Monday, September 5, 2011

A legitimate reason for my recent silence..

Ummm, yeah.  I guess you could say real life started back up for me.  About three weeks ago a friend called out of the blue and after catching up for a bit told me that she was leaving her position as a graduate assistant track coach at Tufts to pursue other endeavors, primarily returning to school full time.  Knowing that I had been bouncing around without a real level of seriousness since I returned to Maine she suggested that, if I was interested, I should contact the women's coach and see if she had anyone in mind to fill the position.

After mulling over the idea for a couple of days I decided it wouldn't hurt to show a little bit of interest, get a bit more information about the position, and at least get my name out a bit more within the coaching ranks so if other positions were to become available my name may get a mention.  As it turned out none of those future contingency outlooks were necessary because after a couple hours of good conversation I became the new graduate assistant coach with the women's cross country and track and field teams.  This means, more or less, that I'll be a full time assistant coach for the next couple of years and getting paid a minute stipend while taking master's courses that are paid for by Tufts.  In the span of two weeks I've developed a (potentially..) pretty serious two-three year plan that's gotten me extremely excited, while also bumming me out to an equal extent because clearly this means I won't be returning to the 808 any time soon.

While having my share of freak-out, overwhelmed moments I spent August 24-26 in the Greater Medford/Somerville attempting to get the proper administrative paperwork in order to begin work on the 31st, classes on Sept 6, and also, well, find a place to live and resolve all that other nonsense that relocation entails.  As is often the case with my life this all went rather smoothly.  And by rather smoothly I mean I was able to find a crusty room to rent on the cheap close to campus and have about half of my academic information in place for classes to begin tomorrow.  But coaching started up a week ago and I have to say I'm loving things.  After being away from sports in general for a couple of years I think I've gotten into the proper frame of mind mentally that allows me to enjoy coming to work every day.  Granted, it's only been a week; however, I'm extremely excited about the opportunity to work with some talented athletes and learn from the quality coaches I'll be working under.  As I process how things have progressed over the past couple of weeks I just find myself having an all-encompassing desire to learn which I never had while an undergraduate at Bates.  I needed some of this shit to be on my own terms and now that it's my decision to get back involved and be busy and broke I'd better be as positive mentally as I can and just make the best of it.

I feel extremely lucky for how things have worked out, and to some extent I feel a little bit guilty how easily things have worked out for me, dating as far back as high school.  At the same time I've worked my ass off to certain extents, and this work ethic has opened quite a few doors for me.  So if you want me to apologize for getting lucky and landing interesting opportunities by my "flexible" schedules in life, well, that's just not going to happen.  K, I'll stop defending myself...now.

Anyways, I'm planning to begin taking courses in pursuit of an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, with my focus being on the Environmental Policy side of things.  My crunchy, granola-eating side is going to finally show itself more than just letting my face and hair grow long.  Actually, I did trim my beard growth considerably prior to kids returning to campus.  However, the hair, banana clips and all, is here to stay for the foreseeable future.  That's just where my comfort level lies.  So I'll be taking two courses in that field beginning tomorrow, taking the GRE's soon as well and then applying to the program in January for acceptance to begin in the fall of 2012.  If accepted then I'll be residing in the Greater Boston area for another year or two as I complete the necessary coursework, internships, and thesis.  Yikes, right?

Strange thing?  This (probably..) three year commitment doesn't feel daunting at all.  Taking classes right now without being officially enrolled in a program isn't all that scary to me.  At worst, if I'm not accepted then I'll have spent a year taking courses of my choosing that I was interested in and gained another year of coaching experience at an institution well respected for both its academic rigor and athletic prowess.  And, my acceptance into a program will more or less take care if itself so long as I do well in the two classes I'm taking this fall, providing even more motivation for me to get my head out of my ass and actually do my best to learn.

Alright, I've talked plenty about myself for today.  This definitely feels like the lamest post I've ever written and I apologize for not telling more folks about this before I skipped town.  I'm sneaky, what can I say.  But now that I've moved in and settled into a place with more opportunity for interweb I hope I'll be able to resume goofy topics concerning me experiencing a new place.  I certainly don't enjoy people that much and, while not NYC, there are certainly quite a few more people around here than in the 207 or 808.  Let's see how this goes...Cheers.

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PS - Dammit.  I had some goofy-ass videos I had been meaning to post for a little while but I just realized these links are all bookmarked on my desktop at home.  Sorry folks.  Nothing in particular is coming to mind right now so stay tuned until I'm able to remember or I'm able to unearth new gems.  That is all, and, as always, thanks for your continued readership of the 'Pad..

Monday, August 15, 2011

Comedic Gold..


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And Silver (Hell, maybe platinum...hilarious..)..
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No work for this guy today.  Though I do have some business I'll be tending to over the course of the day I'd like to think I can get actual commentary on here by days end.  Then again it's almost 5:30 and my lights are still on.  So flip a coin and we'll see which side comes up...Cheers.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

There and back again..

Speaking to my lack of posting.. 
...I'm not sure if my activities have picked up (doubt it..), my brain has picked up, or the degree to which I'd like to discuss things has decreased but but at the same time the number of times I say to myself "this would be an appropriate blog topic.." has increased, perhaps tenfold so.  However, once I sit down I find myself to only have one or two sentences to say that I find interesting and of merit and I'm left staring dumbfounded at the screen for quite a few moments before my mouse scurries away to change the song I'm listening to or to bring solitaire back to the forefront (See what I did there...I used mouse, followed by scurry.  That's funny, right..?).  
The topics which come to my mind or the folks I encounter, while extremely interesting to me and my own mind, I struggle to find ways to phrase in more mellow and humorous tones without naming names and delving too deeply into my psyche.  I've never discussed with anyone potential topics.  Ever.  A few folks have suggested interactions or doings or goings-on of mine which they believe to be blogworthy and I do take these suggestions into account and one or two of these topics have found their way onto the blue letters on the forefront of this yellow backdrop.  But, shit, I don't know what it is but I've been struggling since about March to find topics that I want to actually RAMBLE on.  
My digressions have come to a standstill.  My tangents feel tangented out. Call it a rut.  Call it a funk.  Call it whatever you'd like to but, more or less the fact remains that since the new year began my attention to detail (and by "detail" I mean: regular blogging, and also proofreading the few posts I am able to conjure up..) has decreased significantly.  No doubt this decrease has been impacted by a multitude of factors.  Surprisingly, I believe this decrease was most likely caused by a decision to return east that ultimately occurred just a few [Editor's note: Now, shit, twelve?] short weeks ago.  As I reflect, slightly drunkenly, I'm more or less certain I can nail down three cornerstone philosophies which my posts have always touched on.  Mostly I shoot to entertain myself.  Secondly I hope I entertain other close to me who choose to read every now and again.  Thirdly, which, I'm sure others have kind of realized already, is that I enjoy escaping from what most would call "reality." 
It is this third factor that has been causing the most confusion to my typing recently.  Once I had it set in my mind my plan was to return to the Northeast, it was easy to separate myself from new, soon-to-be reality by, well, actually relaxing and enjoying the time spent on one of the most beautiful islands on this here planet Earth.  Somehow, I'm not sure how exactly, I changed my motivations of maximizing those future-ish goals/ambitions/plans/whatever I'd written down which required, well, money, to finally (I guess?) actually, following through on some of those "future-ish whatevers," this being making it to the city of San Francisco, hopping a flight from Burlington to JFK because I had planned to go to NYC before I ended up in VT on a whim to party like a college student again, buying three 30packs at the corner store fifteen minutes before they close to keep a party going until dawn...nothing related to actual professionalism, all related to searching for (or some nights attempting to create) that next good time.  Just live.
This was all (well, most.  Revisions and additions happened slightly.  It needed a bit of polishing.  Hell, it still could use a bit more polishing..) I got through before I quit that particular evening.  The date was May 26.  I don't recall any particular spark of inspiration.  

This next blurb was written prior to the "short story" I posted just a quick minute ago:
I've become mildly infatuated with pandora and I don't particularly care that it seems to have fallen out of style with a lot of people. Newer, hipper sites have more options which allow users to create playlists and not have commercials and probably some other stuff that I don't even know is possible on a free music-playing website (special streaming stations, cars that have wings to activate so they can fly away, the options may very well be endless..) but pandora is simple. I can type in an artist that I enjoy and hear some of their music along with some artists I've heard before and associate with my artist of choice. What's more interesting to me is hearing artists I've never heard before, or songs by some artists that I generally wouldn't associate with my artist of choice. NEW MUSIC, WHAT FUN!

This shouldn't be as interesting as I'm making it out to be. Actually, I haven't made it out to be interesting at all. This could explain the many moons I've allowed to pass since I've last posted. I'm not doing nothing. I am doing things. Generally, drinking. Less so, drinking. I don't particularly enjoy discussing my less fine points over and over and over again because there are only so many ways you can paint drunken nights as youthful indiscretions. Especially when you're not exactly a youth anymore and the days you “casually drink until five in the morning” are much more common than days where, well, the “casual drinking” ends slightly before five in the morning. I'd actually enjoy being able to say that I've been burning the candle at both ends, but if the candle has been lit during the day I didn't light it. I suppose you could say I've done a fine job of saving on wick and wax in the mornings because my ass struggles to get out of bed before noon at best on days when I don't have to make it to the office.

Aside: I've just found out the “delete” key on my laptop sticks. I was eating a sangwich a few months ago and some jelly slid out onto my keyboard and it was then I figured out why you’re not supposed to eat around and over semi-high priced electronics. Sue me…So now when I press it to delete a letter it might delete one...or thirty or fifty letters that may have made up some part of a potentially clever phrase or statement. 
I may actually be one of the only people who uses the “delete” key with quite a bit of frequency. I found it to be quite handy back in the day when I used to actually edit some of my writing. I guess you could say recently I'd fit in well with the Grantland crowd. ZING.  Bill Simmons has become everything he used to claim to hate about sports reporting.  You had a good run, Sportsguy.  Now you're Dan Shaughnessy in "blog" form.  For shame.  Tidbit: they both went to Holy Cross.  I wonder if Danny knows he has a wiki page.  You can learn a lot on the interweb..
Anyways the “delete” key removes text in the opposite direction of the “backspace” key. "Delete" is especially helpful when creating paragraphs from the large blocks of text I sometimes think in. So I can click somewhere after the period of a sentence, hit return, and if I happened to have some spaces to start my new paragraph I can just hit "delete" once or twice and not have to use my arrows or cursor. Also helpful with capital corrections as I have the uncanny ability to place my cursor immediately before a word starts but I can never quite be accurate enough to get it placed just after the first letter of a word. Quirky efficiency trumps the need to refine already learned behavior. 
Let me now continue.  I drink. I smoke dope. I don't like talking about dope smoking because I have a disconnect with some of my readers. Older readers. Motherly readers.  Same goes for the every-night boozing.  I don't enjoy celebrating it, even though I could probably write a book on the days-in-the-life of myself and the people I've encountered this fine summer.  It's been brutally fun.
But enough on that...I also have irrational fears. I have never been afraid of snakes before very recently, even though I never particularly cared for them. Now I can't even look at pictures without my shit, let alone see them. Ask Shawn about what I do when I see a snake. Holy smokes. I pulled into Florian's Market in the early afternoon to buy some sips for an afternoon by the pool circa-June-ish when I noticed near the entrance a sick motherfucker that had two (FUCKING TWO) snakes around his neck.  One was one of those yellow and white sonsofbitches that was at least as thick as a pint glass in the middle and probably six feet long.  FUCK THAT.  WINDOWS UP DOORS LOCKED and I sped through the parking lot to get the hell out of dodge.  I was stupid and waited to turn left and the whole time I was getting more and more flustered.  This was my only experience with something that could be termed a panic attack and, let me tell you: it was excruciatingly miserable and if I never see another snake for the rest of my life it'll still be too soon.  When I watch Planet Earth I try to figure out in my head based on the title if it'll be snake-free or not.  Let's just say I've never see the "Jungles" one or any of that horseshit.  Lions mauling an elephant,  however, are good, old fashioned family fun for all ages.
And murky water. Murky sea water especially but I don't particularly care for murky lake water, either.  A couple of weeks ago I spent a couple of nights in Harpswell, tucked up the coast on the New Meadows River north of Cundy's Harbor but still very much on the ocean and I couldn't get this irrational fear of jumping in from the dock and getting pummeled by a shark.  These fears came out of nowhere and are more or less unfounded.  Hell, this happened well before Shark Week on Animal Planet.  I took a dip but I was in and out before you could count to three.  F my paranoia.
I wanted to continue this that particular evening but at the same time I really wanted to write about killing a seal so I stopped the former and concentrated on the latter.  One of these days I'm going to write an interesting, well-developed and complete short story.  That wasn't it.

Let's resume...somewhere.  Last night I wanted to go to bed early.  I had nothing to do and wasn't sold on watching game two of the Sox-Twins series.  So around 8:15pm I brushed my teeth and filled my water bottle.  I always try to fill my water bottle before bed so if I wake up in the middle of the night thirsty I don't have to walk to the kitchen.  This doesn't happen a lot but it certainly helps me sleep easier knowing its there.  Anyways I filled my water bottle then decided I could also make a BM before bed and that that would probably help me sleep a little better, too.  I took a seat and picked up a Sporting News and started reading about some linebacker from ASU who supposedly had some pretty serious collisions floating around on youtube.  I took the bait and checked them out.  These clips led to other football hits in general.  Which led to some home plate collisions in baseball.  Which led to baseball trick plays.  Which led to a couple of Dustin Pedroia interviews.  Which led back to baseball plays.  Which led to warranted and unwarranted baseball ejections.  Which somehow transitioned to hockey goals and fights.  Which then led to Sportscenter Top 10 plays and other random clips and interviews from the sporting world.  This led to me sitting in my computer chair in my room with the lights off from roughly 8:30pm Tuesday evening until 2:45am Wednesday morning.  Early evening, indeed.  Remarkably, none of the highlights involved Bo Jackson.  Guess that leaves me something to search for tonight..
Another aside: somehow last night in my sports-related travels I came upon this:
I had an inkling to post it somewhere, ideally here but it probably would have ended up on thefacebook because I'm lazy and I didn't have any desire to write last night.  It reminded me of my whole seal-killing story.  That's a TON of blood.  If I had to choose between a bear attack and a shark attack I've always said I'd choose two bears over a single shark...but this might make me seriously rethink my position.  Mildly frightening, but not downright scary.  My own trauma occurred when the video ended and one of the four "similar videos" that pop up when a video ends was titled "Burmese python strikes and constricts" or something deplorable like that.  I came as close to throwing up looking at a computer screen as I ever have before and that was as I was X'ing out my whole window, other tabs-be-damned.  I'm pretty sure I have a serious snake phobia.  I made it back to it tonight but I didn't finish the video and didn't look at the righthand margin.  I really don't like snakes these days [Editor's note: I got a chill when I proofread this paragraph.  I'm 100% fucked.]. 
To continue...instead of getting up and being productive starting at 8:30am this morning the alarm sounded on cue then finally stopped after a couple of minutes and I stayed in bed until after eleven.  Yes, you read that correctly: I'm now too lazy to reach over and shut my phone alarm off manually.  Once I made it out of bed I had a cup of coffee and sat myself down on the couch around 11:30am where I took a nap until 2:30pm to wake up and flip between shows on the Cooking Channel and the Food Network.  That's been a pretty standard day in the life.

Maybe I should lie to people and tell them I actually do more than sleep late and waste most days away.  But, I don't.  I've been in Maine for three months and I've worked fourteen days total since I've been back.  I've been paid for three but that's besides the point.  Money is and should be tight but I always seem to find a way to buy beer, wine, spirits, smoke, whatever is needed.  I don't own a car but I can mooch off of my parents enough that I can always make it to the bar or the show or the beach.  I've yet to do more than converse about what most would term serious, legitimate employment.  I'm fairly certain I've drank more nights in the last three months than I haven't, and drank to excess more evenings than your run-of-the-mill 27 year old should drink period. This leads to varying degrees of uncomfortability (yes, I just made that up..) around the general public who haven't ventured down these particular roads since it was socially acceptable many moons ago in their college years.  That and I'm still more than able to disregard "tolerance" and get myself far more sloppy than these people who hardly ever party.


What people find to be refreshing at first glace when I tell them I have no immediate future plans soon become head shakes when their questions have been repeated a couple of times over and I'm still, more or less, in the same place.  I should say my drinking habits aren't true all the time.  When I don't leave the house I tend to not drink.  I just don't do anything that could be viewed as productive, either, unless someone is really looking for a delicious orzo-stuffed peppers recipe (Giada came through in the clutch for anyone who is interested..).

Newsflash: my answers don't just seem to wear on you.  Your questions wear on me.  I've grown tired of defending myself because I know, at some point soon, something interesting is going to shake out for me.  An unforeseen job opportunity.  A new place to travel.  Hell, if I've got nothing going on by Labor Day then I'm setting off to meander up the Long Trail in Vermont, then probably head back to the 808 to get my job back and keep my tan for the winter.  Are those aspirations lofty enough for me?


Remarkably these questions aren't even really coming from parental influences.  (Some, not close) Friends and (much more frequently) acquaintances: I don't want your life.  I don't want to be a cubicle monkey.  I NEVER want to be a cubicle monkey.  There are more things to life than being able to say, "I have a job in an office, I have a car, I have my own apartment."  Those things validate your steps (in your view..) forward in life, but at the end of the day they're just things.  Generally, things that tie you down.  Yeah, your 401k is in better shape than mine.  I guess you win.  But shit, for the most part I'm happy.  Not all the time.  I've yet to meet someone who's happy all the time.  The fact I'm writing about being happy obviously means I'm not totally happy but that shit happens so whatever.  Everyone has ambitions and goals and hidden secrets that they'd love to work out and come through but that's just not life.  I mean, fuck, I'm 27 and I live at home with my parents and I drink too much so obviously I'm not GREAT...but things could be a lot worse.


I'm sure on some level this is directed at no one other than myself to pep me up and refocus my efforts and shake the end-of-summer doldrums.  To help me transition into fall with new-found motivation and vigor.  I don't want to get snowed in again.  That happened two years ago and was miserable until I escaped.  Then again maybe I should just stop listening to angst-ridden 90's rock and reading Tolstoy's Confession and Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up and believing their valleys somehow speak to the up-and-down nature of my perceived existence.  That being said, Francis Scott might have been onto something when he wrote, "...in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day."

Who's glad I started writing again?


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Dinosaurs, unlike snakes, do not scare me:
Dinosaurs AND t&a?  That'll leave me with a smile.  Thanks, Frank.  Cheers.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Untitled..

I killed a seal today. I wasn't my intention but it was either him or me. I woke up and walked into the living room and, sure enough, he was already awake. He was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea and an english muffin biscuit. The god dam seal was eating a breakfast I didn't particularly care for, but still: he was eating my breakfast. How could this be? This was the last tea bag. There will be none for breakfast tomorrow if you don't purchase more. Decaffeinated green. This cannot be.

I blinked the crusted sleep from my eyes and I walked to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I took the washcloth and soaked it in cold water from the faucet and placed it on my eyes to remove the remnants of the night and then placed the washcloth on the back of my neck while I splashed water from the still-running faucet on my face.

He held out a razor. He didn't say a word. He said it's time to start your day.

Day? What day? I had been out of work for three months. Budget cuts. I became expendable. Too many of me at too much salary. We're going digital, they said. Severance was more profitable for business than, well, me. It's not like I didn't see it coming, just as I knew the seal would come to his senses in a moment or two, too. I took the washcloth off of my neck and wrung most of the cold water out and wiped my face moist with the still damp washcloth. When I sat the washcloth down on the edge of the sink he had already put the toothpaste on the brush and had wetted it under the faucet. I shut off the faucet and brushed and then turned the faucet back on to rinse the toothpaste out of my mouth and then shut off the faucet once more. I stared into the mirror over the sink and examined myself. I realized that I was naked.

I returned to the bedroom to dress. The seal had laid my cleanest shirt and slacks on the bed but was nowhere to be found. I dressed and walked out and, again, he was seated on the couch. I picked up the newspaper off of the coffee table. The elastic had been removed; it had already been opened. Yesterday's news. I took a sweater from the coat rack and put it on and then walked outside into the crisp fall air. It had come early this year. I lit a cigarette and began walking down the driveway and then continued down the street into the morning sunshine. I had forgotten to turn off the television. I hoped he would remember.

When I returned from my walk with a shopping bag in my hand he was outside, raking leaves. I decided this would be as good of a time as any. I clubbed him over the head with the same shovel I used to bury him. He didn't make a sound. He knew it wouldn't have made a difference even if he had. Seals are remarkably intuitive creatures. He had asked me after breakfast if I would buy more tea for tomorrow. I didn't answer him and it was then that he knew.

At first I considered eating him but I didn't know nearly enough about seals to know what to throw away and what to eat.  "Tender seal fillets” sounds much better in your head than in internet searches. And besides, it wasn't even eleven by the time I put the shovel down the first time.

After tamping the remaining squares of sod into place I put the shovel down for the last time and then looked at my hands. Calloused and earthen, they looked like the hands of a blue collar, hard working man. I picked up the shopping bag and walked inside and sat down at the kitchen table. I removed the box from the bag and stood up and turned on the kettle. I returned to the table until the kettle whistled.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

I hear it's your birthday..

It's my birthday, too.  Yeah.

Big things going on tonight.  Gipper's Sports Grill is hooking it up tonight and after 9pm all draft beers will be half price in honor of yours truly.  I'm kind of a big deal in this town.

And since I'm old as dirt here's a little throw back to my youth for you all..
A timeless classic, really.  Man, it was good to be in kindergarten.  There's no better time in a man's life than when you're young enough for it to still be socially acceptable to pull your pants all the way to your ankles at a urinal.  I may try that move one or twice during the course of the evening because, well, dammit it's MY DAY.  Cheers (and see you all tonight at Gip's..).

O, a PS for you:

I had the pleasure of hearing Eric Carle speak at my college graduation a few years back.  Tell me this guy isn't the man:
A spitting image of Burl Ives, isn't he?

Monday, June 20, 2011

Addition by subtraction..

"The time has come," the blogger said, "to type from memory,
"Of New York City, Auburn nights, and Manchester, Tennessee.."

The hardest thing I've found about not blogging for so long is my struggle to incorporate old business that really deserves discussion while I try not to fall behind on current events.  This past week alone I've been up well after 4am four out of seven nights (latest documented clock was 6:19am Friday evening/Saturday morning, jumped in a pool after 3am, drank 1000 beers (give or take a twelve pack..), hit up the Bruins' Stanley Cup Parade in Boston, bachelor partied for Jeffrey Sloat's upcoming nuptials , spotted Tim Thomas at Foxwoods and told him he was "the man" while forgetting to shake his hand (Yep, I didn't shake his hand.  Liam shook his hand.  I spotted him from afar and got all girly and wanted to take a picture while Liam threw out a handshake.  Liam got the handshake.  I got shot down by midget PR man.  Still, I'd rather shoot for the moon.  And my stand up to say "Tim Thomas!" put a nice, shit-eating grin on his face.  Shaking a guy's hand sounded better on thefacebook than making a guy smile.  So I lied.  Sue me.), got back to the gym on two CONSECUTIVE days, and many many more goofy shit.  AND THAT'S JUST ONE, rather average, WEEK.

I'd love love love to talk more about this past week and many weeks that have encompassed my leaving the 808 (doubtful this will ever happen..), my parents visiting the 808 (slightly more likely but still don't hold your breath..), my travels to San Fran (the post I wrote while in SF will likely have to do unless a tangent brings me back..) Burlington, New York, Boston (twice..), as well as more recent happenings in Greater L/A but first I must do my best to discuss the elephant that's been in the room since June 13, and likely well before since I had no preparatory lead-in...and that would be the Bonnaroo in Tennessee.
Main entrance early Friday afternoon, with the What stage in the background.  Pretty crafty shot, eh?
Yes, The Bonnaroo.  THE Bonnaroo.  And it will always be "The Bonnaroo," because The Boss Bruce Springsteen wouldn't stop calling it "The Bonnaroo" during his epic (to me..) three hour set two years ago at my first Bonnaroo.  Besides the Boss and his E Street Band, I've never heard anyone else throw "the" in front of Bonnaroo.  It's just "Bonnaroo."  Plus, it reminds me of Adam Sandler's Goat skit off of What The Hell Happened To Me when the goat wants to head down to the ragu festival to do some mosh pitting.  We encountered quite a few people down at the Bonnaroo who were not familiar with the Goat and his verbage.  I thought everyone was familiar with Adam Sandler's early-ish works but I guess that's not the case.  This actually proved mildly entertaining as J.Mac and I can crack ourselves up for hours with the same few jokes we tell every day and, for the people we hung out with at our tent, our material was entirely new and fresh and unlike anything they had ever heard before.

Not to get too distracted and off topic but a lot of nonsense gets talked when J.Mac and I roll together.  He's turned me on to some of his old college clan's catchphrases and buzzwords, and I have done the same with the goofy shit we used to talk about back in the day in A-Town.  AT THE SAME TIME, our more-or-less everyday debauchery in the 808 provided us with ample opportunity of goof-talk material.  It's tough to describe in no other way than to say we've succeeded in setting Webster's English language back a couple few hundred years.  It's a tight rope across a fine line and the line gets crossed many, many times a day but only in the name of fun and humor.  A couple few years back, I think around the summer of 2009 I was told my life is, more or less, a walking "that's what she said.." joke.  Most every sentence spoken, and oftentimes just a single word, can elicit a follow up goofy song lyric, movie quote, joke, story, you name it.  And for me one of the better parts of my day is, well, just free flowing all of this shit that I think in my head.  So, Noah, while you say you want to kick it this summer I must prepare you for things being decidedly worse than a couple of years ago.  I hope you understand that I do it to entertain myself and others, not to bother you. 

So, on to Bonnaroo.  First time around was, for the most part, orchestrated to a T.  Either Mr. Lawler or myself had quite a few bands we were passionate about and wanted to see and we made every effort to see as many acts as we could.  And the music was awesome.  Just, flat out, awesome.  Even being completely worn out for the last two days due to a weeklong bender that traveled down the east coast, we never missed a show we had set our minds on seeing.  And it was a blast.  But the focus was on the music and the music alone. 

Not that Mr. Lawler had planned a lot in advance, but things were certainly more haphazard in preparations for round two.  Obviously some of this was simply due to the fact I had been before and knew, for the most part, what to expect, but at the same time this was much more of an impulse purchase than last time.  There were many acts that caught my interest this time around but I had very little familiarity with most of them.  Not having a car for my time in Hawaii didn't let me prepare in the same manner I did before, buying used CD's at Bull Moose to investigate newer acts.  I had no car so I had no motivation to buy CD's.  Pandora or any internet radio was never an option because we pirated wireless and our ground floor apartment had a swollen prostate or something so we could only produce a weak stream of "internet" with varying consistency.  My iPod ALSO finally shit out on me sometime around March or so after close to six good years of service and, well, I just decided not to buy another one as it's not too bad to listen to the sounds of your surroundings.  It seems my internal monologue entertains me now more than ever, and I'm ok with that.

But, damn it, again I'm stretching slightly off topic.  What I'm trying to say is there were very few acts I went into feeling like I HAD to see.  This time around was a much more take-things-as-they-come.  And it worked out equally as well, though very, very different from the first go-round.  Temperatures were HOT HOT HOT this time.  Upper 90's every day with no cloud cover whatsoever.  By the end of the week Centeroo (Bonnaroo proper, where the stages and tents and other goofy shit were located) was a virtual old west dust bowl.  Last time is was middle 80's at most, clouds rolled through on the regular, and serious (SERIOUS.  The hardest rain I've ever seen in my life was on I-24 headed east from Nashville to Manchester.  Tornado warnings were all over the radio.  I was going 25 on the highway with my wipers flailing and I couldn't see beyond the hood.  And this is another aside...Can someone explain to me "past" and "passed" usage again.  I can't figure it out for the life of me.  Time passed, half past.  I get that.  But I'm almost never confident I use the correct one.  Really grinds my gears.  That's why I just used "beyond."  I think I could use "past," but I'm just not sure...HELP!) rain fell Thursday morning and Thursday night, creating some mud pockets but eliminating dust.  Dust had never crossed my mind as green grass was everywhere last time around.  To put it mildly, the dust was miserable.  My throat is still burning after being back home from a week (Some may say my body's got some sickness from the seven week bender I've been on that has continued well, let me get back to you tomorrow as chances are good I'll have a couple of pops somewhere...but I still blame the dust.
My Jesus Feets on Sunday afternoon. It's not mud.  It's...crud..
Cold War Kids set on Sunday.  But you could tell that through the...dust.............
This may also be a good time to say I took no pictures last time.  Everything I mention about 2009's Bonnaroo is just my [sometimes mis-]remembrances.  I hope to stay accurate, but I'm really not sure.  Memories come and go and twist and return sometimes.  Should have taken better notes last time.

Sorry.  It's nearing 3am and I must go to bed.  What I plan to elaborate on further (and re-read this to correct grammatical mistakes.....) tomorrow...nah forget it I won't ruin it.  Pretend your a single-digit kid and it's the night before your birthday and you didn't snoop for presents...nervous anticipation!  Just listen to The Goat and laugh your ass off.
Cheers (and plenty more to come...and go back and re-read my Lewis Carroll twist.  It's genius. A fine example of the reason YOU WANT ME ON THIS PAGE.  YOU NEED ME ON THIS PAGE.  And...scene.

Also just realized I had still been posting as of Hawaiian Standard Time.  It was, in fact, the lug nut.  And, yes.  I fixed it.).

Thursday, June 16, 2011

O BABAY

Productive day?  LOOKING THAT WAY. 

Made it to bed before 2am?  CHECK. 

Up before 8am?  CHECK. 

Heading to the gym?  CHECK. 

Heading into the sunshine post-swolesession?  CHECK.

Sippits in the sunshine?  Yeah, most likely.

Thursday evening at Gipper's?  I'D BE A FOOL NOT TO.

Boston for the weekend?  SOUNDS LIKE FUN, EVEN FOR A small kine HOCKEY FAN.

So much for backing off of the bender...this is rapidly approaching two months.  I'd say I'm getting too old for this but, hell, it's [Thursday], I ain't got no job, and I ain't got shit to do.  Cheers.

Sweet T[N].

To begin:

Never toast bread for a sangwich, then not immediately eat the sangwich.  It just tastes like you're eating stale, day old bread.  I don't like stale, day old bread.  If you like stale, day old bread I may have just handed you the secret to a happy life.  Thank me later.

I set out with some delicious chicken salad to make a tasty dinner and it certainly was prepared by yours truly with love, the real key to making delicious meals.  And, c'mon, toasted bread, ESPECIALLY marble rye toasted, is a perfect vessel for chicken salad consumption.  Unfortunately, post-sangwich-making I got distracted and my chicken salad sangwich sat on its plate for quite some time and, upon my return, the bread was no longer warm and crispy but room temperature, rather dry, and somewhat chewy.  To sum: my dinner was average at best this evening.  Ho hum.

ANYWAYS I've been on quite a vacation these past three or so weeks.  Today, as I sit in my home office I feel a weary, east coast traveler.  I can say east coast because this past week I made it within a stone's throw of Atlanta and thus well below the line that bears Mason Dixon's name.  In fact, I was behind the wheel when we passed into Maryland and I saw the "Mason Dixon Line" sign on whatever interstate we were on at  the time and I felt pretty special.  I don't remember ever seeing one of those signs before.  Unfortunately it caught me by surprise and I was the only one awake at the time so no picture was able to be taken.

Let's call this foreshadowing.  I need to get to sleep.  I'm attempting to force myself back into a normal sleep schedule.  I didn't realize it was 5am until Papa Skip called when he got up to make sure I'd be home with his car so he could go to work.  Nothing says shenanigans like getting home after 5am on a Wednesday morning and saying, "Hi, parents." while they're readying for work.  Good thing I'm on vacation for the rest of the week...Cheers (And more, much more to come.  This I promise you, written in pen.  Not pencil..).

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Haters gonna...hate?

Yes.  It's true.  All I've done for the past couple of months is apologize for my lack of posting.  But, hell.  It is what it is.  And that cliche phrase means that sometimes other business takes precedence.  And for the last 10 weeks that's meant: Marie & Skip coming to Maui for some days.  My last days of work.  My last days (for now...?) on Maui.  San Fransisco for a few days.  Maine for ten or so days, which was surprisingly new and decidedly different than any other Maine experiences to date.  A couple of Portland trips, the latter leading to an evening in Burlington and a suddenly-booked flight to NYC, where i currently sit on a couch at 5:30am and my innerworkings are forcing me to blog right now because I do, actually, enjoy this goofiness.

And...yes.  As far as the internet goes, I've still got it.  Don't believe me?  Scope this!!!!!!!

It looks as though moose is a dog  A dog that looks like a piece of run over shit, but apparently it's a dog all the same.  This person takes pictures of his moose in precarious situations, then posts them to an online photo site.  Moose seems like a pretty cool dude.  Click on "moose on stuff" on the page to see his two page and twelve or so pictures of perfect art.  Well played, sir or madam.  And read the bio.  Moose is a god-damned rock star.

--

I have the hiccups.  Hiccups are fucking lame.  Carry on.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Square one, my slate is clear..

Aloha.  In case you forgot, my name is Matt and I used to be a pretty serious blogger up until a couple of months ago.  Then, it appears, I quit cold turkey.  Let me see if I can get back into things over the next couple of weeks and months; Lord knows I don't think I'll have anything better to do.

This post finds me in San Francisco staying in Big Black Eric's apartment while Eric is in New Orleans.  Pretty silly, I know.  I like San Francisco.  I've been here since midday on Tuesday and I'd love to spend a few more days here but with Mother's Day on Sunday I've decided to keep my red eye flight Friday evening.  I love you, Ma.  Something tells me I'll be looking to make it back out this way later on in the summertime, though.  There's a three day music festival in Golden Gate Park around the middle of August which has caught my eye.  Attendance will be determined based on how motivated I am following Bonnaroo.  I have a hunch I'll be pretty fired up to continue touring and the lineups are different enough that it should prove more than entertaining if I can make things work.

I spent most of Wednesday wandering the northern half of the city on foot, and for a city of a million people it seemed surprisingly clean and well, relatively safe.  The weather has been tremendous, too.  I had no idea what to expect as the city is located in Northern California but it's been close to 80 the three days I've been here and tomorrow sounds no different.  The sun isn't quite as strong as on the Valley Isle but it still felt nice wandering around in shorts and sandals for half a day.  I made it to the corner of Haight and Asbury as part of a little hippy self-exploration but was pretty bummed to find a Ben & Jerry's scoop shop there.  Normally New England-based companies popping up far away put a smile on my face, but this seemed a little to contrived.  O well, that's capitalism for you.
Don't Hate.  Haight...get it?  Didn't think so..
I spent awhile walking into all of the goofy head shops looking for a replacement for my old Grateful Dead shirt from back in '96 but had no luck.  Seems to be a trend, I've never seen another shirt like it.  I don't have a picture of it but there's not much left of it anymore.  Many, many holes.  It has to be my favorite shirt, though I don't wear it often because it's destroyed and most everyone finds it inappropriate to wear in most public settings.  Some day I'll find a new one and hopefully take better care of it - dryers are the enemy.

From here?  Back to Maine.  Hopefully getting some hiking in right off the bat.  Put some air in my bike tries and get rolling around town.  I'm quite certain I won't be buying a car in the near future; fuck gas prices.  Truth be told I'm a little nervous about heading back to town.  I haven't been away for very long but at the same I feel like I'm going to grow tired quite quickly of discussing my motivations for moving back.  I DON'T KNOW WHY I DID.  Heh, heh.  Felt right at the time, so going to make sure it's right.

One of the first things I'm going to do when I get home is wash my hair.  Without the ocean to freshen up the mop the last couple days I'm already feeling unhappy with its present state and I can only foresee things getting worse.  That, and I've got some natty dreads forming in the back and I feel like those are an all or nothing kind of a hairstyle until I end up a homeless vagrant.  Which I hope doesn't occur anytime soon.  I hope Cindy at Taboo can still work her magic because I'm not sure I've got a home remedy up my sleeve to completely solve this problem.  That and I feel like the first time you wash your hair in a given year should be a special event, especially considering we're five months into the year.  Oops, guess I just kept forgetting.

On that lovely thought I must be going to bed.  I'm wheels up in less than 24 hours and I've still got the Golden Gate Bridge to try to check out.  I did make it to the pretty Queen Anne Victoria's across from Alamo Square.  And it now appears there were a couple of babes in bikini tops so that wasn't bad, either and provided me an opportunity to take a good, albeit sketchy to some, picture from the top of the greenspace.  Heeeeeeeeeey, aqualung..

And as I'm a sucker for a sunset..
...I took this while I was attending my first ever Bates alumni event.  It was at a yacht club down close to Marina Green, clearly right on the water.  Eric made me wear shoes and a collared shirt; I was unimpressed and upon arrival deemed it completely unnecessary though moot because I brought neither tshirt nor sandals to the event.  I stepped outside with a glass of wine and a snack for 20 or so minutes to take it all in.  It was a nice middle to my Wednesday.  Every now and again Bates proves its worth, and I found this to be one of those times.  Free wine and sunsets: That's what this guy does.

--

I watched music videos for the first time tonight in forever.  I happened to flip to either Fuse or Palladia (can't remember which..) And Grace and the Nocturnals' video for their song Paris came on.  Pretty quality video; Grace and Catherine look sexy and they brought in some Moulin Rouge-style dancers in braziers and panties and feathers and shit.  Oo la la, indeed.  But I found this new Beastie Boys video to be even more impressive:
Pay attention to the cast of characters, it's pretty silly.

Catch you back on the east coast.  Cheers (And I think I've finally figured out how to upload pictures from my old-school cellular telephone onto thefacebook.  So, stay tuned for that tomorrow or the next day or the next day or the next day.  Exciting shit, I know..).

Friday, April 1, 2011

It's April, fools..

..and apparently New England is getting hammered with snow today...and there's nothing very funny about that. It's April; it's time to cut that snow shit. If I can't hit the links at Fairlawn immediately when I get back to the 207 then I'm going to be pretty bummed out. Well, not really, but shit, it's April. I've heard enough about snow until next year.

--

I had the last two days off from work and that was tremendous. I can't make up my mind as to whether or not I enjoy non-traditional weekends. It's weird for me to have my workweek start on a Friday and end on a Tuesday, as it has for the last couple of months. Weeks still start on Monday so I tend to get confused as to what day it is quite a bit. But at the same time it's pretty nice having a business day off to go to the bank or the post office when the need arises and not feel like I need to scramble around to fit it in on a normal workday. I've been meaning to make a dentist appointment for about nine months now and I still haven't quite squeezed that into my schedule so hopefully I'll be able to get on that on of these days, too. My pearly whites could use a little scrub from a friendly dental hygienist. It's been, well, a little while.

As Thursday happened to be my “Sunday,” I watched some Celtics on the television and the start of the baseball season while I cleaned the house. A cleaning was long overdue and the young gentleman who had been sleeping on an air mattress behind the living room couch for the last four months headed back east Thursday, so I figured the timing was right. Washed dishes. Laundered. Picked up the trash and returnables and recycling that had been slowly accumulating for quite some time in various places around our home. Then took out the trash and returnables and recycling and placed them in their appropriate receptacles. Vacuumed  (And, as our vacuum is a piece of shit and gets clogged every 30 or 45 seconds, this required me to fix the vacuum three times before our carpets were returned to pristine condition..). Heavy duty wipe-downs of the kitchen table, coffee table, sink, stove, and kitchen counters. Ya, there was a lot to be done. So while it was a struggle to get myself out of the house before six this evening to get myself down to the local farmer's market in time to score a half-priced tofu and avocado sangwich, it felt like a fairly productive day for not really leaving the house. Score one for me, as this will be the last time I do anything to clean up until it's time for us to move out at the end of the month. I think I've done my part for a good while.

--


--

I drank close to nine liters of water today. I think I've peed more than twenty times. I guess you could say it was a good day. Here's to April getting off to a good start. Cheers.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Intruding thoughts..

I walked into my room last night from the kitchen with all of the lights in the house off and stumbled around for a short while as I tried to find the lamp on my nightstand to turn on that would provide my room with some illumination in the wee hours of the morn. Since December we've had a guy sleeping in our living room on an air mattress so I try to be quasi-considerate when I'm awake and he's asleep. I mean, clearly I'm still kind of an asshole because I'll stay up surfing the wave that is the “internet” in the kitchen while he's trying to sleep, but at least I do it with the lights off. But, shit, when I get home from work gmail and facebook status updates can't wait.  And we can only pirate "internet" in our kitchen so being an asshole is kind of my only option, or I'd have a frowny face on while I try to go to bed, and I try to never go to sleep with a frown on my face.

Wow, anyways I went to flip the button that turns the light on my nightstand on and I think, “What the hell would I do if, when this light turns on and fills the room, there's someone else besides me in there?” Wouldn't that be a pretty fucked up situation? It would blow my mind. Like, wouldn't that just ruin the rest of your life?There are few things that leave people scarred for life and I think that would be one of them (Another would be rape but rape's fucked up and I don't want to talk about it and all rapists should die so let's just move on..). I mean, even if the person in my room that wasn't me wasn't doing anything. Or if they were asleep. It doesn't matter – my schema of safety and security within my house would be irreparably shattered. Yeah, SHATTERED.

Sometimes I wonder what I'd do if something happened to me like what happened to Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men when he gets into his car, starts driving, looks into his rearview mirror and homeboy's chilling in his back seat. WHAT THE SHIT?! I go through this scenario a lot late at night when I'm getting to my car. I make sure to check the back seat before I get in – I ain't no fool.

It's kind of like whatshername, Helen Hunt, maybe? in Pay It Forward, when she comes home and homeless people are kicking it in her kitchen having sangwiches because the kid who sees dead people decided it would be appropriate to invite them home for sangwiches, because, well, because the kid believes sangwiches taste better under a roof than by a trashcan fire. But, holy shit.

This would be a good teaching moment for a parent, however. “Listen, son (or daughter, but we'll stick to son because the kid who saw dead people was framed as having a penis and self-identifying as a stereotypical “male,” as defined by western culture..). Have you ever heard the saying, 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime?' You have? Great. So, next time you think to yourself, 'I'd like to feed the homeless,' DON'T FUCKING BRING THEM HOME.”

Yeah, it would go something like that.

--

In other news Coach Roach commented on an old photo album I had thrown up long ago from early college summers in the A-Town and it brought me back to what thefacebook used to be like before it became facebook and half of the planet became a member. Back in the good old days when it was a network for college students to stalk people whom they were too shy or, for whatever reason, unable to actually communicate with face-to-face. And, just now, this makes me wonder why poking has become so taboo these days. Or, was it always taboo? I don't think it was taboo, and I don't think it's taboo now. I'm still a poker and I'm not afraid or ashamed to admit it. Pokes make me feel good, and they should make you feel good, too. Poke: the best conversation starter since, well, saying hello.

Thefacebook back in the day seemed so much cooler because it was kind of an exclusive club. “Oh, you're still in high school? GETTHEFUCKOUTTAHERE.” “Oh, you're old? GETHEFUCKOUTTAHERE.” Now everyone and their mother (literally) is on thefacebook. No, I take that back. Everyone's on facebook. But, for the lucky ones, we can harken back to the days when pokes, posts, and pictures could only be seen by your goofy-ass, college-enrolled friends on the[original]facebook. Or, are we actually unlucky as we long ago lost this debaucherous sanctuary? Quite the brain buster, if you ask me..


Light weight.  Cheers.

Ides of March cometh and goeth..

And I'm without intelligent words of wisdom.  So, I'll just post a good tune for your listening pleasure and I'll try things again tomorrow.  I now say, "Goodnight;" though, I expect for most of you this will greet you as a, "Good morning."


Cheers.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Beginning semi-introspective writing...now:

Instead of spending time writing I've been doing my best to finish a couple of books over the last week or so. I enjoy reading immensely so I find it to be kind of a bummer when I don't find time to read. When I had a flat bike tire it was easy to find time because most mornings I'd take the bus down to work so I'd have time to read on the bus and more time to read before my shift started, but I'd lose time in the evenings because instead of only needing fifteen minutes to get home on the saddle I was at the mercy of the thumb gods. It's not easy hitchhiking after dark, especially with my goofy mustache, but more often than not something worked out before I got too far north. This, however, lead to two situations where I was without food to eat for a couple of days at a time because, by ten o'clock, I wasn't asking to get dropped off at the supermarket when I'd need to find another lift home from there. A pain in my ass, if you ask me, but no one asked me so I just made it work.

Anywhoo I've been able to read two books that I got myself for Christmastime. Just today I finished up Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory, more or less a biography of Pat Tillman, a former NFL player who enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and was killed by friendly fire while on patrol in Afganistan. It was a pretty good read, well-researched and well-written. And, ironically, prior to this I took a leisurely stroll through Acid Dreams - The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, and Beyond. This contained sort of a who's who of big name people from the fifties, sixties, and seventies and their experiences turning on. Beat writers, artists, politicians, millionaires, scientists, musicians, all were dabbling in psychedelics, many of which were developed and tested by the CIA and other government organizations in an effort to develop a truth serum to be used during the Cold War. Interesting read, all the same, sprinkled with excellent quotes from many different characters. Caused me to add a few titles to my “To Read” list and also brought my attention to some music I hadn't listened to in a little bit. The 13th Floor Elevators always put a smile on my face.

Instead of reading and writing, though, most evenings have been spent with leafy greens and the television on, which makes me feel even more lazy than usual. As I indicated a few days ago, Stop Making Sense has been on more or less repeat recently at 25 Heather Lane, Apt #115. And, really, I can think of few better ways to spend an evening than pressing play, getting in a Talking Heads trance for about 90 minutes and then coming to “Once in a Lifetime” and literally wondering “Well, how did [we] get here?” I don't have time to delve into great detail about my Stop Making Sense experiences, but, I'm a fan, and I find it remarkable how each song on the DVD is at once similar and entirely different from each of the other songs. I appreciate the band, the DVD, and their commitment to creativity more with each viewing. It continues, and probably will always, boggle my mind in one way or another.

Another evening last week found me reuniting with The Big Lebowski. This was glorious. Sometime during my shuffle of things in July (I think.It might have been October...my memory isn't that good..) my copy of Lebowski disappeared and it's yet to surface. I'm not sure if I left it somewhere at home, if I loaned it to someone (I don't think this is the case. I'd like to think I'd be better at keeping tabs on one of the THREE dvd's I have, well, had out here. Now I'm down to just Wayne's World and Stop Making Sense. That's really all I need, I guess. Also, I found it funny but when I was typing dvd's I missed the 's' key and hit the 'a' key. I don't care who you are: that's funny.) or it just got left behind one of the places I stayed in between. So it had been a good few months since The Dude and I had a chance to kick back together and it was especially nice to have that time to reconnect. So, yes, “The Dude time” is more important than “The 'Pad time.” My apologies to those affected.

This all leads me to ponder whether six weeks is an incredibly long amount of time or an incredibly short amount of time. I've got about six more weeks here and this is causing me to go in many directions about where I'm at in life. I think I'm taking my job too seriously, which is kind of silly considering I wipe down dirty tables for a living. And, for whatever reason, I'm choosing to leave this pretty good job, in a pretty nice climate, with pretty good weather, and pretty good scenery, and pretty pretty girls to...move back in with my parents, unemployed? What the fuck is wrong with me? I don't know. I'm finding myself bored out here, and I'm quite certain that working in a restaurant, especially a restaurant six thousand or so miles from my hometown, is not something I'm be interested in doing for even a minor portion of my future. But, holy shit, it's going to be tricky to extricate myself from this place.

I'm at a point now, where, more or less, I know I want to get busy living very soon, I'm just not quite certain I know what I want to do to get busy living. Living out here for well over a year has kind of put me into a holding pattern: I know I'd like to take another step in life, I'm just not sure in what direction I should be stepping. Compiling this angst is the very place I'm heading back to is where I felt stalled out and trapped before I...moved out here. I've resigned myself to the fact I may go home and be somewhat miserable and I'm okay with this, just the simple act of moving home for a summer to pursue activities I've been wanting to do for a little while now while I was working makes me wonder if, while not working, I'll actually feel in a position to spend money to goof off when I've become kind of terrible at spending money.

How, for example, am I going to be able to go on hikes and travel places unless I buy a car? Guess I have to buy a car. F. My problem with savings is, well, I see it as savings. Not spendings. So, once money enters my savings account it has a tendency to stay there. I'm pretty sure I'd surprise quite a few people with the total, considering the goof-off things I've done for the past couple of years, but am I saving to the point where it is negatively impacting my everyday life? I don't know...or should I, instead of using a savings account, be looking to deposit some funds in a tax shelthered IRA or some other kind of retirement account? I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO SOMEONE WHO'S A FINANCIAL PLANNER PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO DO ASAP.

Savings is good, I suppose, but shit, I've saved this money so I can take time off and have fun, didn't I?! Or do I just save it to save it? The world may never know...until I get home and I get started.

I'd really like to buy a road bike this summer but I'm already hesitant to because Ma-dukes is no longer working for Leon Leonwood's sporting goods and outdoor gear company. I'm not sure if I'll be able to pony up full price for something like that. I'd love a kayak, too. And I'm not sure yet but I might be in the market for a new hike stove and I'm considering trading in my tent for a slightly larger model. But, F, full price for all of this hoopla? And maybe new boots, too?! And then I'd need racks for the kayak and potentially the bike, too. This is a sticky situation. Hell, maybe I should just try to get a job there working a couple of days a week for a couple of months. That's actually not a terrible idea, come to think of it.............

--

Returning to car talk for a minute, right now I'm torn between getting an old Volvo 240 wagon when I get home or getting a little bit newer, little bit nicer pickup truck, for the purpose of capping the bed and having it act, more or less, like a wagon. I could sleep in the back of either, not that I'm planning anything like that......

But what are some thoughts on this? I've already done the Volvo thing once to mixed reviews from myself. While I had it the Blue Bird was a dream to drive and cost very little to keep on the road, but at the same time she started to fall apart not long after we became partners. So, the whole age-factor could unnerve me a little bit, and I'm not sure how many Volvo wagons were made with manual transmissions. The last thing I want in a new-to-me car is an automatic. That's just amateur hour. But, see? More questions that I'm asking myself. And I won't be doing anything with these thoughts for close to two months? Why the shit am I fixated on them now? Maybe I'm a worrier. Fretting over things gives me something to do to pass the time and this fretting allows me to actually feel like life is somewhat difficult, when most things out here are skewed more towards the easy living, joke kind of lifestyle. In a sense, the easy living lifestyle I enjoy so much out here is motivating me to search for a career more up my alley, as I know I can easily not think, blink, and have been out here for another few years and wonder, “Well, how did I get here?” And, no, Ma, while I find Pat Tillman inspiring for the choices he made, a four or five year commitment is something that doesn't really do it for me.

All this is probably just fluff to cover the fact that by this time next year I'll be a farmer on a quiet spread, tending to my crops like they did in the old days. Or, maybe not.


Cheers.

Friday, March 11, 2011

NEWSFLASH:

Nothing crazy happened.  Had to stop watching the video from Japan, that was some sad stuff.

More to come later.  Carry on.


Cheers.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

For about the past week non-work hours have been occupied mostly by:


To schedule a screening: you know my name.  Look up the number.  Cheers.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Broken, Broken..

As luck would have it the day after I posted a love fest about the tandem bicycle the front tire went flat while I was at work and I had to walk it home. I still haven't got it fixed yet because I'm lazy. Most all of last week I took the bus, finagled rides , and at times threw a thumb out to get from point A to B and it seems like it's going to be the same kind of week this time around because I don't see myself finding much time to make it to the bike shop in Lahaina until the weekend. Full disclosure: The front tire has a couple of broken spokes on it so I don't want to ride it again until the spokes are fixed and the rim is trued. I'm more than capable of patching a bicycle tube and have all of the necessary tools to perform that particular task...but I have no reason to fix the tube until after the rim is fixed and I don't see myself having time to get the rim down to Lahaina until Saturday because I work during the day all week. Fooey. I walked home from work today. That was a pretty nice time. The sun was setting as I was walking so it wasn't too hot and the view is always nice. Even today, when it was quite voggy and hazy.

When the winds are out of the south/east the volcanic emissions from the Big Island volcanoes blow up and the air gets pretty shitty. It's not fun to breathe and the air is heavy. It was like that all of last week and it's supposed to keep up until Wednesday or Thursday. This makes me unhappy. My forehead leaks a lot when the days are like this. It's also pretty shitty to sleep because there are no cool, north/west trade winds blowing. It's not all fun and games.

I might jog down to work tomorrow. You know: keep the body guessing. F, I need to get that rim fixed......

My iPod has decided not to work anymore, too. The clickwheel will no longer function. So, I can charge it. But I cannot use it. Steve Jobs can go choke on a pretzel. I treated that thing like royalty and it's only four years old or so...yet now I have to buy a shitty new nano that's got some stupid ass touchscreen that I'll probably break within six months. Fuck apple. They need to know when they have good things, like simple, metal-encased iPod nanos, they should KEEP MAKING THOSE. F technology, maaaaaaan.

A new iPod isn't high on my priority list right now, however, because student loans were paid just a minute ago and I just scooped some BONNAROO tickets on Saturday and rent is due next week so my discretionary spending account isn't quite as large as it usually is. When the rent comes due each month I just cut a check...but my roommates are usually a bunch of delinquents there's at least one or more each month who won't pay without threats of broken legs. Suck on eggs, fellas. It all works itself out in the end; I'm just much more comfortable KNOWING I can pay rent than hoping they'll each actually come through on the first of the month, like, you know, normal, decent people do. I live with rapscallions, I tell ya..

Besides, what better way to kick off March than by buying a new iPod. yipee.................fudge.


Cheers.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Something to get you giggly prior to your weekends..


Genius.  Pure, unadulterated genius.  I run into a lot of people who don't know Adam Sandler comedy.  A couple of people recently, when we started playing this, were like, "wait...where's the video?  It's just guys talking?"  Yes.  Have some god damn imagination.  Not everything has to be shitty and overdone like Bedtime Stories.  If there was a video I hope it would have a shitty mascot costume like the penguin in Billy Madison or Chubb's shitty fake wooden hand in Happy Gilmore.  You know, real comedy.  

--

On a somewhat tangented course, but trust me, I'll bring it back around, this goes out to loyal reader M.Closson: If Bonnaroo isn't in the cards we'll just have to find some more music to hit up this summer.  Mountain Jam, maybe?  Or just another show.  Hell, we could just head out to the ragoo festival on Peaks.  See what I did there?  It's funny, you know, because it's bigger than a normal sized hat.  It's an oversized hat. Cheers.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Bicycle Deux..

My old cruiser broke down a couple few weeks ago. That's happened since I fell off the blogging wagon, sorry for bringing you folks late to the party. I broke a spoke on my back rim and the tire started to rub on the frame. I didn't take much notice of this because the thing was a piece of shit anyway so I figured a little rub wouldn't make it much harder to ride that it already was. This small rub, however, continued to get worse over the next couple of days and the next thing I knew I was riding to work one afternoon and I kept hearing ::PING:: ::PING:: ::PING:: with my headphones blasting and my back tire got all shaky shaky and I stopped to find that had snapped almost all of the spokes off of one side of my rim. Shucks. I still managed to get to work without incident but there was absolutely no way I was riding it home. I started leather tramping home pushing my baby blue (never leave a fallen soldier behind, I say..) when, luckily, a friend with an SUV saw me walking and looped around and brought me home. YAY!

I still haven't got a new rim yet. This isn't to say I've been walking and hitchhiking and taking the bus everywhere. Actually, I've never stopped two-wheeling. First I hopped on J.Mac's bicycle for a couple few days (probably more like two weeks but days run together and I haven't really been paying attention..) until another one of my roommates finally got around to finding a job and he needed it to get to work. So, now I ride this gem:


Badass, right? One of the bartenders at Hula mentioned he had a tandem bike that he used to ride with his wife and J.Mac and I decided it would make for a hell of a goof off day to cruise that thing around all banged up on a day off. And it was a hell of a good day when we got around to it about a month ago outside of the fact I got a little squirrely on the handlebars and almost led us into a head on wreck on the highway when we were going about 20mph, but that's neither here nor there because we're still alive and kicking..........

We've had it ever since and the guy said when we borrowed it I could keep it for as long as I wanted, so when I gave up Jon's bike I just hopped on that thing and haven't looked back. The looks I get are priceless. You don't see a lot of tandems out here, and you certainly don't see a lot of people riding a tandem solo. Loner, you may say? Tell me something I don't know.

This just adds to my mystique. Now not only am I known by some as “the guy who's always riding his bike,” I've become “that idiot alone on the tandem bicycle.” Fitting, I'd say. The things a hell of a lot nicer to ride than the old cruiser I have. The guy had the frame sent from the mainland and then more or less tricked it out once he got it here a few years ago. It's got a climbing gear on it so hills are a breeze and it's a heavy ass road bike so once I drop her into the high gear I absolutely crank. He even had clipless pedals for it; that's some serious shit. Hell, it's even lighter than that blue piece of shit, if you can believe it. I'd say upgrade, both mechanically and goofily.

Chances are good the blue bird is headed for a dumpster and the Trek Double Track T-100 will be my mode of transportation for the next couple of months. I make due with what I have...............Cheers.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Deja 'Roo?!

Deja 'Roo?

Bonnaroo's lineup gets announced Tuesday, the 15th. I'm excited. Yep, I'm thinking of heading down again. Just after the first of the year there was some pretty serious talk of heading to Coachella this year. J.Mac was down and a few other folks we know out here, so it definitely would have been a blast going with a big old Maui posse. It's the same sort of festival as Bonnaroo just it's three days in California in April instead of four days in Tennessee in June. Lot of bands, lot of hoopla, lot of silliness, little bit of ballyhoo. Plenty of goodness all around.

I was gathering up steam to go until I saw the dates and realized that it's the same weekend my folks are flying to visit me. So needless to say I removed myself from the Coachella plans pretty quickly but all the festival talk brought Bonnaroo back into my thoughts. This is Bonnaroo's 10th Anniversary so I'm hopeful the lineup will be stacked with artists from years past. If that's the case here's your first announcement that I'm recruiting people to make the pilgrimage. I believe any true music lover should go at least once in their life. So, if you love music, start thinking about the trip. You don't have to live in Maine. Last time around stops were made in MA, NY, VA, and TN. I'd love to add DC and other random northeast cities to the wake of destruction if this comes to fruition. There are a couple of routes to go. Firstly is, obviously, I don't have a car. So if I'm still carless in June my ability to travel would be based on whether I had a ride down. Hence preliminary planning beginning...now.

I would like to find two companions, or four-five. Not so keen on three because three more people, four total, would be tricky for a long drive freighted with gear in a sedan. Five or six (more ideal than five..) total people would provide two three person vehicles. As well as plenty of people to mix and match when not everyone wants to go to the same show. There's a lot of different shit going on all day and all night so the more the merrier. But, yeah, I'm just throwing it out there. It doesn't need to be a ten day trip this time around, either. I know I've (probably..) got places to stay in Boston, NY, DC, and NC so breaking up the drive shouldn't be a problem. But after a one year layoff and no music to speak of out here I'm fired up to get my Jesus-feet hippy dancing again.

Dates are June 9-12. Check Bonnaroo.com Tuesday for the lineup announcement. But if this sounds of any interest to you then let's get some dialogue going. You know my name. Look up the number.


Lost a couple of pretty cool points in the middle of that post.

Number one is the fact my folks are coming out to visit. They're finally taking a vacation for their April vacation and I couldn't be happier for them. And, to make it better, they're coming to visit ME. Little, old ME. I'm excited to drink beer with them on the beach and sit at various bars on the westside of Maui. I think they'll enjoy themselves just fine out here. Love ya, Ma and Pa.

Letter B is the fact that, more or less, I plan to be back in Maine this summer. Yes, my time on the Valley Isle is coming to a close, at least for this time around. I want to spend a summer in Maine.

I know what some of you are thinking, and, yes, I've already spent 25 summers in Maine. But for about the last ten I've been an idiot and worked all summer. Work...isn't that fun. So, I want to use Maine as my home base for hiking and traveling and other happy horseshit that I should have been doing more of since I became a teenager, then an adult. I sprung this idea on my folks on Skip's birthday. “Happy Birthday, Dad. I want to move home! Surprise!!” Haha, I'm a terrible son.

No one out here really knows I'm pretty set on leaving. So if you live out here and work at Hula Grill...shhhhhhhhh. Management will know of my intentions next week during my one-year review. So you only need to be quiet for a few days. I know this is risky and all because I work at Hula High School but I can't talk about Bonnaroo seriously without it being mentioned...Bonnaroo isn't just a pipe dream: it can actually happen quite easily. So, get pumped and let's get an eclectic group together and let's make friends. If you have a car going down with an extra seat then let me know. I'd love to roll with. I'm just pretty sure I want to get there this year. If the lineup is worth it, that is.


Full disclosure: I wasn't planning on writing tonight. I went to bed before 7pm. Literally called it quits and went to bed at 6:42pm HST. I turned off the lights, put on some tunes, and closed my eyes. But I couldn't...quite...fall asleep. I got into a pretty serious text conversation and then Samm-O called and we hadn't talked in a couple of weeks so we chewed the fat for a bunch of minutes and next thing I knew I was wide awake and it was eight o'clock. Out of my room I came and on the TV went and Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories was on. And I can honestly say I've never seen a worse movie than Bedtime Stories. I really feel like Adam Sandler signed on before the script was even written and then the writer said,” Fuck it. I can write whatever I want and people will still go see this.” I leave more plot on my toilet paper in the morning than this movie had. But, I did watch the whole thing. And the closing credits ran with Journey's “Don't Stop Believing.” And that was silly to me. Very very silly, but in a way fitting for the day.

Then, of course, I wasn't tired. But now it's eleven o'clock and I'm tired and I've written and I can still get to bed at a reasonable hour. It's amazing what I can get accomplished when I only work for two hours and forty five minutes. You can't find that many places on the mainland............Cheers.