I should buy a used car!

An Evening With Kevin Smith

2006-02-18T01:47:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine managed to score some tickets to a talk by movie-maker Kevin Smith (click the link if you don't know who he is) tonight up at the St. Cloud State University campus. They were only $5! If you have never heard him speak before, I highly recommend the DVD set, An Evening with Kevin Smith. He basically tours around college campuses and holds long question and answer sessions with his fans (his fanbase consists mostly of the college-age 20-somehting crowd). What is most entertaining with him is his ability to take relatively mundane details from everyday life and make them magically interesting. Like the time he had to serve jury duty while suffering from a nasty case on anal fissures (I am not making this up, he talks about this tuff). He also tends to answer questions with other long, drawn out stories, but they are always fascinating and somehow connect. The whole event went for 5 hours, which was actually about 2 hours longer than it was supposed to, but he is known to go much longer and no one was going to tell him to stop (he was allowed one final story at the end at which point he launched into the "anal fissure" story which lasted almost an hour, but was hilarious the whole way through). That's some good entertainment for five bucks.

Difficulties

2006-02-05T03:16:00.000-06:00

Well, as you can see below, that didn't come out right. You know, Blogger is a really good program. It makes it easy to set up your blog how you want and say what you want without having to mess around too much with the HTML and stuff.

But it absolutely SUCKS when you want to post pictures. I really have no idea why it came out that way. What I had intended was to have a short paragraph followed by a series of pictures, then another paragraph, and so on. Instead it seems to have given me just a mish-mash of all my stuff in no particular order.

Part of the problem I think is that my content window is too small. I'd enlarge it, but I can't figure out how to do it without encroaching on the space used by my sidebar on the left, which forces it to the bottom. I can't find the part in the template that dictates the size for all that blue space on the right. I'd gladly give that up, it's useless.

So if anybody out there has any pointers on how I can fix this, I'd love to hear from you.

*UPDATE* - Alright, I tinkered with it a bit more. I expanded the content pane a little bit more so I can fit more stuff on a line. My apologies to those out there who have low resolution monitors. Then I went and found that inserting more line breaks makes the code line up closer to what I originally intended. The source text for the post isn't pretty, but I don't really have much intention of editing it more, so I guess it isn't such a big deal. Wish there were an easier way to do it though. I think I bumped my hit counter about 20 more spots playing with thing. Wish there were a way to filter out my own hits.

More Pictures...from Wollongong (and surrounding area)

2006-02-05T01:37:00.000-06:00

Here are some more pictures from my time in Wollongong. There are a whole lot more, but I don't want to bore you too much with my entire trip. Here's some of the highlights. This post does not include my pictures from Melbourne or Tassie, but posting these is pretty time intensive (it take s a long time for the upload), so they will have to wait for a later post. I'll try to do it soon rather tha waiting a month like I did for this one. Consider this a companion to my previous picture post. Enjoy!

Chris and I went for a walk in the Minnamurra rainforest which isn't too far outside Wollongong. I had no idea there was a rainforest so close.

On Friday night Jeffy came over and we went out to Toss at the North Gong, the closest hotel (read: bar) to I-House. At Toss you order two drinks and then they toss two coins. 2 heads, you pay full price, head and tail, you pay half price, 2 tails your drinks are free. I had the nasty luck of paying full price for both my rounds.

And then having had a sufficient amount of beer and a sober Clare with a car, we went down to Kiama for dinner, which is a little ways south of Wollongong. It is also a very pretty town.

Christmas lights in the middle of summer...

We went golfing down in Callalah (did I spell that right?) where Luke lives. The flies were pretty merciless, but it was a pretty course. Being the tourist that I am, I was quite delighted to find kangaroos on the course. I was wondering what would happen if we hit one with a ball, but thankfully that never happened, even when I had to hit one right over a roo's head (I have a tendency to ground them, but it flew straight that time). The roos are safe for now.

Some pictures from along the Wollongong coastline...

Here are a couple pictures of me on the Wollongong campus, including the Duck Pond, so named because it is inhabited by ducks! It is a popular place to study under the sun or sit and have lunch. The ducks usually wander around and help students with their homework in exchange for food. On the left, you can see a picture of me with one of the ducks. This might have been the one that bit me 2 years ago. Have you ever been bitten by a duck?

This is International House where I stayed during my study abroad session 2 years ago. Chris' apartment where I stayed is right near there (in fact, I-House holds several of the aprtments including the one Chris stays in) so I spent some time there this time too. There's a picture of me in front of my old door. I wish I could have gone in, but I didn't know if anyone was staying there now.

Here is Wollongong from the air. As I was flying out of Sydney toward Melbourne we went along the coast. I was lucky enough to be sitting on the right side of the plane with a realtive unobstructed view of the ground (for once) and it was clear enough. I just looked down and recognized the landscape, so I snapped a few pictures. The picture on the right is of the university.

I'm mentioned!

2006-02-02T07:31:00.000-06:00

So I've been playing this game called Guitar Hero for the Playstation 2 after strong recommendation by this guy, who I have a lot of respect for. His gaming news and insights tend to be right on. So imagine my delight when after writing an Email to him he passes it on to the rest of his readers.

Yeah, it's geeky. I don't care. This made my day.

The Music Shall Play Again

2006-02-01T23:24:00.000-06:00

A few month ago you may remember me writing about the CDs I had stolen from my car. Well, through a bit of work and some amazing connections (erm...Internet connection), I have managed to replace most of them. There are still a couple I need to get and a couple more that I doubt I will ever be able to replace (from small-time bands that used to be in Morris), but for the most part my collection is mostly complete again.

I had amassed quite a few over the past couple months and just tonight decided it was time to remove the shrink wrap and those annoying littlr stickers they stick across the top so you can't open the case. It was kind of fun and satisfying in a way. Now I can listen to the discs, though I no longer feel safe taking them down to my car anymore which is where I listen to most of my music. A bit of a dilemma. I did purchase a bunch of writable CDs though and if I get another constructive urge again maybe I will try burning them. So long as I have the master copy safe at home I don't care if I lose a copy...

Here are pictures of the results (in the picture of the shelf, the 3 compartments on the left are the "new" CDs).

Jobs at Disney

2006-01-29T01:04:00.000-06:00

Another interesting learning:

You have probably heard about the recent deal made by Disney to acquire popular CGI (that's Computer-Generated Imagery, in case you didn't know) movie maker Pixar. What you may not know is this: The deal was paid for entirely with Disney stock, and Steve Jobs (visionary, legend, and co-founder of Apple Computer), being founder and primary stockholder in Pixar (yes, this guy gets around) now owns between 6% and 7% of all Disney stock offerings. This makes him now the single largest individual holder of Disney stock and gives him a seat on their board of directors. In other words, the man who brought us the iPod is now also a leader in one of the biggest and most influential media entertainment companies in the world.

Not bad for a guy who dropped out of college to play with circuit boards in his parents' garage.

Check this article on Wikipedia. As usual, (Wikipedia just ROCKS!) it is a good comprehensive article about a very fascinating man.

Computing Failures

2006-01-29T00:36:00.000-06:00

So while researching something else (I'll get to that later) I stumbled upon an interesting list failures in the computing industry. Some of these you have probably heard of. I was surprised the Apple Newton did not make the list (anyone remember that?) I wonder how hard it would be to acquire some of these items?

Oops, one more thing

2006-01-27T00:55:00.000-06:00

I had forgotten while I was writing that what exactly had inspired me to find out about the wonders of Alamogordo. It was this music video by band Wintergreen. Check it out.

Spotlight: Alamogordo, New Mexico

2006-01-26T23:18:00.000-06:00

It really is amazing what you can find on Google once you figure out what you want to look up. I want to tell you about a little town I just learned about. A place called Alamogordo, New Mexico.

In 1983, video game power house (at the time) Atari found itself in a tight spot. Having counted on huge sales of an arcade-to-console port of the epicly popular game Pac Man and a the first serious movie-licensed game (is there such a thing?), E.T., they manufactured millions of copies of both. Unfortunately, Pac Man, being far inferior to the arcade version people had come to love, failed to sell nearly as well as Atari brass had hoped, which was probably an overly-ambitious mark to begin with. E.T., which was rushed through development to meet the 1982 Christmas season and was hoped to sell purely on the popularity of the Spielberg movie, ended up as a game lauded by many to be the biggest embarrassment in the history of the gaming industry with horrible graphics (even by the standards of the day) and atrocious gameplay. The few copies that did sell were mostly returned by angry gamers who had been suckered in. The end result of all this was a warehouse filled to the brim with approximately 5 million unsold copies of Pac Man, nearly all of the 5 million unsold or returned copies of E.T, and an assortment of other similarly bad titles, half-baked protoypes, and other unsellable merchandise. This is stuff so bad Atari could not even give it away. They were left no choice. They had to bury it.

Loading up multiple trucks with the contents of their warehouse, Atari had their cache transported from their El Paso, TX office approximately 90 miles north to...you guessed it, Alamogordo, NM. Here the trucks dumped their loads into a secret landfill which was then covered over with cement; entombed forever in concrete. This legendary moment is largely considered to be the single most definitive event marking the end of the first era of video game entertainment. Shortly to follow would be the first great "video game crash," when many gamers turned to computers such as the Commodore 64 and Apple II for their electronic entertainment, which would in turn bring about the rise of such industry giants as Nintendo and Sega.

That in of itself makes this humble city worthy of note, but it doesn't end there. Most history books will tell you that the first American to travel in space is Alan Shepherd. But he wasn't. Another American beat him to it - an American named Ham, a chimpanzee. After his historic flight in 1961, he went on to live the rest of his life in a zoo in Washington, D.C. But upon his death in 1983, his body was transported to be entombed in the International Space Hall of Fame (also knwon as the New Mexico Museum of Space History) in Alamogordo.

It is also worth noting that the testing grounds at Alamogordo served as the site where Project Manhattan came to fruition in July of 1945, producing the first man-made nuclear explosion. Perhaps a darker moment than the other ones listed here, but a monumental piece of history nonetheless.

So who is up for a road trip?

Pie Day

2006-01-23T22:41:00.001-06:00

On a lighter note (in contrast to my post below), I have just found out from MilkAndCookies.com (a great site for wasting time and collection of great coinoseurs of all things pie) that today, January 23rd, is officially National Pie Day as determined by the American Pie Council.

I wish I had found out about this sooner. So get there and enjoy a pie while you can. Today is day for PIE!

Watch Out: The Transgenderists are Moving

2006-01-23T22:22:00.000-06:00

I happened upon the link for this news story from a different blog and just couldn't help but field a comment. These people seriously need to get a grip. Did they really, honestly think the Mattel corporation would make such a potentially controversial stance on one of their flagship brands?

Obviously, since the the poll on the Barbie website allows the option of "I don't know" when asking for gender, Mattel must support the transgender "movement". There's no way it could have been just a simple, honest mistake. And they are trying to seduce our children into their wicked ways of sexual ambiguity! Oh, the horrors!

The real question here, though, is what if it hadn't been a mistake? What if Mattel actually was trying to take a progressive approach to things? The fact of the matter is there are people out there who really don't know what they are. They didn't ask for it either. All they want is acceptance like the rest of us.

So what are you so afraid of?

Good night, sleep tight....

2006-01-23T00:56:00.000-06:00

I've been very lazy lately and I realize I have been neglecting this blog. 'Twas not my intent. I guess I just have other stuff going on. And I still didn't get to bed tonight when I had hoped to. Oh well, such is life I guess.

But I did just read this story on CNN and thought I would pass it on. Something to think about next time you pull your covers over yourself before you go to sleep. ;)

For Gamers

2006-01-11T00:19:00.000-06:00

Here's a movie for those gamers out there in a relationship (yes, I've heard they do exist). Actually, it's funny for anyone, but will especially strike home for my fellows who have spent countless hours in front of a TV hooked up to a Playstation or Nintendo. I can't claim credit for finding it, as I found the link over at Dubious Quality, but it's too hilarious not to pass on. Click here.

(Be patient, it takes a while to load, but it is totally worth it. You have my word as the decendent of a simian.)

Beware: There be trolls on them there roads

2006-01-09T17:48:00.000-06:00

So I'm driving home tonight and take the tunr off Highway 55 onto the road near where I live. This road is a 4-lane raod, but there is only one turning lane coming off the highway. I know I could probably turn into the far lane without too much trouble, as the next turn I have to make is a left, but I usually play it like I was taught all those years ago in Driver's Ed and turn into the closer lane before going to the left. It's a good thing I did. Just after completing the turn, I start checking my mirrors and blind spot to make the lane change (even though there is hardly anyone there) when this black Porsche Cayenne S (an overpriced luxury SUV for those who have something to compensate for) blows right past me out of nowhere. Would have blown right into me if I hadn't seen him in time. Must have been in a hurry to get to the next stop sign. But at the next stop sign I manage to catch up to him and get a look at the license plate: SHKNAWE. Too perfect.

I'm Back (to reality)

2006-01-02T20:00:00.000-06:00

For those who are wondering, the trip was fantastic. Unbelieveably so. I love Australia and miss it already. But I gotta make money somehow, so today I went back to work. All was going well for most of the day, but towards the end I sort of hit the wall and by the time I got home I was ready to crash. I guess I'm not over the jet lag after all. This may take a little longer than I thought.

But I am back and plan to get some more pictures from my travels posted a bit later. Right now, though, I am really tired and just don't feel up to it. I still have my last journal entry to finish too. And to sort out all the stuff I brought back...

I'm back in the real world.

Pictures From Domn Under

2005-12-15T18:05:00.000-06:00

Here are a few pictures chosen at random with care from my journey thus far. These are from the Wollongong area with a bit of Sydney thrown in, but in no particular order. The weather has been great here. Mostly sunny almost everyday, and very warm. It's been wonderful!

On Monday I will be moving on to Melbourne, and then on to Tassie.

Big Day

2005-12-08T08:19:00.000-06:00

So today is the big day. I'm all packed and I think I have everything ready to go. Just got to go into work for a little bit today, then I'm off to the airport. By my figuring, it should take about 24 hours to get there including transit to LAX and my layover there. Going to be a long day, though really flying west the days are shorter. In fact, I don't even get a Friday because of the date line, but that's just how it goes.

So I don't know if I'll be able to update this for the next 3 weeks, but I'll try and check in now and then. If not, I hope everyone has a good holiday (whatever one you celebrate) and new year. I'll see you next year.

Two Days

2005-12-06T22:35:00.000-06:00

Well, just two more days left before I leave for my big 3-week vacation to Australia. I'm really excited, but at the same time terrified. I know I've done this sort of thing before, and it is only 3 weeks, but I can't help but worry that I'm forgetting someting really important. It doesn't help that I keep thinking of things I need to do before my trip, though I think I've just about got everything out of the way. But I keep thinking, did I tell everyone I need to? Is there anyone else over there that probably would like to know I'm coming? Will I have enough time to get my bags packed? Did I tie up all the little loose ends around here?

Whew, I'll probably feel better once I'm there, but until then I'm a nervous wreck. :P

Texas

2005-11-29T23:11:00.000-06:00

So a few weeks ago I went to Texas to visit Nic and Krista along with Dave and Smeeta.

We spent the first day with a trip to the Fort Worth Stockyards, a neat little tourist spot that brings you back to the days when cattle were the major trade item for the city. You can also see lots of locals walking around in real cowboy clothes. I had always thought it was just a stereotype for Texas, but people really do wear the hats, the boots, and huge belt buckles. I was astounded. And in the Stockyards, there are plenty of shops where you can get your own! I was really tempted to get some boots, but I restrained. They sure had a nice selection though.

We had lunch at a place called Joe T. Garcia's, a really good Mexican restaurant. The place is huge and all outdoors (actually, they have an indoor section, but why sit in there when the weather is so perfect?). I mean the courtyard is big! It looks like it may have been a private villa at one time. There are paths into gardens that go way back. It is beautiful. I guess it is really popular and on the weekends you typically have people lined up around the block to get in. I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself in the DFW area.

We also played poker with some of Nic and Krista's neighbors (Texas Hold'Em, of course), but I went out fast. The amusing part of the night was the long stand-off between Dave and one of the other guys (I forget his name already, sorry). Neither could get a decent hand worth playing, or when one did, it was just the chip leader paying off the other. The game wouldn't end!

The big event for the weekend, though, was the Dickies 500; the seventh race in the 10-race Chase for the Championship in the Nextel NASCAR racing series. Now, I love NASCAR. I think it is the best televised sport out there (something I may need to expound on one day). But even if you don't like NASCAR, a live race is a spectacle to see. The concourse is filled with all kinds of wonderful stadium food vendors, along with souvenirs. And of course the people-watching is very interesting.

We had seats in row 6, right at the exit to Pit Row and had a very good view of the entrance into Turn 1. They were pretty good seats except for the safety fence in the way. It was really quite a thrill to see the cars so close up as they zoomed by. And the sound of the cars...to say they are loud really doesn't do it justice. The roar of a car going by is just amazing. Hearing protection isn't just a nicity, it's a necessity.

It was actually a pretty clean race. Very few cautions were thrown, which made it go by a lot faster than I expected. There were plenty of interesting moments though and the ending, with Mark Martin battling with Carl Edweards to retake the lead was very exciting (Edwards managed to stay ahead of Martin in the end, though). It was also fun to watch the likes of Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson on the track being they were so close in the standing at that point (as you may know, Stewart went on to take Championship for the season 2 weeks later). All in all, it was a great experience and I am definitely going to a race again.

Having said all that, I'm just going to post a few more pictures. I will note that just about all the pictures of the cars here were taken during pace laps since it was impossible to capture them at race speed (it was difficult at pace speed!).

Ok, I need to fix this, but it's getting late and I need to get to bed. I can probably post more pictures too, but this is a sample.

An Interesting Observation

2005-11-17T21:30:00.000-06:00

So last work-week was a slightly shortened week due to the day a vacation I took on Monday for my trip down to Texas (for which I still have to post pictures. I haven't forgotten, I'm just lazy.). This is as opposed to this work week, which was a full 5 days. The funny thing is this week seems to have gone by faster, despite being a full day longer. It's already Thursday and it seems like the week just started.

Now it could be just that I have been busier this week. I have had a lot of stuff going on. But this isn't the first time I've noticed this phenomenon, and other have mentioned it to me as well.

I'm not exactly sure why this is. Have you ever taken a day of vacation at the beginning of the week and noticed that the rest of the week just seems to drag on? I'm putting my money on an alien conspiracy.

Winter's Chill Embrace

2005-11-17T21:14:00.000-06:00

So it seems winter has finally fallen upon Minnesota. Like a ton of bricks. Last week we had nice temperatures around 60. It was comfortable. You could almost go without a jacket. Then it it snowed, and without warning the temperature fell to well below freezing. The wind cuts through like an icy knife.

Not the gradual decent into the cold like usual. No, this year winter is beginning its assault en masse.

Brrrr....

DFW and Dickies 500

2005-11-07T22:18:00.000-06:00

Just got back from my weekend in Texas. I went down with Dave and Smeeta and stayed with Nic and Krista (whose blog you can find in my links to the right) to go see the NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway. I'm pretty tired right now, so I'm not going to write a lot right now. Just wanted to say that it was a lot of fun and really nice to see our friends down South again.

I'll write more later when I have my thoughts together a little better. I'll also include pictures.

One...More...Turn...

2005-10-30T23:40:00.000-06:00

I twiddled with my graphics card drivers a bit using some advice I got off the Civ Fanatics forum. Bascially, I'm running drivers from nVidia now that were never designed for my graphics card using a modified INF file I got from this site. I'm not sure why it works, but it does.

Now Civilization actually works pretty well, and it is just as addicting as it always was. Dangerously so. I'll have to be careful. But oh, is it fun.

Decemberists

2005-10-26T23:15:00.000-05:00

I forgot to mention that I went to see the Decemberists in concert at First Avenue last Friday. I do believe they have now moved into the position of my favorite (modern) band. I highly suggest you check them out.

Civilization: Denied

2005-10-26T23:05:00.000-05:00

Today was the long awaited release day for the new Civilization IV game. I've been a long-time fan of the series, so this was quite exciting. I had planned to rush right out after work today to get it and then spend the rest of the night playing it.

Well, after getting through with my various other obligations, I finally got around to installing it around 9:00. It would appear that my graphics card is too primitive for this game though. It keeps locking up whenever I get past the initial menus and into the game. After attempting to upgrade my video drivers - which involved me uninstalling my current drivers only to find the ones I downloaded didn't work, and then scrambling to download drivers that did work, which turned out to be the ones I had it the first place - I'm giving up for the night.

Very disappointing.

(On a side note, I would like to note that apparently someone screwed up the "Install" and "Play" disks, as I use the "Install" disk to start the game and the "Play" disk only gives me a prompt telling me to insert the right disk. Very strange.)

Cry Me A River

2005-10-20T17:47:00.000-05:00

It seems the NBA has just handed down an edict specifying that players must now appear in "business casual" dress whenever appearing in public on league or team business. This is apparently not going over well with many of the players. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the linked article from one Allen Iverson: "I feel like if they want us to dress a certain way, they should pay for our clothes. It's just tough, man, knowing that all of a sudden you have to have a dress code out of nowhere."

Man, I know how tough it is. Where I work, they have a business casual dress code too and make us adhere to it almost everyday (we get weekends off) for 40 hours a week. I can only imagine what torture it must be have to dress up a little for the few press conferences or public appearances you get. And making you pay for the clothes yourself! That is just unfair, especially on your salary. You make, what, $500,000 a year? Probably more actually. So I can't imagine how they can expect you to buy your own clothing (oh, except everyone where I work buys their own clothes on not even a 1/10 of your salary. I wonder how they manage?).

Here's the deal, guys. You are the representatives of your employer. You are the ones that determine the image of the organization as a whole. When you are on their time, they make the rules. The NBA has decided they want to present an image of professionalism and respectablity instead of that of a bunch of adolescent thugs. Now perhaps this image doesn't reflect reality, but nonetheless that is what they want to present, and that is their right. And this is what they pay your excessive salaries to do.

It isn't racism, like Jason Richardson seems to believe, it's just business. Otherwise every corporation in America would be guilty of civil rights violations. The NBA isn't a charity organization reaching out to let anyone who can dribble a basketball express themselves. They are a business. And you are their employees. Maybe your high school basketball coach didn't give a damn what you looked like off the court before you got recruited. Guess what? You aren't in high school any more. Welcome to the real world.

It isn't like they are asking a lot. They want you to look presentable when you are representing them. If this is too much responsibility for you, perhaps it is time to change professions to something a little more your speed. Maybe flipping burgers at the local Burger King? Oh, wait, they make you wear a uniform there too...

Quarter Century

2005-10-16T02:30:00.000-05:00

It was about this moment 25 years ago I came into the world. How about that?

A Special Night

2005-10-15T14:00:00.000-05:00

I don't usually make a big deal about my birthday. I guess I don't really see the point. I mean, everyone has birthdays and they have a tendency to happen every year, so what makes any particular birthday special?

This year, though, I turn 25. A quarter century. This in of itself is really only significant because we use a base-10 number system, which is completely arbitrary, and hold quarters of things to be somehow meaningful. Nonetheless, since I do use the base-10 number system and tend to hold quarters to be somehow special, I guess this is something of a milestone. A quarter-century...

So last night I thought it would be fun to go out to the Gasthof zur Gemütlichkeit, a German restaurant here in Minneapolis and one of my favorite places ever. They actually have imported German beer on tap and the food is spectacular. Plus the atmosphere is just fun. I invited some of my friends from work to come out as well.

What I got was 16 people who came out to wish me a happy birthday, and a number of others who wanted to be there. It really was more than I ever expected (they even paid for my meal and someone gave me a carved pumpkin). I couldn't believe it. It really was a special night.

Thank you.