Bonnar-(who's with me)?!

Last year I made a late, last-ditch effort to coordinate a road trip of those close to me to make the short trip to Tennessee to attend the Bonnaroo music and arts festival. This years dates are June 11-14 (That's a Thursday-Sunday as I know few of us have calendars handy). I know these are once again convenient for me because my current employer will no longer be paying me then. Unfortunate as it is this should free me up to let the wind blow in my (slowly-but-steadily-growing) flow and set the Blue Angel on a southern course. It's a 4 day event and tickets are $250 [Editor's note: they were cheaper to start but Phish has signed on to play so everyone is freaking out and buying them faster than things that move really fast...if if I miss the boat this year because of those jokers then I'm going to freak out]. I'm not saying it's dead-set in my mind but if I'm able to secure a crew of 2 or (preferably) 3 more people let's get after it and make a week out of it. The acts are always off the charts. I was on the Bonnaroo website last week and the musical features had not yet been announced; however, I know since then they've got them up. I am not writing this from the luxury of a computer which possesses the "internet" so I am not at this time able to name the headliners and the other groups.

[Editor's Note: Here you go, be impressed with the talent. These are just some of the highlights...Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Phish (2 shows), Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, Wilco, *Snoop Dogg,* *Ben Harper and Relentless7,* *Gov't Mule,* *Merle Haggard,* MGMT, moe., The Decemberists, The Del McCoury band, Lucinda Williams, *Citizen Cope,* *Grace Potter and the Nocturnals,* and about 30 others I just don't care quite as much about...*-* are acts I am especially interested in viewing...]

There are a shitload of acts and music and fun is going all day long. Just give me a shout any way you know how to contact me. While (I believe, anyway) I've mellowed in my old age I'm still confident enough to go old-school and GUARANTEE a good time for anyone who chooses to sign on for these schenanigans. I think this could only lead to good things. Cheers.

P.S. If I'm late again it's my own fault because I had been meaning to get some feelers out last month...but if you're serious and not yanking my crank let's make it happen it will be nothing but the best.

Monday (and every other...) Morning

Most of you know I have a pretty relaxed daily schedule [Editors Note: the fact this is going up after 10:30am upon my immediate arrival to the office should illustrate that I have a rather fluid schedule...]. I get to work when I get to work. I leave work whenever it is that I decide I'm finished for the day. It's not half bad when I phrase it this way. But if there's one time of the day I enjoy most it is in the mornings before I go to work. I conveniently sleep in until at least 7:30am (read: usually 8:30) before I rise and start my day.

For the past three and a half weeks or so I've been sleeping in a sleeping bag rather than under my covers. I don't really know how this started other than I got a new bag 2ish months ago and never got around to trying it out until the middle of January. Since then I guess I just haven't bothered to stuff it back in its sack. I can't say it's overly comfortable but it does have a handy little zipper at the bottom so I can unzip a crack and keep my feet from sweating. I don't like hot feet when I'm recharging by battery. I think I like the bag because I feel "safe" inside. Safe, with a side of suffocating claustrophobia. It's really a treat.

The place where my head rests is also my (cluttered) workstation for many of my masterpieces I need to write in notepad so the format doesn't get messed up as I cut and paste text into the lovely form you're staring at right...now. I call it my efficiency, because living with your parents just isn't that cool.

(Note the minesweeper scores. I'm legit...)

Once I finally rise I spend the remainder of my morning listening to music and showering and eating breakfast. The paper is usually out but I generally don't read it. This particular morning I was listening to some new old Warren Zevon. New in the sense the album was just released last year, old in the sense the songs for the album were recorded pre-1976. Warren's prime, in my humble opinion. It's got some demo versions and some unreleased stuff. It is (appropriately) named "Preludes." I give it a 7 out of 7 Hershey Kisses.

My breakfasts are almost exclusively oatmeal. Usually Quaker because mommy buys Quaker. When we start to run low I replenish our cabinets with store-brand because that's how I roll. It is a tasty morning treat, either way. Usually I shower before breakfast and then compliment my oatmeal with a glass of water and a cup of coffee, but some days I mix it up. I also make my lunch during this time. Well-played mornings when I'm on top of things I'll shower, then eat, then make my lunch, but mornings when I refuse to get out of bed until after 95% of you folks are already working I need to eat while I'm making my sandwich and gathering my fruit and vegetables. So it goes. Early-rising mornings also allow me to quickly check my email, throw up the occasional post and play a few games of solitaire and minesweeper. Each of these tasks contribute to me going into the office relaxed...if I miss one of these (usually not enough minesweeper) my day continues rockily.

Since it's the winter time I need to usually preheat the Blue Angel while I'm brushing and flossing my teeth so she's all purring and ready to go for the long drive to the office. Thinking of this reminds me I need to take her to get washed on my way to work one of these days. She's a mess. Cheers.

Old Age

So we hosted a meet last night and we're hosting a meet tonight so I've been right out straight all week. Once more week until I get a little relief as we go on break in 6 days (remember we are Bates High School, after all...) Anyways I haven't had a whole lot of time to get fingers to keys on this fine instrument of communication. But I found this to be of particular importance. I distinctly remember Joe Monatana's last two seasons, which were with Kansas City. Those were the 1993 and 1994 seasons. Are you kidding me? That was 14 seasons, aka YEARS, ago. Bill Russell said famously, "You know you're getting old when you start talking about what you've done instead of what you're going to do." I'm no where near there yet, but, JEESH?! 14 years ago?

I have a Joe Montana autographed picture, though. With the Chiefs. Ah, memories.

Scholarly Research: Finally Revealed...

When I got home Monday night I realized a lot of what I spill on here is just biased, unfounded bullshit, and I began wondering if anyone actually takes me seriously. That is, if anyone actually considers me to be a legitimate writer. It took me until Wednesday but I've decided to demonstrate my intellectual side in the only way I know how: by presenting you all with my undergraduate thesis. This was the product of 8 months of non-stop hard work and dedication that few have matched in the history of the college. I can actually sum up the structure of it in one word: concise. I am confident I dd not waste a single word in the forty-three hundred which covered fifteen and one half pages of my experimental design. Added to my fifteen pages of cover sheets, abstract, references and appendicies I was able to produce a lean, mean 31 page work of art which will remain a timeless relic on the campus of Bates College. It was only turned in 17 days late and during the 2nd week of short term, but I promise you this thing is a gem.

Obviously I've submitted this baby to countless scholarly review boards in an effort to be published, but right now it has only been contained as the lead article in Bates' annual Psychology Review (This actually is the truth and is not a joke, I promise you that much...I've got the hard copy to prove it). So if you've got 5 minutes to kill take a look at it, and if you can tell me what I was able to correlate then you are a better person than I. For you current college students out there set your goals high and if you need any advice on your theses after reading this then you just let me know.

Seriously though, the preparation of a thesis is what you make of it, and I made it a fun and exciting time and made a lifelong friend in Kathy Low. Us A-towners need to stick together. She's legit. And I had a blast throwing together a poster in powerpoint in one night. It came out looking much better than the thesis did, which in my opinion was all that mattered. That, and I got to put pictures of myself and other close friends in it, unlike the thesis. Go Bobcats! Cheers.

Why I love Lewiston, and a question for you...

On my way in to the office today I passed a young man walking down the road. It was pretty cold out, so he had one of those masks on that cover your nose and face, not the legit bankrobber hats but just the ones that have neoprene and some fleece and you velcro them in place at the back. Well these don't have the big hole for your mouth, they just have a bunch of little holes so you can breathe but not let a lot of cold air on your face. And through one of these holes the guy had jammed a cigarette. That is L/A in a snapshot. We adapt to the situation at hand and just get it done. And if it means finding a way to get a nicotine fix on a cold February morning you know the real folks from L/A are going to have a plan on lock down (For those of you who think I'm being ironical and I'm actually making fun of this guy go piss up a rope. You don't know me well enough. I love these towns; always have, always will).

Now onto a question which I cannot answer. Data suggests (I can't find the specific study but I KNOW I've read this before) that in a public restroom, stalls nearest the entrance are more clean because they are actually used less. For this reason I always try to pick the one right near the door as long as someone didn't just murder it, or for other obvious reasons which I will not delve into more deeply here. Anyways that being said, here is the set-up:

There is a public bathroom, but this is no ordinary restroom. It is on a corner so it has two entrances/exits. there are three stalls and these stalls are placed in between the doors. Which stall do you use? See, you don't know which entrance is used more frequently so you don't know which should be the more clean end stall. At the same time, men's bathroom etiquette says you don't take a middle pisser or stall in a three unit set-up because then there is the potential for the random "come-up-to-take-a-piss-but-there's-a-guy-at-the-middle-pisser-so-there's-some-hesitation-to-approach-but-I-really-don't-want-to-piss-in-a-stall -so-I go-to-a-urinal-but-it's-just-awkward-for-both-of-us" situation. And the cardinal rule of "you don't double-barrel unless your friend is in the next stall so you can talk about sports and women" applies to central seating on the cans...

So my question to you is the following: In this scenario do you think the middle stall would actually be the most clean? Thank about it...Cheers.

Brandeis Closing their Art Museum

Editor's Note: I wrote this last week and it still pisses me off. Just a lame-ass decision made by donkeys. Needed to get this up...

I don’t know how many you have heard this but on Monday Brandeis University announced they were shutting down their art museum and selling off their entire collection to add funds to their endowment due to the economic climate which the nation is currently in. It disgusts me that an institution with a reputation like Brandeis (pretty solid, gets well-off students, has a nice campus, produces a population of decent people) would produce such a small-minded and shortsighted “solution.” Their collection is valued upwards of $350million (which isn’t bad starting pay), but, seriously. It’s just extremely troubling that a school would consider shutting down a substantial gallery just to make a few dollars. Clearly they’ve lost a substantial chunk of their endowment and I’ve heard a significant number of their usual donors were caught up in the Bernie Madoff scandal, but still. It is a terrible market to be selling art. But I guess what I find most troubling is they are viewing art as just $$. No cultural or historical significance, no educational significance, these works are just assets. Needless to say the museum director is furious and many of the folks who donated works are planning to head to court to fight the sales but I will be very interested to see how this all plays out. I really hope this is not the start of a trend. If some colleges purchased their galleries just for investment pieces then that’s very, very scary to me. Art should mean more than that. This response was prompted by Batesie Nichole who is quite an art buff and who showed me the article and also “Ms.” Melissa Perkins whose art class I hung out in throughout high school. I had more to say on Tuesday but this is all I have now...I'm running out of steam it's been a long week all around. Cheers.

Good Morning, Vietnam

I like tepid coffee in the morning. Black. This way it's strong but you don't have to worry about burning your tongue or waste time blowing on it. Let's you hustle a little more than fresh brew.

Anyways, where the hell did January go? Holy hell. If months keep moving this quickly then I'm going to be unemployed before I know it.

That being said until I am actually unemployed I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to keep up my rapid January blogging schedule. I know this is not the best thing to come right out and tell your (one or two) readers, but that's the way it's got to be. Think of it as more of a two posts every three days minimum. If I have to wax off on something then don't worry, I'll get the word out. But don't get up my ass if I miss a day or two because apathy, laziness and/or work commitments strike my motivation during my peak quiet hours.

And as usual no promises on my keeping with current events or getting my work up in a timely manner. I have some words from last week that I didn't get up yet which will be forthcoming. Basically 99% of the crap I spew is produced in my 100sq ft "efficiency" in the Capone house and it contains no internet. Which is actually nice, just take my word on that I'm really being serious. So for the most part I get things up from my workshop in the a.m. prior to work or I bring my jumpdrive to work and post from there. So when I'm posting garbage at 1:37pm it's because that's when I had 5 minutes to kill, not because I decided to put together a human interest story for the preceding 90 minutes. I don't like the man, but I respect the man. Enjoy your Monday, I probably won't. The week, however, should be swell; I've got some interesting things in the works - stay tuned. Cheers.

Worldwide...

While wasting time before practice I find that this little yellow notepad has been checked out in coastal Asia and Western Europe. Quite a day, I must say. To whoever you's are, I salute you.

And to everyone else, you know what they say," The only way your thoughts seem weird is when other people hear them." Or something like that, right?

Happy Friday. Cheers.

Facebook Computers and Cellphones, Oh My...

So this morning I had an athletic department staff meeting. Basically they're pretty painful most of the time. It's just a chance for the AD to get everyone together and keep people up on other college business. We get breakfast and they're always crispy bacon so I can usually manage. For the last hour or so it's just the head coaches meeting, and since that's my title I also hang out and listen to the conversation. Usually it's not too bad, talking about admissions protocol and some other nuts and bolts things, but today the group discussed Facebook. For 45 minutes. Shoot me.

Like most athletic departments (and other professional settings i'm sure, too) there's an old school and a new school, with the old school still resistant to email and the new school trying to find loopholes in the NCAA's communication policies with recruits (or email at all hours in other settings, but you get the idea...). As usual the extremes of any two sides are the most comical and this did not disappoint me today. The under 30 crowd (besides me) love Facebook for its ability to get the word out massively about events and keep alumni up to date on the status of the program. Old schoolers think it's just a bunch of crap and the people who want to follow the program will keep up to date in traditional ways.

But facebook aside some of these young folks can't even shut their cell phones off to get through the breakfast. They're constantly responding to emails and recruits and keeping their phones on all night to do the same. I guess my stance is this: That's not me. No matter what your profession find a way to separate your professional and personal life. When I leave the office I leave the office. I don't check email. I don't follow up with recruits. I don't think about my job. When I'm in from day to day I'm doing all that. Some days I'm in until 7:30 or 8pm to get things done. But when I leave, that's it. I said it a lot this summer (in a comical sense) but I'm not here for a long time, I'm here for a good time. And I don't care who you are but responding to a recruit at 11pm on a Tuesday when I've been asleep for a half hour is not my idea of living the good life.

And this goes for everybody. Some technological advancements are great but we're getting to the point of sensory and information overload. I don't need to know that Jimmy Jones went from being "out at the movies" to "thinking about Becky <3 (one moment ago)" I ask all of you to try this. Pick a day you're at home and not working. Hell, a night evening. And shut off your TV. Then shut off your computer. Then shut off your cell phone. And just relax. Take a break. Cut the cord and separate yourself from all of that newfangled bullshit. You'll feel better in the morning. Then try to do it more often. This is just my $.02, but it's a nice feeling. Cheers.

Apologies...

It's been brought to my attention by multiple sources that I posted "headline news" a couple of weeks ago. That should tell you it's been a long week. I hope you enjoyed it the 2nd time around as much as the first. I'll try to lock it back up from now on. Cheers.

Headline News

Editor's Note: I wrote this January 18 but forgot to post it...my b. This was also written during my sailor phase so I think there may be a couple cusses in it. But, seriously, this troubled me...

I don’t usually read the news because I’m lazy and figure I can pick up enough of the goings-on via word of mouth or that newfangled "internet," but I happened to pick up the Sun Journal sports page a couple Saturdays ago. A few of us had planned to return to Edward Little High School and catch the 2nd half of the basketball game there but by the time we made it across town cars were rolling away and our plans were forced to change. So I was interested to see if they had played well or not. The front page said they won by about 30, so I flipped through to the sports section to read about how this occurred and who they played and saw the headline: “EDDIES BOIL WITCHES.” I don’t know why but I just found this to be pretty inappropriate.

Well, actually I do know why and I’m going to tell you right now…maybe because there weren’t any real witches, just hysteria created by wormshit little 17th century girls in Puritan New England villages which caused 20 or so people to be killed. Real cool. And boiling was a torture device used to force the accused to confess their wicked ways and discovered God before they were hanged or shot or burned to death at the stake. Really cool. Religion is great (don’t worry, I’m not about to go down that road. If you like God or Jesus or G-d or Mohammad or Vishnu or any of the dillion others that’s your business, not mine)… So kudos to the S-J for thinking that headline was PC. Newsflash: NOT EVERYONE IN THE U.S. IS CHRISTIAN…AS “SCARY” AS IT IS SOME PEOPLE ARE EVEN ::GASP:: AGNOSTICS OR ATHEISTS AND DON’T BELIEVE IN REGION AT ALL…This again just points out the blatant Judeo-Christian bias present in this country, which trickles from the Federal Government on down to municipal governments and workplaces and even homes. Free exercise my ass. While Wicca’s don’t generally consider themselves witches I’m sure that headline is not something which they’d like to begin their Saturday with especially with all the other backhanded shit I’m sure they take on a regular basis.

I apologize for the mini rant but this is just a pretty big pet peeve of mine. Be happy the holiday season is over or I could go on for hours. The city councilors who put out “holiday” trees and “multi-faith” decorations can go piss up a rope. Christmas should not be a federal holiday. If you choose to not open your business on a given day that is…your business. That’s what you have personal days for, too. Sorry this has been a tangent but government interference on this shit just grinds my gears. Anyways to conclude, Randy Whitehouse and S-J editors: clean it up.