I am finding myself really missing Portland right now. I am working on this project for my professor where we are comparing cycling in several cities in the US. I just finished NYC and am now working on Portland and all of the data that I am poring over is bringing back myriad memories and feelings, reminding me how perfect Portland is for me. I really am not sure exactly how I will ever get back there, but it is on my mind.
I do not remember a lot of last week because my brain is kind of useless like that sometimes. I have been thinking a lot about memory and why I am able to easily recall intricate details of some very mundane events from long ago, yet I cannot remember the very existence of recent events that are extremely important to me. A couple weeks ago Brandy busted me for completely forgetting a very special experience we shared, the PREVIOUS week. I even did not believe her at first when she told me about it. Now, this was something that I clearly should have remembered as it meant a lot to me, but yet it was gone. Yet, when I took that memory test at NYU, I was told that I had amazing memory. Even when I try to remember things, they are often obliterated. Now, this may have something to do with some years of heavy drinking, but I had this problem before college and it seems to be an ingrained trait. Ugh.
So last week I probably did some cool stuff, but can't really remember. I know I didn't get enough work done. Ah yes, I knew something went down on Wed, and a review of my emails confirmed it. The L Magazine is showing free movies at McCarran Park for several Wednesdays over the summer and they were showing Evil Dead II, which I had yet to see. I've seen the third, which is the classic, Army of Darkness with Bruce Campbell. The second one is where he goes to this old cabin with his girl and she, and his hand, are taken by the evil. We set up a CS meeting and had a picnic in the park with delicious food and a few people, including Sal, J, Nelson, our CSer, Matthieu (a French guy who's been hitchhiking and urban camping all over the world and has some great stories from Mongolia), and a few other CSers. After some wine and food, we gathered some more guests and went to the ballfields to watch the show. The show was hilarious, of course, and watching a movie like that is always fun with 200 people in a ballfield. There is this scene at the end after he gets sent back in time where a huge flying gargoyle thing comes swooping down and he shoots it out of the sky to become a hero. Right at that moment this huge hawk or seagull or something came flying out of the trees about 20 feet above our heads. He made a circle around and passed over again before flying into the distance. It was so perfect and everyone was cheering and laughing, besides those on the other side who were probably wondering what they missed.
After the show I, and a few beers, came up with the idea to bring everyone back to the apartment and watch Army of Darkness. Several agreed and I ran off ahead to make it to the video store before any of the hipsters at the show got the same idea. I speed walked all the way past Greenpoint Ave to find a handwritten note explaining that the store would be closed until Friday! A came back with my head hung low, but we all hung out and had a great time anyway, despite the dopey CSer who was there who had "tried" heroin seven times and wouldn't stop letting the echoes in her empty head come out the mouth. We smoked a hookah and chattered late into the night, or so it seemed. When I went to bed I was amazed to see it was only 2.
Thu I just worked and then drove back so that I would have my van for the tournament. I left work early so that I could go to practice, but then found that my van battery was dead in the garage. After some douchebag in a Jaguar refused to jump me, some grizzled woman in her 50s with a cig and an old minivan stopped. She clearly would have rather gone home, but she was a sport and stayed much longer than should have been necessary because my van just wasn't starting. This was a real drag because I had recently replaced the battery and I really needed it to run for the weekend. I finally gave up and wandered around trying to figure out what to do. I looked in one more time and realized that the interior lights were on. After extinguishing them, I went outside to find someone else and found this German PhD student who had TAed my Stats class, Stefan. He had never jumped before, so I got to be an instructor to the instructor. In a moment Gina roared to life and I was off. Traffic was a miracle and I was only a few mins late to practice.
Over the weekend my team went to Ow My Knee, a tournament in Albany. Brandy stayed behind to have a girl's slumber party/pole dancing class, which is reported to have been a resounding success. As we drove up Fri night, it began to rain. My shitty wipers and the heavy traffic meant quite a harrowing drive, but we made it in one piece around 10:30. We got to our campsite to find that it was more of a quagmire of mud and standing water. We elected to grab a better one, and then have a beer before attempting the set up. We kept debating going to a hotel, but we are stubborn. We finally made our dash and began setting up when suddenly one of the poles on Brandy's tent snapped. This also snapped the last of our willpower and we drove off to the Belvidere Inn. It was a pretty nice place though, and Matteo, Kally, Cid and I sat in their little covered veranda drinking some beers and interacting with some members of a wedding party who were doing the same. This was, of course, after 28 year old Kally was regretfully rejected from buying because his license is expired. Man, US drinking laws can just blow me.
On Sat we played much worse than we should have since we seemed to have gotten into our heads. Nevertheless, we won our first three games and lost the last, which got us the four seed in the next day's bracket. At the end of the third game I jumped for a disc with lots of heat on me, and as I went up I knew there was a problem. My calf cramped up worse than any cramp I've ever had. I held the disc anyway and when I came down I was readying myself to first let it off because we were in a zone D and I had just popped the cup and needed to send it to break, but after a second I realized that, nope, not gonna happen, and I crumpled to the ground. I'm told it was rather humorous. This cramp was insane. My calf muscle was literally concave. I was out for the day, but was happy to be able to play on Sun. That night we went back to the campsite and had delicious grillin' a la Kara and drank more beers.
On Sunday we played three games. We won our first one and lost the last two, giving us 6th or 7th place in the tournament.
On Monday I tried to work but just did a lot of little shit that needed to get done. At about 5 I went into the City to meet up with Brandy to watch a movie between her work and pole class. We watched Up and Away or something like that. It was a chick flick, but I actually liked it quite a bit, especially because the guy reminded me of myself, except for when he's being a total toolbox. Afterwards I went on a fruitless shoe shopping mission at DSW. I've been passively looking for shoes for the last few months and I'm getting really damn sick of it. I finally today bought some online. Afterwards I went home and played ultimate at McCarran. I was too late and everyone was kind of tired and playing really shitty, poaching all over and hucking bullshit constantly, and fucking crossfield hammers every time. I have to get there earlier to play real ultimate.
Last night Brandy and I had a date. After work I met her near NYU and we went to this opening called Trashion, which was supposed to be all about waste and reusing "garbage" into art. It was pretty much the lamest lame that was ever lame. Most of the "trash" was obviously not rescued from the garbage, and what had been was pretty much total crap. They all had these really absurd little paragraphs from the artist where he had clearly gotten out his dictionary so he could sound totally profound. Man, I can only handle so much artist crap in my life and now I'll be good for a few months.
We then went wandering and found ourselves at this Spanish place on Houston that Brandy had wanted to go to for a long time. It is a nice little tapas place with live music. We got wine and some anchovies and ate the delicious bread, gratis. I had the seat facing outside. As I watched so many different and interesting people passing in buses and on the sidewalk I was thinking about how I will miss the incredible diversity of this city whenever I choose to leave.
We then went to Burp Castle, which seems to be taking a nose dive. First of all, there is the outdoor area. For some reason they got rid of the tables, ostensibly to hold more people, but they replaced them with the same amount of seating, in the form of these hideous chrome bar stools, and they screwed on this bright, shitty chrome bar around the outside that looks totally tacky. You can probably fit two more people out there, max. Then, it was filled with a bunch of total knuckleheads, although I'm hoping that this was some special group that was having a meeting there. Yikes, it was pretty terrible. I did get the chance to see this flyer about some bikes + good beer event where there seems to be a bike tour of beer bars in Williamsburg, EV & LES. This got me excited because it looks like there are several in Wbg that I do not yet know.
Today, I failing at getting work done, but I really really need to get my shit together because I leave for Europe in less than three weeks and I haven't done a damn thing on my independent study and still have quite a bit of work to do on the cycling project. Agh.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Drain monster
There is a drain monster in our kitchen that rears its head at least once most days. I am sitting here at the table minding my own business, pretending to work, when from the depths of the sink comes an ominous, GLUG-KER-BLUG-UGG-G-BLUGG-GLUG-GLUG. It often gets loud enough to be heard in the next room and can last for several minutes. I am not sure what is happening in there, but I have the suspicion that it has something to do with the disappearance of my roommate.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Weekend
After a lot of stress about our itinerary and some discussion, Brandy and I have decided to skip Denmark and go straight from Berlin to Paris. This means that we will go to zero of the cities I had wanted to go to and one that Brandy had wanted. Of course, we will be going to some other cool places, so whatever.
Wed was my birthday, but I didn't really feel like getting friends together to do the b-day hooplah. Conveniently Lauren was having a BBQ the same day so Brandy and I went there, and were met by the Italians. It was a lot of fun and I got pretty tipsy by the time we left to go to karaoke. The first place we went to was scanning IDs and I was too drunk to remember that those scanners are for the purpose of selling your personal info and I let them scan mine. Brandy refused, but nobody else would leave, so it was the two of us for a bit. We ended up at some bar that was kind of lame except for the fact that it was filled with really hot girls. It was the type of place that I would have loved about three years ago, but now it was eh.
After a drink there we went to the next karaoke place to meet the others, grabbing three Frenchies on the way who were milling around the front of the place trying to figure out where to go. I tried to speak with them in broken French quite a bit and was probably pretty ridiculous. The next place was fun but I honestly only remember bits of it, which precipitated my not getting out of bed until 6 PM the next day. Man, my body just cannot handle this crap any more.
Thu we didn't do too much besides get some Thai food take out and hang around talking about getting a movie, but never following through.
Fri we also intended to stay at home since I had to get up pretty early for practice, which had been moved to 9 because of some scheduling conflicts and shitty weekend subway service. However, Seth happened to have a BBQ on his roof which was a ton of fun. I showed up with a pretty amazing looking strawberry shortcake that turned out to be marginal at best. I saw some people that I hadn't seen in quite awhile and met a bunch of cool CSers from all over, and got to speak broken French and German, getting the typical BS compliments on my accent. Come on folks, I know better. I wish I could remember better the people I spoke with, but sometimes my mind just doesn't work that way, even if I really am interested in them and am not really drunk. I guess part of it is that I was being really social that night and talked to many folks.
We ended up getting home pretty late and I only got five hours of sleep. This somehow did not kill me and I had a lot of energy at practice. I decided to take my bike this time so that I could ride back part of the way. But once I got going I couldn't stop and ended up riding all the way from Inwood, which is at the very northern tip of Manhattan and is about 13 miles. Crossing Wards Island via the Triboro Bridge is actually pretty creepy. You have to go down underneath and you are in this weird purgatory of no borough, with a maze of empty roads under the bridges and signs pointing to all of the boroughs. Then you get back up and you are so secluded on this ramp a million miles above the ground and there are people hanging out and drinking right on the path. The ride was nice, but I was carrying this really shitty back pack and my shoulders and neck are really sore now.
Later on we went to Kara's, a teammate of mine, who was throwing a goodbye party for herself as she is moving out of Brooklyn and up to Inwood, thus placing me further into the minority of living location. We had a lot of fun eating and meeting some cool people and got home rather late. We also met a nice girl who has just moved into Greenpoint.
Today I spent most of the day trying to figure out my trip stuff while Brandy was cleaning. God, I don't think I actually did shit today. What a waste. But I do have a more definitely plan now.
Finally I had to get the hell out of the house and we went for a nice walk throughout Williamsburg. Seeing all the people and great restaurants and shops made us wonder why we spend so much time trying to travel when we have all this around. We were searching for desert, but then we found this Italian festival going on around Havermeyer and Roebling and 9th. We got an Italian sausage and went on some spinny ride before heading home, stopping to watch a soccer game in the park on the way.
Wed was my birthday, but I didn't really feel like getting friends together to do the b-day hooplah. Conveniently Lauren was having a BBQ the same day so Brandy and I went there, and were met by the Italians. It was a lot of fun and I got pretty tipsy by the time we left to go to karaoke. The first place we went to was scanning IDs and I was too drunk to remember that those scanners are for the purpose of selling your personal info and I let them scan mine. Brandy refused, but nobody else would leave, so it was the two of us for a bit. We ended up at some bar that was kind of lame except for the fact that it was filled with really hot girls. It was the type of place that I would have loved about three years ago, but now it was eh.
After a drink there we went to the next karaoke place to meet the others, grabbing three Frenchies on the way who were milling around the front of the place trying to figure out where to go. I tried to speak with them in broken French quite a bit and was probably pretty ridiculous. The next place was fun but I honestly only remember bits of it, which precipitated my not getting out of bed until 6 PM the next day. Man, my body just cannot handle this crap any more.
Thu we didn't do too much besides get some Thai food take out and hang around talking about getting a movie, but never following through.
Fri we also intended to stay at home since I had to get up pretty early for practice, which had been moved to 9 because of some scheduling conflicts and shitty weekend subway service. However, Seth happened to have a BBQ on his roof which was a ton of fun. I showed up with a pretty amazing looking strawberry shortcake that turned out to be marginal at best. I saw some people that I hadn't seen in quite awhile and met a bunch of cool CSers from all over, and got to speak broken French and German, getting the typical BS compliments on my accent. Come on folks, I know better. I wish I could remember better the people I spoke with, but sometimes my mind just doesn't work that way, even if I really am interested in them and am not really drunk. I guess part of it is that I was being really social that night and talked to many folks.
We ended up getting home pretty late and I only got five hours of sleep. This somehow did not kill me and I had a lot of energy at practice. I decided to take my bike this time so that I could ride back part of the way. But once I got going I couldn't stop and ended up riding all the way from Inwood, which is at the very northern tip of Manhattan and is about 13 miles. Crossing Wards Island via the Triboro Bridge is actually pretty creepy. You have to go down underneath and you are in this weird purgatory of no borough, with a maze of empty roads under the bridges and signs pointing to all of the boroughs. Then you get back up and you are so secluded on this ramp a million miles above the ground and there are people hanging out and drinking right on the path. The ride was nice, but I was carrying this really shitty back pack and my shoulders and neck are really sore now.
Later on we went to Kara's, a teammate of mine, who was throwing a goodbye party for herself as she is moving out of Brooklyn and up to Inwood, thus placing me further into the minority of living location. We had a lot of fun eating and meeting some cool people and got home rather late. We also met a nice girl who has just moved into Greenpoint.
Today I spent most of the day trying to figure out my trip stuff while Brandy was cleaning. God, I don't think I actually did shit today. What a waste. But I do have a more definitely plan now.
Finally I had to get the hell out of the house and we went for a nice walk throughout Williamsburg. Seeing all the people and great restaurants and shops made us wonder why we spend so much time trying to travel when we have all this around. We were searching for desert, but then we found this Italian festival going on around Havermeyer and Roebling and 9th. We got an Italian sausage and went on some spinny ride before heading home, stopping to watch a soccer game in the park on the way.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Lancaster weekend, Italians, stuff
This weekend we went to Lancaster since it was a long weekend.
On Fri morning we got going a little later than we should have to catch the 10 AM bus to Philly. We arrived at the New Century Travel office at 10:01 and there was this huge crowd of about 60 people standing around a bus. We gave up on the 10 and went in and bought tickets. Luckily the Chinatown buses leave every half hour. A little inquiry outside informed us that the huge crowd was waiting for DC, suckers. Suddenly a guy at the door shouted Phiradelphia! and we ran onboard, leaving a minute later.
I called Christina to see if she and Curt were there to meet us and she told me that they had been about ready to get going when there was a shooting on her block, so they were still at home waiting for the police to disperse. We went off to find the great coffee and chocolate shop where we had met Christina last time in town. After completing a few circles we found it, only to be saddened by the fact that it had closed, so we waited for them on a planter.
They took us to this delicious Ethiopian restaurant in University City, and we got to meet their new baby Elizia. What is now a recurring theme with visiting them, the food took ridiculously long and we had to shovel it down and race out of there to try to catch our 3:00 train. We arrived at 2:58 to find that the train was not posted on the board. The information guy told us that they were on a weekend schedule (even though the website had said otherwise) and that the next train was at 3:45, thank god, because we would have never had time to get tickets. The people who sold me coffee at the station were strangely friendly. You know, like they really really meant it.
We arrived uneventfully at Lancaster and Melissa picked us up. We relaxed a bit and went out to First Friday – Lancaster art galleries are open late the first fri of the month and there is music and other stuff – which was ridiculously crowded. We also checked out the new convention center which is actually kind of cool, despite being a huge waste of money in my opinion.
After that we went out to a couple bars and hung out and had some food and beers. I was shocked and overjoyed to be charged $11.25 for a beer and two mixed drinks. Living in NYC will have me loving everywhere else price-wise. I ended up calling Andrew, an old buddy whom I hadn’t seen in quite awhile and he came out. Turns out he’s married now and he is thinking about getting into travel nursing.
On Saturday we went to Market, of course, and I got Lebanon Bologna and Wendy Jo’s cookies, of course. We then walked to Binn’s Park where we were entertained by this dog attacking the water sprays in this artistic ground level fountain where the water constantly changes.
After that we packed up a bag and went to Central Park for a picnic. It was awesome and I really need to do more picnics.
One of the reasons I came was so that we could go mulberry picking and do jam, but Melissa had checked out the situation and apparently most of the berries had been knocked down by rain. We almost didn’t go, but decided to at the last minute. We were really glad we did because, although we didn’t get a lot of mulberries, we found the motherlode of raspberries and wineberries, which I hadn’t eaten before. We spent over two hours picking them from around this crappy apartment complex where people are apparently too stupid to realize they have an insane berry land right outside their home.
Sunday morning we checked out this new coffee shop, Chestnut Hill, which Julie and I had waited and waited for to open, but it hadn’t until we were long gone. It is really nice with a great outdoor area and good coffee. After that, Melissa gave me her keys and went to
church while I met up with Angela, a professor at a local uni. I had met her in a county planning class and then presented at one of her classes. We had breakfast at Wish You Were Here, a fav place for breakfast in town. It was really nice seeing her again and chatting about Lancaster, university classes and the way things are done at unis.
I then tried unsuccessfully to get more work done before meeting Bill for lunch and meeting yet another first baby.
After lunch we went to Chestnut Hill again since they were having a one-year anniversary including live music and a half-priced drink which included two shots of espresso and a couple scoops of ice cream. Holy shit was it good, although the same cannot be said about the band. We then went to Buchanan Park where there was supposed to be pick up and I was hoping to get a couple points in before taking off. Unfortunately people were lame and traveling or whatever and there were not enough of us to get a game and all we did was toss.
All in all I had a really nice time and it was good to realize that I had made some pretty good friends while in Lancaster, despite the lack of people my age there at the time.
We got more travel luck throughout the rest of our journey home, timing wise, not stupid diseased ho-bag sitting behind wise. We got to the Lancaster station within five min of the train, then at Philly we got into what seemed like an insane line, but were lucky to only have to wait 15 min through one bus. The enormous woman in front of us claimed to have waited three buses. In Manhattan we were lucky to be dropped off at the 1 train instead of under the Manhattan Bridge where the buses end. This way we could take that to the L instead of dealing with the J and bus. Also, the L pulled up right as we came down the stairs, which is remarkable because it was late on Sun night.
There was this completely horrible fat Hispanic (and for those sensitive types, no this isn't a bad thing, just a descriptor) woman sitting in front of Brandy on the Philly-NYC bus. I don't get to honestly call someone completely useless, but she was worse than useless. She had these 6" nails, which to me says, "I don't have to work because I'm a lazy fat piece of shit and my man is a fucking tool." She almost took Brandy's eyes out with those talons when she reached behind her head to stretch and Brandy was leaning forward. Then she spent most of the time talking on the phone about useless shit, which wouldn't have been terrible because her volume actually was reasonable, but this meant she was ignoring her travel partner the whole time which is just plain rude, and the worst was that she was leaning all the way forward into the corner of the seat in front of her and window, which put her about two inches from the ear of the poor enormous lady from the line, who had heretofore been sleeping. When she wasn't chatting, she was stretching her fat ass by grabbing the seat in front of her and pulling herself up with much force, shaking the seat. To top it all off, she kept hacking these death rattles of disease without doing much to cover her mouth. I was happy to be behind her though, rather than in front.
We are trying to get replace Dan and we met two girls we liked last week. We deliberated through the weekend and finally just went with the first one we met. She came over on Mon and brought the check and hung out for a bit. I was starting to get some second thoughts because she was exhibiting some maybe crazy behavior, and then the next day she sends a message to Brandy about how she is too much of a neat nick and we probably won't make a good fit and how she felt rushed and jumped into it, for chissake. I mean, great I'm glad she is honest and we don't have to deal with her, but damn get your life together and figure your shit out so you don't waste other people's time. Of course the other girl was no longer available and now we are getting all sorts of response from the last minute suckers. Ugh.
Last night we met Stefano, one of the Italians who came with me on the move out here, and his girlfriend Elena for dinner at Moto. It was excellent and pricey as always. After that I showed them Barcade, which they loved and then we came back to our roof for some beer and relaxation. There was a cool storm blowing through and we got to watch lightning and cool clouds in the distance without getting wet.
Turns out tonight is my birthday and we will be going to Lauren's since she is having a BBQ, and then we will probably go out after that. I feel kind of lame b/c I haven't invited anyone out, but meh. Birthday, whatever.
I just found out that one of the Italians from study abroad is getting married while I am in Europe, so I will probably have to make a detour to go down for that, which means no Freiburg, but it will be great to see a lot of other people again.
On Fri morning we got going a little later than we should have to catch the 10 AM bus to Philly. We arrived at the New Century Travel office at 10:01 and there was this huge crowd of about 60 people standing around a bus. We gave up on the 10 and went in and bought tickets. Luckily the Chinatown buses leave every half hour. A little inquiry outside informed us that the huge crowd was waiting for DC, suckers. Suddenly a guy at the door shouted Phiradelphia! and we ran onboard, leaving a minute later.
I called Christina to see if she and Curt were there to meet us and she told me that they had been about ready to get going when there was a shooting on her block, so they were still at home waiting for the police to disperse. We went off to find the great coffee and chocolate shop where we had met Christina last time in town. After completing a few circles we found it, only to be saddened by the fact that it had closed, so we waited for them on a planter.
They took us to this delicious Ethiopian restaurant in University City, and we got to meet their new baby Elizia. What is now a recurring theme with visiting them, the food took ridiculously long and we had to shovel it down and race out of there to try to catch our 3:00 train. We arrived at 2:58 to find that the train was not posted on the board. The information guy told us that they were on a weekend schedule (even though the website had said otherwise) and that the next train was at 3:45, thank god, because we would have never had time to get tickets. The people who sold me coffee at the station were strangely friendly. You know, like they really really meant it.
We arrived uneventfully at Lancaster and Melissa picked us up. We relaxed a bit and went out to First Friday – Lancaster art galleries are open late the first fri of the month and there is music and other stuff – which was ridiculously crowded. We also checked out the new convention center which is actually kind of cool, despite being a huge waste of money in my opinion.
After that we went out to a couple bars and hung out and had some food and beers. I was shocked and overjoyed to be charged $11.25 for a beer and two mixed drinks. Living in NYC will have me loving everywhere else price-wise. I ended up calling Andrew, an old buddy whom I hadn’t seen in quite awhile and he came out. Turns out he’s married now and he is thinking about getting into travel nursing.
On Saturday we went to Market, of course, and I got Lebanon Bologna and Wendy Jo’s cookies, of course. We then walked to Binn’s Park where we were entertained by this dog attacking the water sprays in this artistic ground level fountain where the water constantly changes.
After that we packed up a bag and went to Central Park for a picnic. It was awesome and I really need to do more picnics.
One of the reasons I came was so that we could go mulberry picking and do jam, but Melissa had checked out the situation and apparently most of the berries had been knocked down by rain. We almost didn’t go, but decided to at the last minute. We were really glad we did because, although we didn’t get a lot of mulberries, we found the motherlode of raspberries and wineberries, which I hadn’t eaten before. We spent over two hours picking them from around this crappy apartment complex where people are apparently too stupid to realize they have an insane berry land right outside their home.
Sunday morning we checked out this new coffee shop, Chestnut Hill, which Julie and I had waited and waited for to open, but it hadn’t until we were long gone. It is really nice with a great outdoor area and good coffee. After that, Melissa gave me her keys and went to
church while I met up with Angela, a professor at a local uni. I had met her in a county planning class and then presented at one of her classes. We had breakfast at Wish You Were Here, a fav place for breakfast in town. It was really nice seeing her again and chatting about Lancaster, university classes and the way things are done at unis.
I then tried unsuccessfully to get more work done before meeting Bill for lunch and meeting yet another first baby.
After lunch we went to Chestnut Hill again since they were having a one-year anniversary including live music and a half-priced drink which included two shots of espresso and a couple scoops of ice cream. Holy shit was it good, although the same cannot be said about the band. We then went to Buchanan Park where there was supposed to be pick up and I was hoping to get a couple points in before taking off. Unfortunately people were lame and traveling or whatever and there were not enough of us to get a game and all we did was toss.
All in all I had a really nice time and it was good to realize that I had made some pretty good friends while in Lancaster, despite the lack of people my age there at the time.
We got more travel luck throughout the rest of our journey home, timing wise, not stupid diseased ho-bag sitting behind wise. We got to the Lancaster station within five min of the train, then at Philly we got into what seemed like an insane line, but were lucky to only have to wait 15 min through one bus. The enormous woman in front of us claimed to have waited three buses. In Manhattan we were lucky to be dropped off at the 1 train instead of under the Manhattan Bridge where the buses end. This way we could take that to the L instead of dealing with the J and bus. Also, the L pulled up right as we came down the stairs, which is remarkable because it was late on Sun night.
There was this completely horrible fat Hispanic (and for those sensitive types, no this isn't a bad thing, just a descriptor) woman sitting in front of Brandy on the Philly-NYC bus. I don't get to honestly call someone completely useless, but she was worse than useless. She had these 6" nails, which to me says, "I don't have to work because I'm a lazy fat piece of shit and my man is a fucking tool." She almost took Brandy's eyes out with those talons when she reached behind her head to stretch and Brandy was leaning forward. Then she spent most of the time talking on the phone about useless shit, which wouldn't have been terrible because her volume actually was reasonable, but this meant she was ignoring her travel partner the whole time which is just plain rude, and the worst was that she was leaning all the way forward into the corner of the seat in front of her and window, which put her about two inches from the ear of the poor enormous lady from the line, who had heretofore been sleeping. When she wasn't chatting, she was stretching her fat ass by grabbing the seat in front of her and pulling herself up with much force, shaking the seat. To top it all off, she kept hacking these death rattles of disease without doing much to cover her mouth. I was happy to be behind her though, rather than in front.
We are trying to get replace Dan and we met two girls we liked last week. We deliberated through the weekend and finally just went with the first one we met. She came over on Mon and brought the check and hung out for a bit. I was starting to get some second thoughts because she was exhibiting some maybe crazy behavior, and then the next day she sends a message to Brandy about how she is too much of a neat nick and we probably won't make a good fit and how she felt rushed and jumped into it, for chissake. I mean, great I'm glad she is honest and we don't have to deal with her, but damn get your life together and figure your shit out so you don't waste other people's time. Of course the other girl was no longer available and now we are getting all sorts of response from the last minute suckers. Ugh.
Last night we met Stefano, one of the Italians who came with me on the move out here, and his girlfriend Elena for dinner at Moto. It was excellent and pricey as always. After that I showed them Barcade, which they loved and then we came back to our roof for some beer and relaxation. There was a cool storm blowing through and we got to watch lightning and cool clouds in the distance without getting wet.
Turns out tonight is my birthday and we will be going to Lauren's since she is having a BBQ, and then we will probably go out after that. I feel kind of lame b/c I haven't invited anyone out, but meh. Birthday, whatever.
I just found out that one of the Italians from study abroad is getting married while I am in Europe, so I will probably have to make a detour to go down for that, which means no Freiburg, but it will be great to see a lot of other people again.
Exercise
Ok, the one or two people who read this can ignore posts titled exercise since I will be posting the shit I do so that I can realize how lame and undedicated to the sport of Ultimate that I truly am.
Track workout.
10 min - jog
12 min - sprint 1/2 rest
14 min - sprint 1/2 rest
18 min - sprint 1 rest
20 min - sprint 1/2 rest
22 min - sprint 1/2 rest
26 min - sprint 1 rest almost die
cool off + stretch
Track workout.
10 min - jog
12 min - sprint 1/2 rest
14 min - sprint 1/2 rest
18 min - sprint 1 rest
20 min - sprint 1/2 rest
22 min - sprint 1/2 rest
26 min - sprint 1 rest almost die
cool off + stretch
Friday, July 3, 2009
So, to the actual writing...
We have been paid off by waiting and not jumping on the first person who was interested in Dan's room, who was kind of lame. We now have two interested girls who we liked a lot, which is a curse in itself. So we decided to go with the first one who saw it and she will be letting us know on Monday. Looking for roommates is not nearly as bad as looking for apartments, but still quite annoying.
On Monday I spent most of the day working from home. Sitting in my sunny kitchen and listening to all of the birds chirping and the breeze in the trees always makes me feel good, even when not being very productive.
Around three, an acquaintance of mine from Lancaster came by for a visit. Erin had begun a free market in Lancaster and I had interviewed her about it once right before I moved away, since I have this latent interest in free markets. We reconnected since I am still on her free market email list and she was in town looking at apartments for a future move. In our communications we kind of acted like we were old friends who were reconnecting after years, but the reality is that we hadn't ever really hung out and didn't know each other too well. We sat in the kitchen awkwardly for a bit chatting and then I took her for a little tour of the neighborhood, of course showing her the most important Greenpoint landmark, the Rite Aid that used to be a theater, and a roller rink and thus still has the balcony, oval shape, and huge disco ball. I also shower her the old Faber Castell pencil factory with huge pencils in the architecture. The awkwardness did not last and we ended the day having tea on the sidewalk at this very cool cafe on Franklin.
I spent the week alternately working in New Brunswick and at home. At work I have been stuck calling transit agencies for interviews about using ITS. Calling people is not really my cup of tea, but it is good practice to get over my irrational somewhat fear of calling people professionally. Especially good to have the practice with friendly Midwesterners who love to talk. I spent a lot more time on this project than I should have and my boss made some comments about it.
Yesterday I started to go to lunch at 11:30, but then remembered that my current favorite prof was having a goodbye lunch since he is going on to Berkeley, so I went back to the office and sat around for 15 min and left again. The lunch went until 1:30, so I ended up spending two hours in the lunch process and thus didn't get my full 15 hours this week. Meh.
Today we will be leaving for Lancaster for the weekend. We are going to meet up with old friends of mine. Tonight we will go to First Friday. On the 1st Fri of every month all of the many studios in Lancaster stay open until nine often give out food and wine and tons of people fill the streets. It is more of a social event than anything, but very fun. Tomorrow we will spend the day picking Mulberries and making jam.
Anyway, gots to go if I'm to eat breakfast before I go.
We have been paid off by waiting and not jumping on the first person who was interested in Dan's room, who was kind of lame. We now have two interested girls who we liked a lot, which is a curse in itself. So we decided to go with the first one who saw it and she will be letting us know on Monday. Looking for roommates is not nearly as bad as looking for apartments, but still quite annoying.
On Monday I spent most of the day working from home. Sitting in my sunny kitchen and listening to all of the birds chirping and the breeze in the trees always makes me feel good, even when not being very productive.
Around three, an acquaintance of mine from Lancaster came by for a visit. Erin had begun a free market in Lancaster and I had interviewed her about it once right before I moved away, since I have this latent interest in free markets. We reconnected since I am still on her free market email list and she was in town looking at apartments for a future move. In our communications we kind of acted like we were old friends who were reconnecting after years, but the reality is that we hadn't ever really hung out and didn't know each other too well. We sat in the kitchen awkwardly for a bit chatting and then I took her for a little tour of the neighborhood, of course showing her the most important Greenpoint landmark, the Rite Aid that used to be a theater, and a roller rink and thus still has the balcony, oval shape, and huge disco ball. I also shower her the old Faber Castell pencil factory with huge pencils in the architecture. The awkwardness did not last and we ended the day having tea on the sidewalk at this very cool cafe on Franklin.
I spent the week alternately working in New Brunswick and at home. At work I have been stuck calling transit agencies for interviews about using ITS. Calling people is not really my cup of tea, but it is good practice to get over my irrational somewhat fear of calling people professionally. Especially good to have the practice with friendly Midwesterners who love to talk. I spent a lot more time on this project than I should have and my boss made some comments about it.
Yesterday I started to go to lunch at 11:30, but then remembered that my current favorite prof was having a goodbye lunch since he is going on to Berkeley, so I went back to the office and sat around for 15 min and left again. The lunch went until 1:30, so I ended up spending two hours in the lunch process and thus didn't get my full 15 hours this week. Meh.
Today we will be leaving for Lancaster for the weekend. We are going to meet up with old friends of mine. Tonight we will go to First Friday. On the 1st Fri of every month all of the many studios in Lancaster stay open until nine often give out food and wine and tons of people fill the streets. It is more of a social event than anything, but very fun. Tomorrow we will spend the day picking Mulberries and making jam.
Anyway, gots to go if I'm to eat breakfast before I go.
Don't talk to the police... and now I will write
First off, this video must be watched by any American:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
This is important advice about our 5th Amendment rights and why you should never talk to the police. I think this is especially important for teenagers and college students to watch since they are more easily intimidated, and automatically considered criminals by the police. Remember that the format is of professor to law students. There are also some good comments here that talk to the grey area in this, although most of them are typical internet fools. Ok, if you get busted red handed smoking pot, maybe it's time to be a little honest. At that point he can choose to search you anyway and you've already 'said' to the police that you were smoking pot.
The phrase, 'there are so many stupid people on the internet' is kind of funny because, no, they are actually all around you everyday, they just haven't opened their mouths to tell you how stupid they are. But they vote, and they get jobs that give them the power to affect your life. Yikes.
I came to the conclusion yesterday that I need to write more, particularly about my observations, and especially when traveling. I am reading this excellent book called, The Discovery of France. The author, Graham Robb spent several years cycling around France and another few years researching and tells a very good story of what was going on around France, outside of the typical Paris, politico life. At least he does what he can with the data he has. I won't get into it, but I was thinking about how little had been written down and kept - things that would have seemed rather mundane at the time, but would be of great interest now. That lead me to the idea that I must write as much as possible, for who knows the value of it in the future. I mean, we are all just dead meat waiting to die and probably won't make that big of an impression on the world, but written word has a much greater chance to last much longer and tell much more than most physical achievements we might make. Not that I will abandon my trade and all the things I tell myself are making the world a better place, but I will also try to put as much word to, at the least, silicon and perhaps it will surface someday and some professor will happily be able to say, wow, "there is evidence that the such and such existed in Ohio as early as 2009." I also understand that writing is available to so many more people than ever before, which makes the importance of my pieces that much less valuable, but not entirely useless, so I continue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
This is important advice about our 5th Amendment rights and why you should never talk to the police. I think this is especially important for teenagers and college students to watch since they are more easily intimidated, and automatically considered criminals by the police. Remember that the format is of professor to law students. There are also some good comments here that talk to the grey area in this, although most of them are typical internet fools. Ok, if you get busted red handed smoking pot, maybe it's time to be a little honest. At that point he can choose to search you anyway and you've already 'said' to the police that you were smoking pot.
The phrase, 'there are so many stupid people on the internet' is kind of funny because, no, they are actually all around you everyday, they just haven't opened their mouths to tell you how stupid they are. But they vote, and they get jobs that give them the power to affect your life. Yikes.
I came to the conclusion yesterday that I need to write more, particularly about my observations, and especially when traveling. I am reading this excellent book called, The Discovery of France. The author, Graham Robb spent several years cycling around France and another few years researching and tells a very good story of what was going on around France, outside of the typical Paris, politico life. At least he does what he can with the data he has. I won't get into it, but I was thinking about how little had been written down and kept - things that would have seemed rather mundane at the time, but would be of great interest now. That lead me to the idea that I must write as much as possible, for who knows the value of it in the future. I mean, we are all just dead meat waiting to die and probably won't make that big of an impression on the world, but written word has a much greater chance to last much longer and tell much more than most physical achievements we might make. Not that I will abandon my trade and all the things I tell myself are making the world a better place, but I will also try to put as much word to, at the least, silicon and perhaps it will surface someday and some professor will happily be able to say, wow, "there is evidence that the such and such existed in Ohio as early as 2009." I also understand that writing is available to so many more people than ever before, which makes the importance of my pieces that much less valuable, but not entirely useless, so I continue.
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