HAPPY NEW YEAR!

++ HAPPY NEW YEAR!! it's 2004!

..so there is a chinese custom on the Chinese Lunar New Year (which isn't the same as everybody elses new year and doesn't usually fall on the same day as the last) that whatever you do on new year's day will foreshadow the rest of the year. ok, maybe thats not quite it. but its close. so all debts are settled before the new year. red is considered lucky, so everyone decorates everything with red. people, usually elders, give the younger people in the family little red envelopes containing money, called 'lucky money'. everyone dresses up in new clothes from hats down to the shoes as this symbolizes renewel and a fresh start in life for the coming year. everyone visits each other and spends loads of money on entertainment. and to top it all off, everyone lights firecrackers at the stroke of midnight.

and so i on new year's day welcomed the first day of the year by staying up til 8 in the morning watching the entire second season of friends with chubbs, i mean fatass, i mean tubbs, i mean cow, i mean suzie! a great way to bring in the new year. :) ++

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

++ FROM A FRIEND in England.. (who is 5 hours ahead of EST)..
SS: one min....
JB: yay
SS: less...
SS: than one min
SS: maybe 30 sec
SS: welcome to 2004
JB: yay!
JB: Happy New Year!
SS: HAPPY new year -05:00:00 to you to bud
SS: he he he
++

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!

++ HAPPY CHRISTMAS!! ++

TEARS

++ I CRIED LAST NIGHT. ++

I'M SO CONFUSED.

++ I'M SO CONFUSED. someone help. i'm feeling sick.

serenity prayer:
"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference. .."

I hope ..to be strong..to accept..to fight..to stand..to believe.. for inspiration..++

THE PHOTO

++ THE PHOTO. wait. no pictures please. ++

VAIL!!!

++ VAIL!!! oh powdery snow. you are my friend. i depend on you when i am falling. your fluffy features fluff my every flail, my every fall, my every flop. when i lay my head down violently against your coldness, you provide me with moisture to reinvigorate my taste buds. sometimes you touch my skin and it burns...from the cold. but you are still my friend. oh powdery snow. ++

REVIEW CRITS

++ OH THESIS. how i loathe you. ok, not really, but you make me stay up late. you cause my brain to think. you impose intellectual stimulation when i don't want it. sometimes you even kick me when i'm asleep. i don't like that. my computer whines when you're around. i know. it told me last night. it's tired of doing your busy work and constantly having to try out new programs. the lights in the room are being paid double-time right now as a result of you constantly 'hanging' around and not going to bed. the desk which i work at has complained everytime you put another dent or scratch on its surface. i'm pretty sure it's gonna just go off on you at any moment. the printer is always empty. i'm not trying to turn this into a race issue, but it's always out of black, but the photo colors are used rarely. perhaps you could for once cater to it and print more pretty pictures and less boring unintelligable text. oh, and the wallet. i think it may loathe you even more than i do! oh thesis. how i loate you. ++

NO SNOW

++ NYC GOT 9 INCHES of snow. we got 45 degrees and partly sunny skies. and i'm disappointed. ++

ANOTHER POLICE BEATING

++ ANOTHER POLICE BEATING in cincinnati- 12.02.2003. update - 12.03.2003 ++

HIPPO LOVIN'

++ HIPPO LOVIN' from a creek girl. ++

A THANKSGIVING JOKE

++ A THANKSGIVING JOKE. from a friend in the UK.
A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgery. As she lay her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm so sorry, Daffy has passed away." The distressed owner wailed, "Are you sure?" "Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," he replied. "How can you be so sure," she protested. "I mean, you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something." The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room, and returned a few moments later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his
front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog and took it out, and returned a few moments later with a beautiful cat. The cat jumped up on the table and also sniffed delicately at the bird. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck." Then the vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill which he handed to the woman. The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "£150!", she cried,"£150 just to tell me my duck is dead?!!" The vet shrugged. "I'm sorry. If you'd taken my word for it, the bill would have been £20, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it went up considerably." ++

++ DISNEY RE-RE-VISITED with more balloons. shiny gold ones this time. ++

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEIDI

++ ITS HEIDI SADLER'S 23rd birthday today. wish the little youngin' a 'hippity happity 23rd (birth) day'! ++

DISNEY REVISITED

++ IT'S DISNEY REVISITED. somewhere on the right, you can see a reflection of mitchell, heather, and me. although i'm not standing next to them. ++

BILL MITCHELL LIGHTHOUSE ART

++ BUY A CALENDER OF Bill Mitchell Lighthouse Art. it's a father of a friend and it will make a good christmas present. ++

TEST IMAGE

++ THIS IS A TEST. not of the emergency broadcasting system. but to see if i can post pictures. ++

NOT HEALTHY.

++ YEAH I'M NOT very healthy right now. and i know it. i'm not happy. and i know it. i need to relax. i'm not sure how. and i don't see it getting better anytime in the next couple of weeks. i think actually it may get worse. and i know it. and thats not good. and yet i'm not sure if its that i don't care or if thats just the way things are going to swing and i'm not going to have any control over it. people are not helping. and they don't know it. but i know it. i can't even be sad about it. if anything i'm more mad about it. and i know it. ++

INDOOR SOCCER

++ WE (THE OMINOUS WE) have a soccer team now. 8 games. starst in the middle of january. we're called "Thesis Ceases Tonight." and although we're not all thesis students, the majority of us are and well i organized it, so thats the way the name swung. its co-ed. should be fun. wow, what a boring, non-desriptive entry. ++

JEFF'S BIRTHDAY.

++ TODAY IS JEFF'S BIRTHDAY! he's turning a big 21. and jeff is my brother. actually his names is jeffrey, not to be confused with jeffery. his middle name is the same as that guy in that movie which is historic and takes place in scotland, which was on television this evening. useless knowledge which most likely will remain useless for the remainder of time. HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY JEFF! ++

NEW DVD'S FOR JAY

++ NEW DVD'S FOR JAY. looks like it. just $2 for the blank dvd and a small price to pay and some time and wallah.
yep. it works. ++

I HATE THIS.

++ I HATE THIS. ++

MY BED

++ IN THE PAST 12 days, I have slept in my bed for 3 nights. the others have been on a couch in seattle, in an airplane seat on a 727, in a hotel at the Disney World Sports Resort, and on a seat in a Croswell Tour Bus. oh my bed. how nice it feels. zz zz zz.. ++

DISNEY WORLD!

++ NOW THAT YOU'VE WON, (or rather paid $370) where are you going? i'm going to disney world!!! ++

OOPS I DID IT (FOR THE FIRST TIME)

++ OOPS I DID IT (for the first time). ah. you sick perverted minds. no. not that. (as if i'd tell you anyway.) i forgot the camera was on and changed in front of the camera. although there are no incriminating photos out as the camera only takes a picture every 15 seconds and the 2 seconds i was sans pants was not one of those magic 15 seconds. drat. well, actually good for me. maybe next time. ++

WEBPAGE UPDATED

++WEBPAGE UPDATED. new movie section added with crummy small, pixelated shaky footage all shoddily brought together by yours truly. and the page its on isn't much better. i might have well of had a 6 year old design it, then do it, and post it. no, that would probably be too good. maybe 4 year old is closer. anyway, its there. said.uc.edu/students/blackbjy/movies/movie.html ++

GREAT BEARCAT RUN 5K

++ GREAT BEARCAT RUN 5K. so i ran it today. and i haven't run at all or even thought of or considered running since last year's homecoming bearcat run. train? nah. so of course i thought i'd do it. you know. just for kicks. my last years time was 23:55. i'm not quite sure what i ran this year as they didn't have a clock out there, but i know i ran 6:55 at the end of the first mile and 14:58 at the end of the second mile. i also know that 5k=5kilometers=3.1miles. i also was passed around 1.25 miles by an old old school friend, 6 year old soccer team, chris camfield, who also used to run for uc's track and cross country team. i caught up with him about 1.5 miles and we ran together (and walked together) for most of the remainder of the race. its nice to see old faces. (oh yeah and i beat him.) ++

BOWLING (NOT FOR COLUMBINE)

++ BOWLING (NOT FOR COLUMBINE). high game last night: 178. highest score ever! the other two scores were 156 and 148. team score last night for 5 people without handicap was 697, with handicap 1020. not bad for a bunch of 6th years. ++

WEBCAM SPOTTED

++ WEBCAM SPOTTED. at jay's house. in jay's room. thats right. he now has a webcam. or rather an isight. no, he has not given in to the evils of apple and mac, but yes he did by another apple product. he is not a traitor. please don't call him that. the new isight is not really a webcam. its more a video conferencing meant to be used with others who have purchased the way too expensive camera. to turn it into sort of a webcam i had to use a third party software in order to capture images. every 4 seconds it captures an image and uploads it to my website. then i have a webpage which automatically refreshes every 5 seconds, so in theory there is a new picture every 5 seconds. but i'm not quite sure what the problem is, but it doesn't always load up the picture. maybe the jpg is too large or something or the network isn't fast enough. i'm not quite sure. anyway, i got it up and running in a few hours of messing around with it and i'm pretty stoked. i do notice however that its pretty boring. its probably more cool to visit cornell's website of our studio, university of cincinnati senior architecture studio, pod 3. said.uc.edu/students/cornelmg/portfolio/webcam.html ++

LIFE CODE

++ LIFE CODE. honesty. integrity. truth. trust. communication. life. love. why?

honesty: be honest with yourself, not to others. are you living your life for yourself?

integrity: without this there is nothing else. why do it or say it if you don't mean it? who are you trying to please or fit in with, someone else or yourself?

truth: whats the use of lying? to try to make something right which is wrong? do it right in the first place and there is no need to lie. trust: the roots of friendship. its sacred. once broken, you can never be as you were. scars heal, but slowly and with time, never replacing, but trying again.

communication: there is no need to live your life by yourself. it doesn't mean you have to be a social butterfly. find your crowd. the ones who think like you and live like you. they don't bend to meet you. you don't bend to meet them. it is.

life: its why we're here. just be. it's why we live. live it. it's why we experience. experience with all senses. it's sacred. it's short. live. don't be a spectator to your own life.

love: if you can love yourself, you can love anyone or anything. love yourself above all. love with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul and nothing else will matter. ++

FINSIHED "A MILLION LITTLE PIECES"

++ FINSIHED "A MILLION LITTLE PIECES" by james frey last night. if you haven't heard about it or read it, i highly recommend it. it is a story about an addict to everything. honest. brutal. entrancing. intense. amazing. about hate. rage. fury. friendship. understanding. enemies. integrity. honesty. and above all love. love of the body. of the mind. of the soul. of survival. of another person. of friendship. of the will to live. a story which will resonate with me for .. ever. ++

++ MINDSET LIST man, i feel old and i'm only 23. geesh. ++

++ ARMAGEDDON IS UPON us. crap. well that just sucks. ++

++ AND I THOUGHT berkeley was the only place where weird laws and taxes were on the ballot. now seattle wants a bit of change as well. ++

++ SO MY ENTIRE family is in town (seattle) now. mom and dad flew in on tuesday evening and jeff flew in on friday. they are all here til this coming thursday. its been fun having them here, but at the same time i now (not that i haven't before, but even more so now) realize how vastly different i am from them. maybe its because i haven't seen them at all for 5 months or maybe its that i'm in 'my' environment and they are visiting, or maybe its just me coming into my own. i'm not really sure. i know the things i am interested in. i know the things which i like to do, the places i like to go, the things i like to see, and everything i would recommend. i also know enough that i know it. so when my family comes and asks me my opinions on things i know, i give it to them. and i can do that because i am actually living here (granted its really more like visiting for an extended period of time .. 5 months) and they are just 'visiting'. so i have the right to be correct. and the right to 'know' what i'm talking about. which doesn't also make something they say correct, but i know what i'm talking about. huh? what is all this about? doesn't really matter, cause i know.

gah. frustrating day. its just one of those days i think. "maybe somebody has a case of the monday's." yeah, that would be me i guess. gah. double gah. ++

++ I KEEP CHECKING my blog to see if its been updated. i'm an idiot. obviously its not going to get updated unless i update it. i'm a moron. ++

++ LEMONADE STAND TYCOON baby! not just the regular lemonade stand. but TYCOON! maybe you don't understand. maybe you do .. if your mind is simple like me. just think. the perfect life. make lemonade. sell it. .. for money. and then become a millionaire doing it. leftovers? drink up.

oh yeah and check out brian's website.
tell him, you'll listen to music with him.
he likes that. ++

++ 20 QUESTIONS .. vs. the computer! ++

++ BRIAN SAYS, "I can philosophize myself into a meaningless, nihilistic, don't even actually exist outside of my own perception corner if I want. I can do that. At some point though, I realize that I have to live life through these tinted glasses (of myself). Though maybe it's a different shade than everyone else, I know that I have my own experiences. I also know that I can share those experiences. Sure if people are there with me, they see things differently, and even if I tell them about what I feel they still might not feel it the same. In the same way that (even though I never can) I want to know everything, I want to come as close as possible to real relationships with people. I value that they have a different perspective and experience. I value that I can learn to really care for them. Can I really explain why were different from animals? Does anything I do really have any meaning? Isn't everything really just a construct that we've made for ourselves? I don't know, but I don't think so. I think there are some absolutes..." ++

++ JOKE(S) OF THE DAY

what do cobras study in college?
.. .. .. hiss-tory.

what do you give a snake with allergies?
.. .. .. anti-hiss=tamines.

saw fog here in seattle for the first time this morning. yay. exciting. uh huh. whatever jay.
and the blue angels are in town this weekend, overhead right now practicing for their show this weekend. so every few minutes you hear an f/a-18 scream by overhead and since we don't have air conditioning (as is the same with most every building in seattle) we keep the windows open all day in an attempt to induce air flow and cross ventililation throughout the office (which never happens) and its really loud. but it reminds me of home (well more so wright patterson afb) but that may as well be home with fighter jets and airplanes flying low overhead all the time (especially when there is a hurricane coming and they have to move al lthe planes). i think its lunch on the roof today to see them practice. ++

++ VISITORS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME at the place. you have only to put up with pre-school toys everywhere and posters on the wall depicting what a vegetable is, etc.. craig came into town yesterday. man i haven't seen that boy in a long time! i mean i've passed him or ran into him maybe 3 or 4 times in the past 4 years, but i really haven't seen him since 1st year in college when he was a roommate. and that was quite a while ago. (relatively speaking. .. relative to what? ..) so craig emailed me yesterday afternoon from the seattle public library saying he had arrive in seattle and was looking to get together or if possible stay with us for the evening. (of course you can stay with us for the evening. you could stay with us for two or three evenings if you'd like!)

so craig is in school with me, just on the opposite section, so he has option quarter right now and he's using it for travel. (where?) across the entire united states in one (well actually two) long road trip(s) to see not only the parts of the u.s. he hasn't seen (which he says was more or less the entire western half) and to see a baseball game in every baseball stadium. i think there is 30 or 32 and he has about 13 left to go, which is pretty cool if you ask me (but then again who would .. and if you did, who would care?) he says he wrote every team and told them who he was and what he's doing and if he could have a free ticket. 9 teams replied and gave him free tickets. how awesome is that! (wait that was a question which i ended with an exclamation point. oh right, who cares.) he's seeing the M's play a day game thursday and then he's off to sf, oakland, la, anaheim, san diego, arizona, arlington, houston, florida, atlanta, and i think i may have missed one. (he still has to make up pittsburgh, which was rained out).

i wanna go on a road trip. .. .. oh wait, i am going on a road trip! woohoo! i forgot all about that! in about a month and a week .. portland, sf, san diego, joshua tree, phoenix, arcosanti, antelope canyon, mesa verde, great sand dunes, collegiate peaks, garden of the gods, colorado springs, denver, and finally home! ++

++ MUSEUM OF GLASS doesn't really have all that much glass in it. true it does have a glass making studio (which btw is pretty cool) but as far as glass on display, not so much. and isn't dale chihuly from tacoma? and he doesn't even have one piece of glass actually in the museum? are you serious? (ok maybe there were some, but if there was i didn't see it.) ++

++ MARINERS 6 ATHLETICS 0 . that was the score last night at the baseball game i attended .. for free, thanks to 'mr. patcraft' carpets product rep guy who gave away four free tickets which were raffled off within the office and i won. jeff, brian, and heather accompanied me to row 19 of section 114 at safeco field. i think yesterday was the most i have ever not paid attention to a baseball game. it wasn't that it was a bad game. quite the contrary. m's pitched a 2 hit shutout and ichiro saved a homerun with an outstanding catch in right field. they looked great. good company i guess makes the game seem not as interesting and more fun to just goof around with and share inside jokes while being loud and obnoxoius.

name theory .. (whoever thought this could actually be a real theory with people actually philosiphizing the significance of the meaning of words and names.) .. ..

do you notice different people with the same first name having similar traits. sometimes its a personality trait. sometimes its a physical trait. sometimes its the way they act around people or some mannerism. but i always find people with the same first name who somehow are grouped by some similar trait. maybe its just because i'm looking for some way to relate them together? i dunno.

why is it humans always feel the need to classify or quantify things? seriously. does everything need to be classified? can't things just be what they are without something attached to it? we can't be just individuals anymore. we have to be an individual of a group. we can't just be a individual. ++

++ IT WAS CHRISTMAS last night .. uh .. right. no, actually it was just a bunch of glasgow and man.u. fans. a whole whopping 66,722 of them! they say its the largest crowd to attend a sporting event ever in the pacific northwest beating theprevious record set by the women's world cup the last time it was in town. manchester united beat the glasgow celtics 4-0 with ruud van nistelrooy being named man of the match. the game was awesome. the pitch looked great. the play much different from american soccer. the fans not rowdy, only fanatical about the game. the weather perfect and the sunset incredible. what great night for a european soccer match.

overheard at work ..
"i thank you for your work and will see to it that you get credit toward helping humanity."
.. and i thought i worked in an architectural office .. little do i know. ++

++ THE EIFFEL TOWER caught fire.
and i'm going to see manchester united (sans david beckham) play glasgow celtics tonight 1 2 at the seahawks stadium.
both stories of which have absolutely no relation or correlation.

and lance is winning le tour de france

..
..

sooooo .. what's your favorite movie? .. ++

++ HEATHER GOT A NEW COMPUTER!!! a new shiny 17" powerbook g4! and holy wow its a big screen. i on the other hand .. don't have one. ++

++ THIS PAST WEEKEND was a hiking weekend at mount saint helens, which now that i think about it, we never actually hiked on the mountain. but we did hike all around the mountain and it was super cool. we visited the ape caves, which is soooo super cool! it is actually a lava tube (which for everyone who isn't a geologist) is when the lava flowed down from the mountain and then cooled on top and all the lava on the inside drained out, leaving this tunnel which is more or less all cooled lava. the hike we did was through the upper part and it was pitch black. we rented a butane lantern and the only way to get a good shot was to stand perfectly still and shoot with a 10-15 second shutter speed to capture as much light as possible. it was so much fun hiking around and crawling and climbing through this cave and yet barely any good shots to show it.

brian and jeff went with us and we all camped out, which is always fun. i think i have camped out every weekend for more or less the past 2 months. oh and the food. we usually just cook small meals over our camp stoves, but recently we have been going to the store and making some killer wicked good foil packs with onions and meat and potatos and carrots, a little seasoning and toss it on the coals in the campfire and 20 minutes later .. yum yum, thats some good dinner.

do you ever wonder if you should leave the toilet seat up or down? yeah me either. for those who do, thank brian.

weapons of mass destruction. ++

++ I WAS DRIVING around last night down in ballard along the beaches and i saw tons of cars and tons (and by tons i don't mean their total weight .. or the literal number of ton) of people walking toward the beach. i kept driving and found where they were going. they were going to the beach where the campfires were to 'hang out'. apparantly seattle has some ancient law where everyone is allowed to burn campfires on the beaches. .. .. which is cool (because fire is always cool, right?) but not very eco-freindly (or safe? but then again it is fire on top of sand .. right next to a huge body of water ..) i thought it was cool. it was a lot cooler last night when i saw it. and it sounds pretty lame now that i am writing about it. oh well. volleyball tonight. ++

++ AN OLD HIGH SCHOOL friend of mine got engaged on the 4th .. well maybe it was the 3rd. i'm not sure exactly. it was right around midnight 'their time' (ohio time .. eastern time zone) so i'm not sure if it counts as the 3rd or the 4th. anyway .. oh right its jon kippins and kiera .. i'm not sure what kiera's last name is .. so i was driving .. on my way to smith .. in bend if you haven't cought that already .. and it was late and dark out and ring ring .. well acutally buzz buzz and vibrate vibrate (because i was trying not to wake the passengers who were sleeping while i was driving! bastards.) and i picked up the phone and said hello. jon goes, "hello? jay?" i knew it. (well actually he told me he was going to do it about a few weeks before and he sounded pretty sure of it, so i knew it a while ago.) but still still i knew it. but i was still excited and wowed when he said he was engaged! holy crap! am i getting old? my friends are getting engaged! (well actually i've had a friend who has been engaged before, but still .. ) and not even friends of friends . no we're talking one degree of separation here. wow! holy wow!

CONGRATULATIONS JON KIPPINS! email him and congratulate him if you know him! ++

++ I GOT A flat tire yesterday and its causing me all kinds of trouble. luckily it didn't puncture, so i didn't even have to get it plugged. apparantly there is a problem with the seal of the tire to the rim and it leaks there..but ever so slowly. poop. and its costing me $30 to get it fixed.

although .. duck dodge tonight .. which means its sailing tonite! woohoo! ++

++ THE ACTUAL FOURTH of july was hot, as it is all the time in central oregon .. better known as the high desert. although i'm not sure why. it's not that its really all that high. mt. hood which is not quite central oregon sits at 11,000 feet, but thats the top of it. the base is only something around 8,000 and smith rocks state park is only around 3,500 at its highest point. i think most of central oregon sits around 2500-3000 feet above sea-level. but like all deserts it's hot in the day and cold and windy at night. its almost like ohio .. except not really at all .. well kind of minus the humidity and mugginess and muggings (if you are in cincinnati) and minus the sucky pro sports teams and minus the big air force base (better known as wright patterson air force base) and (for all the western people who have never been to ohio .. or anywhere remotely east of the mississippi corn and wheat .. because thats all there is in ohio. its one big field of corn interrupted only by one big field of wheat .. interspersed with cows .. everywhere). but except for those minor almost non-descript even non-noticable differences, its almost the same. except for the tumbleweed and sand and lack of mountains. the same i tell you. all the same. and overcast sky. you'd never even know you left ohio.

we picked up tony on the way out to smith rocks. he's a climber. and he's better than me. (which isn't hard i know.) actually he's way better than me. and its not just abour the whole skill level thing. its more so about 'da balls and the lack of fear of falling. (which if you know me i've experienced once or twice, so i am a little afraid of falling.) (and if you don't know me, i've fallen from real high up once and so i am afraid of falling.) together (together meaning tony climbed hard stuff and heather and i watched .. and then top-roped the hard route he did) we climbed quite a few hard things. we did some sport stuff, some bouldering (well he did, heather tried and watched, i tried and fell mostly), and a trad route. (well i did a trad route .. my very first trad route mind you! which may not mean squat to anyone else, but i did it and i was proud and ecstatic and scard all at the same time!) (granted it was an easy 5.5, but it was trad and it was me. yay. go me.) we camped three nights (thurs, fri, sat) and climbed two and a half days and it was a blast. i can't wait to go back. smith is a great place. go there. even if you don't climb. its spectacular.

the drive back home (home being seattle still) was long (only 7 hours? how's that long. ohio to seattle=44 hours. ohio to sf=36 hours. ohio to denver=18 hours.) the traffic was horrible. (luckily i only drove part of it) and everyone (ok not everyone, but close i swear) left seattle for the 4th to go somewhere else and all decided to head back the same way at the same time on the only north-south highway which winds through the state of oregon and washington.

oh yeah, since we were climbing and camping we didn't get to see any parades and we didn't get any free candy, but we did get to see fireworks .. from 30 miles away and they were about an inch big from our vantage point. poo. although some guy next to our campsite was watching the same one inch fireworks we were and after the finale he said aloud and i can only assume he was talking to us and said, "hey guys. i'm a war vetern and i'd do it again. cheers." all we could say in return was, "cheers". we heard him walk to his truck and turn up his cd player. it blared, "born in the u.s.a." by bruce springsteen. the song ended. he turned off his radio. his light. went to his tent. and went to bed.

i can't even say i was born in the usa. ..

.. and isn't that an anti-american song? ++

++ FOURTH O' JULY

amy to jeff ..
Hey – if you aren’t doing anything – and are interested….we’re again havin’ folks over on the 4th…..not as many people as in the past. – jessie and brian and a couple of aaron’s co-workers, a few friends, neighborhood cats, etc…..but nothing too extravagant. We’ll bbq some burgers and brats. That’s as much planning as we’ve done so far.
But, let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll let you know when we figure out what time this will all go down.
If not, have a good holiday.
Amy

jeff's reply to amy ..
my schedule seems to be clear. my ‘spokane crew’ was supposed to ‘represent’ this weekend but i haven’t heard from them ‘on the down-low’. so worst case scenario i may be accompanied by a family of 3. also, during a festive match of duck dodge last month i pointed your place out to Jay & Heather (jay’s ‘boo’) and hyped-up your ‘crib’ (as if it needs any hyping) as the premiere fireworks vantage point. i believe they say a prayer every night hoping you would take pitty on their poor souls and invite them as well…not sure about brian. as for their non-ARC function ‘down-ness’ i believe all of the above parties have put a significant amount of ‘impin in the pimpin.’ thank you for your time.
ps. jay does like fire and burning things, may need supervision if sparklers are involved.
-jeff

amy's reply to jeff. cc'd to jay and brian ..
Jay can come, too, but only if he brings sparklers. Heather can come only if she brings Jay, who brings sparklers.
Brian can come, too, but only if he promises to keep Jay from burning the place down. (assuming he even has any interest in attending….. if not, you’re in charge of babysitting Jay.)
We’re thinking 5 or 6-ish, if you’re interested in eating. We’ll be featuring a modest menu of said burgers and brats and a few sides and a few beverages. Bring anything else you wish to grill (which will be interesting on Aaron’s tail-gating size mini-grill.) and/or anything else you wish to eat or drink. I think the pyrotechnics (not jay’s, but the official ones) start at 10.
Parking figures to be her usual bitch, so let me know if you wanna try to arrange something before-hand. I’m not sure what that would be, exactly, but we could work on a plan.
Overwhelmed with patriotism,
Amy

jeff's reply to jay and brian ..
4th of July plans? see above ..
-jeff

jay's amy, jeff, brian, and heather ..
Actually, I’ve moved my pyrotechnics show to the campgrounds of Skull Hollow for the July 4th celebration. I heard a rumor they were indeed without a fire-starter consultant, so I’ve decided to be a good samaratin (doubly) by providing my much needed skills to the (TRANS) res(I)d(ENT) rock climbers of Bend, Oregon and Smith Rocks State Park for the weekend and providing those attending the aforementioned party at the humble abode of Amy with additional food and beverages by not being there. The Jay Pyro-Show Office Co. Inc. ©, where our motto is, “Always Courage under Fire In the Line of Fire without Grace under Fire or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” wishes to thank you for your understanding and commitment to the best-show-ever, even if it’s not his and it’s without him.
Thanks again. See you after the Holiday.
Jay

amy's reply to jeff ..
Jay’s (and Heather’s) presence, albeit seemingly dangerous, if not just very hot….will be missed. Have a good holiday.
(okay, lobster-boy – in reference to the color of you skin, not your claw-like appendages – you are now burdened with the duty of providing sparklers….there’s got to be a renegade fireworks-stand or two in lawless West Seattle………)
(okay, okay…..really, I guess we’ll let you in to the party with or without sparklers…but not without your sparkling personality.)
(that was a totally cheesy thing to say.)
Amy

brian's rsvp reply to amy ..
I guess I never rsvp’d to this whole shindig, but assuming there’s still room to come, what are the requirements?... – I can promise no pyrotechnics. However, I am a kung-fu master. I don’t know if that helps. I also have an incriminating video of Jay-C taking out a rival arsonist only known as “Billy.”
Brian

++

++ EDUCATIONAL NERDINESS OF THE DAY:

there are two different kinds of cherries sold here in seattle: the bing cherry and the rainier cherry. apparantly there are bunch more but no one ever sells them .. like the lambert cherry and the lapins cherry and the van cherry and a whole slieu of other cherry varieties which i have no idea about. well there are these fruitstands all over washington with people who sell fresh picked cherries, mostly bing cherries, but sometimes ranier cherries. well its no scam at least from what i can tell. the cherries are real cherries (and they're really good) and legit cherries (versus illegitimate cherries?) and not 'hot' cherries (so to buy a cherry direct from a store would be a 'cold' cherry?). oh yeah and they sell for pretty cheap. a little box like thing of them usually cost $1. a box big of cherries big enough to feed two people is $5 (or big enough only to feed me if its for me). i think in the store bing cherries usually sell for about $4/pound and rainier cherries usually sell for about $6/pound. the fruitstand people sell them probably for approximately half that. pretty good deal. yum. thank goodness for street fruitstand people. ++

++ I SAW FOUR segways running around all in a little group yesterday on the way to the climbing gym. i couldn't tell if they were a family or a bunch of friends who all decided to buy them or just some people taking it out on a test spin. those things baffle me though. its not so much the actual segway which baffles me. i actually kind of understand it. its more about this whole health kick the united states is going through. there is all this talk about taxing fatty foods and then someone comes out with the segway. ok. i lost my train of thought.

..
..

i want to try a segway.

..
..

ok. really lost. now. yeah. bye. ++

++ I NEVER KNEW there was so much snow on mt. ranier. i mean i knew there was snow on ranier all the time, but i didn't know there was snow on ranier at the base of ranier all the time! saturday we went hiking on ranier, but not to the top, because thats a long way. but we hiked up a ways and it was snow for the entire hike! which is great, unless you are wearing tennis shoes, which could be alright if they were waterproof (which mine weren't) or maybe, just maybe alright if they weren't waterproof, but you decided to tie them, so no snow would get in (which mine also weren't). snow is cold. i forgot that. even if you are wearing shorts and a t-shirt and there are other people wearing just shorts and no t-shirt! we were only going to hike up a mile or so, until we saw the porta-potty up on the mountain on a ridge. what is a porta-potty doing 2 miles up on a mountain? yeah i don't know. but of course once we saw it, we had to hike up to it to see it! who wouldn't? and so it was locked. the hike back down (which was the same hike as coming up, except we were going down) we hiked right next to the nisqually glacier, which honestly you can't really tell it from just regular snow (or at least not this one.) (ok, maybe a little) and was much less hiking and more a conglomeration of running, slipping, sliding, glissading , tripping, falling, and jumping down the mountain. we built a snowman, which didn't last for more than an hour before someone decided to knock it down. !!. (billy!!!) ..

heather's birthday was june 29. if you know her, email her and wish her happy belated birthday! its her 23rd! we grilled hamburgers and had potato salad and chips, and more chips and an apple pie from marie callenders, yum! and ice cream and fudge. HAPPY 23rd HEATHER!!! ++

++ AND THE CAMERA won't get here until tomorrow. but since tomorrow is saturday and its being shipped to my office, i won't get it til monday.

what do you call a he-she cross dresser? .. .. .. .. .. .. a transformer. (its a knee slapper, i know.) ++

++ I SAW A SIGN on the side of a budget rent-a-truck. it said, "moving tip #23. dolly, good. hernia, bad."

i bought a camera! .. to replace my old stolen camera. .. finally! ++

++ YESTERDAY I PARKED in a 4 hour only zone. meaning i can only park there by law for 4 hours before i must move my car. no problem. i parked at 7.00am, so ideally i should move my car by 11am. but the police never come to check at exactly 4 hours. they can't. they are way too busy checking other streets and writing stupid tickets. so realistically that gives me 4.5 hours, maybe 5 hours if i press my luck. so 11am rolls around. 11.30am rolls around. thats 4.5 hours. noon rolls around. thats 5 hours. now i'm starting to push my luck. but i'm hungry. so i eat lunch. well eating food and trying to remember something afterwards just doesn't quite ever work out .. so 5 hours later .. 6.00pm .. 10 hours since i first parked in the 4 hour zone i remember about my car. running. keys in hand. my car is still there at least. .. .. .. and .. .. .. no ticket! woohoo! yeah yeah, not a big deal you say. you've done it too. you've actually even done 10 hours in a 2 hour zone. someone else you know even did all day in a 30 minutes loading zone. blah blah blah blah blah.
have you ever done it directly across the street from the local police station?
ha. i thought not. i rule. dogs drool. ++

++ I WENT TO sedro woolley, washington. ever heard of it? yeah, probably not. its a small town. it has a population of about 8500 people. pretty small. well we stopped by the chamber of commerce to introduce ourselves to the mayor. she's a nice woman. we had to wait to talk to her though. she was on the phone busy helping out playing receptionist. does she not have enough other things on her plate to do as mayor of a city that she gets to go play telephone for a couple hours? ++

++ RAIN RAIN GO AWAY... ++

++ VOLLEYBALL TONIGHT. hope it doesn't rain. looks like it might.++

++ MOVED DESKS TODAY at work. thats about as interesting as it got today. ++

++ LOOK AT ME! i was published on the mirrorproject experiment website.
which one am i? who was with me?
i might even qualify as quasi-famous now! ok, not really. .. .. ever.
(ok, actually s.s. took the picture. it was his camera. and i just submitted and posted it with his permission. makes me even less quasi-famous than i already am.)

on a more quasi-famous level, mr. michael graves.

"..His office has to move because its not ADA accessible so he can't get around inside it...
Just goes to show you, it's bad Karma to ignore ADA requirements." -j.k.
++

++ INTO THE OFFICE: 6.30. why? i don't know. beacuse i feel like it?
out of the office: 3.30. ah, much better. i see why now.

"just another reason to be thankful you have one more year of school ..
university of cincinnati bachelor of architecture and master of architecture --
11/60 : graduates with jobs / number of architecture graduates." -m.s.

i just realised when i stand on top of the roof at work i can see not only the space needle, but also bainbridge island, the cascade mountains and mount ranier holy crap that is one big mountain! ++

++ WHO LIKES HARRY POTTER? who can't wait for the new harry potter book to come out? ++

++ THIS IS THE COOLEST ad ever. thanks m-aybe s-apphic. (i didn't do the ad. but its a very cool ad, so that should give it away i didn't do it.) ++

++ KRUDER AND DORFMEISTER ++

++ EVER HEARD OF croix? yeah, me either. a sign of me being a very young "architect" (so much so that i don't even know how to spell it). ++

++ MY HANDS HURT. more sun this weekend. more kayaking. more camping. more climbing. crack climbing. and now my hands hurt. (let the jokes fly.)
-crack kills.
-a crack a day is pain i say.
-got crack?
-crack addict.
-the crack is big enough to fit your whole fist in.
-i wish i hadn't lost that piece of protection in the crack.
-lots of tight cracks.
-wow, what a great crack! ++

++ JOKE OF THE DAY

At Heathrow Airport, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a compass, a protractor and a calculator. Authorities believe he is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction. ++

++ LAST NIGHT AT the climbing gym spewed jokes/riddles of the night over the loudspeaker. the best (only) five jokes/riddles of the night of...

1) - "you have a wine bottle and it is secured with tape. you do not have a corkscrew, a knife, or anything sharp to cut the tape. how do you indulge yourself with a libation of wine?"
2) - "charlie chromehead went walking without a hat, umbrella, newspaper, or rainjacket. he did not stop under any tree or canopy, yet he his hair did not get wet. how is this possible?"
3) - "you now have 3 apples and you take away 2 apples. how many apples do you have now?"
4) - "mr. funk and charlie are playing chess. both of them has won 7 games, yet there were no ties, forfeits, or stalemates. how is this possible?"
5) - "which family member does not belong in this group and why: father, uncle, sister, cousin, brother, aunt."

prizes to the first person to answer all five questions correctly. tag it. (on your right).

(and yes i know the correct answers. and yes i was the first to answer one of them last night. and yes i got a prize. it was a bouncy ball with a purple plastic toy octopus in the middle, which i proceeded to test out on the concrete last night and promptly lose. so no not to worry, you will not get a bouncy ball with a purple plastic toy octopus in the middle as a prize. it will be much cheaper than that.)

I'M ONLY EVIL. thank goodness. to be truly evil would be bad i'm thinking. probably real bad.

woohoo! i appear to have added RSS to my blog! i know only that it lets me do some more fancy archiving stuff and searching stuff. and that it makes my blog look legit now. (which i'm not, i could still be called a poser) but yay, go me! now if only more people besides me looked at it i might consider it a success! only in time...++++

++ POPSCICLES ON A HOT DAY, ok not hot for the rest of the united states, but hot for seattle and hot for my office, which sits up on the third floor of an old car dealership, which has no air conditioning and minimal cross ventilation, means popscicles on the company! so yummy and cold. sailing was fun yesterday. i didn't much do anything other than free-load a ride around lake union for the entire three and a half hours we were out on the boat. no wait, i take that back. i got to go spot for half of the race. aka, sit out on the front ofthe boat and make sure we don't hit any other boats, hence the name "duck dodge". its actually really sweet, the race. there are about 70 boats racing around this little bay and everyone is trying to be as fast as they can without hitting anyone else. luckily we only managed to barely scrape by a boat. nothing major. i didn't see anyone ram into another boat either. i did however see a guy who had transformed his kayak and put a bicycle contraption strapped to the kayak. we were racing around and he was riding his bicycle...on water! it was amazing! and what really made it was on the front of his bike/kayak/contraption, there was a milk crate and his dog was riding in it! picture middle of the lake. 70 boats whizzing around left and right, in and out, between each other, a guy on a bicycle with his dog in it, many other people in kayaks and canoes and then this little float barge, maybe no bigger than 8'x12' wide, with four people sitting on chairs around a table eating dinner by candlelight! amazing! the best part was the float had a gas burner underneath the table so everyone's legs would stay warm. there was a tablecloth on the table, there was vase with a flower on the table, there was a little makeshift grill and they were sitting there floating around eating dinner! oh yeah and everyone is rich...obviously otherwise they wouldn't be out there i suppose. but some of the boats are geogeous! dave's boat was about 45 feet long and he says it could hold as many as 30 people. huge. oh and to get to the race on lake union (which is really a small bay) we had to go under a bridge which had to raise for us to fit under. we tooted our air horn and up went the bridge. pretty spiffy. next week i hear is a costume party for duck dodge. i think everyone will be clothed in disco wear, racing around a lake! hilarious! ++

++ THE BEST THING about spilling coffee on yoruself is that you smell like coffee for the rest of the day. however, the bad thing about spilling coffee on yourself is you have spilled coffee on yourself. today i managed not only to spill coffee on myself, but that which coffee which fell from my glass, knocked off of my desk, by my hand, which did not land on me and my clothes, spilled into my bag, which is waterproof, which is good if the liquid substance lands on the outside of the bag, however bad and doubly bad if the liquid lands inside your bag, for the liquid does not soak through. it spills in the bag, it stays in the bag, and it soaks everything in the bag. and then it smells like coffee for the rest of the day. ++

++ I'M A BIT BURNED, from this weekend. heather is past fire engine red and borders on the crimson red, the only difference being she is in seering pain and i'm just darker now. the perks (one of some) of being asian. smith was hot. a long drive (6 hours) but worth it. we slept in the car (again) on friday night after we got there, because we wer eboth too tired to pitch the tent. i bought lots of trad climbing gear (because i can't afford it, so i did) abd didn't use it. but i will soon. heather did some leading on sport, which was awesome! she was too scared at first to lead, but she just needed some good easy warm-up routes to get going and then it was off to the races. half of it is fear. its not that either of us can't climb 5.9. we are just too pansy of falling, so we get wussy. and really wussy, so much so that 5.6 and 5.7 seem scary. heather did her first multi-pitch route, granted it was a sport climb, but still, multi-pitch and it was very cool. we ticked off five climbs in a day and a half, which now that i think about it doesn't sound like much. but it was plenty to make me good and tired.

upcoming schedule:
.today-climbing (stone gardens)
.tuesday-sailing (duck dodge)
.wednesday-climbing (stone gardens)
.thursday-archichoke/enginerd volleball league (thursday group. r1 schedule)
.friday-i don't know yet!
.saturday-REI free kayak demo
.sunday-climbing at leavenworth? ++

++ SMITH ROCKS STATE PARK!!!! wait, what's at smith rock state park? are you serious! a state park dedicated to a bunch of rocks, you've gotta be kidding me! yeah, yeah, you guessed it. its rock climbing! and lots of it. they say that outdoor sport climbing originated at smith rocks. aparantly some 'naive' guy decided he wasn't good enough (aka sucked) at traditional climbing, so he went up to the rock with a drill and some bolts and some glue and started drilling holes and gluing little bits of metal into the rock like a jackass. and like all things american, it was a jackass idea that caught on and now sport climbing a 'norm' for climbing, mainly for those of us (me included) who are #1. beginners at climbing, #2. don't know enough about climbing to actually "climb". #3. people who are lazy. #4. people who don't ever want to know. #5. i'm eating lunch right now. #6. and i'm going to smith rocks in 4 hours! #7. those who like the accessibility and ease of sport climbing. #8, don't have the balls to do it.

so smith has tons of sport climbs and heather and i (being #1,#2, and #6) are going to go climbing this week. but...i'm getting pro (protection), meaning chocks (well i have those), tri-cams, hexentrics, and a few SLCDs so that i too will be able to "really climb" (meaning do traditional climbing). i just have to buy them and work up enough #8.

for everyone else who doesn't care about climbing, the last daily lesson. numero siete (in spanish), number 7 (in english), chi (in chinese), and thats all the languages i know.

Greenwich, CT
"Hey all - After some cajoling by Mr. Blackburn, I have now cracked and will offer my top ten musings of the first two weeks in New York:
.10. The weather here is just as wet as Seattle. Allow me to describe: in 10 working days, it has precipitated, in some fashion, 8 of those days, making the Marginal Propensity to Rain (MPR) = .8. Given that the Coefficient of a Good Subway Performer at rush hour (GSP) is 3.6 .. GSP = T - .1W .. GSP = 5 - 1.4 .. GSP = 3.6 where W = weeks worked before I finally saw a Broadway show and T = the # subway I take into work, and given that I will have two opportunities per day to witness a street performer, the answer to New York is: NYC = 2GSP + (MPR/10) .. NYC = 2(T - (W/10)) + (MPR/10) .. NYC = 2(5 - (14/10)) + (8/10) .. NYC = 7.28 This is exactly why I take the 7:28 train into the city every morning.
.9. People that remind me of people at work: I sit next to a young Wilford Brimley (Quaker Oats guy), his boss sounds like David Lee, I ride the train with a woman who might as well be the mom from Home Alone (and she could be for all I know), and a Brad French look-alike at work.
.8. Trains are great, no matter how long the commute. I'm finally getting to read the Harry Potter series, and when I run out of books I can sleep.
.7. Greenwich, CT, is absolutely beautiful. I live 1/2 mile from beaches and Long Island Sound, and it is a great escape from the insane density of the city.
.6. Greenwich, CT, is wicked rich. Mel Gibson, Ron Howard, David Letterman, and a host of other hotshots have houses here, the Honda Civic equivalent here is a BMW, and there are dealerships for Bentley, Rolls Royce, and Porsche.
.5. Connecticut has no straight roads at all. Grid is a foreign word, and roads change names more than they do around Clifton.
.4. There is a place to get bubble tea in Times Square. If you do not know what bubble tea is, that is to your detriment. It is the Asian trendy beverage answer to Starbucks.
.3. Travel in New York determines any and every activity. My commute every day is about 3 1/2 hours, which really sucks.
.2. I'm the only one on the train in the morning not reading the Wall Street Journal. It must be a dead giveaway that I don't have a million dollar portfolio.
.1. Don't ever bump into someone on the subway, they will offer no forgiveness. My FIRST DAY in the city I witnessed one of these incidents where a woman bumped into a guy reading a book, he got mad because she didn't say excuse me, then for an entire subway stop they went back in forth in their New York accents dropping f-bombs like they were fighting in Iraq. Very funny and strangely satisfying, I think because all my stereotypes and preconceived notions were being proven within an hour of my being in the city.
I hope you're all doing well, that you're getting a quasi-legitimate sense of responsibility at work/school, and that you take advantage of as many company kickbacks as possible."

++ CLEVELAND ROCKS, CLEVELAND ROCKS!!! the 6th of the 7 part series:

Cleveland, OH
"Somehow i missed all the emails except for B-squared's :-( ... such is life.. anyways... i have a top ten list as well...
Top ten things things i have learned during my first week of work:
.10. even though i have worked here before i am still, in fact, a coop.
.9. but i am the executive coop which means i can direct all crap work to the other coop - a second year who i don't think i've ever met before except once at bowling - which may or may not be a fuzzy alcohol induced memory.
.8. Tuesday is the worst, longest, day ever without a frozen yummy carrot at the end of it. damn all of you with a don pablo's in your area!!!
.7. Telling people your thesis is not the best idea in the world - there are meetings on the lakefront redevelopment plans with leaders from communities in cleveland at 8 in the evening every fricking week and i get to go to all of them.
.6. living with the rents is good 'cause everything is free but bad because they have lots of opportunity to drop hints about me living in cleveland after i graduate. i should start keeping track of how much they do this - it has to be at least twice a day.
.5. it is still possible to make fun of brian baker long distance thanks to email.
.4. joining a guy (i mean gym, how on earth can i have confused those? i must be a complete moron) is a good way to meet young people - and scary old meatheads
.3. going to happy hour with people from work can be fun, however, if they buy you beer and you will be forced to drink it - especially if you really, really, really don't like beer!
.2. gay men are the funniest creatures ever. actually i learned that from jason wright before i left but whatever.
and the number one thing i've learned after one week of coop:
.digital cable is amazing" ++

++ LESSON #5 of 7:

Washington DC
"Well, apparently the top 10 list has become the thing to do, and since I am easily convinced of anything and will clearly do anything popular to appear "cool" (is that the right word?) I shall also commit to a top 10 list...although to be fair I have to avoid those fascinating tidbits I mentioned in my first mass email...this may be difficult.
.10) Ethnically and racially diverse neighborhoods actually DO exist (just, apparently, not in the midwest).
.9) Nearly all office buildings in Washington are horrfically ugly. This must be in the zoning codes somewhere to prevent them from upsatging the monuments or something.
.8) There are parts of DC that are very beautiful, have really old houses, and havn't been overrun by a)yuppies, b)politicians, c)slumlords, or d)cockroaches.
.7) It is somehow relatively easy to work 4 buildings down from a previous employer (that has over a hundred people in the office) and still not run into any of them EVER.
.6) If i send an email to the person sitting next to me, the email must travel all the way to Portland and then back before it arrives at his/her computer.
.5) Discussing the War (or GDubya for that matter) is only a sensitive office topic if you happen to be pro-either of them (thankfully, I am neither).
.4) There is no justice in the world. I say this solely because the gawdawful Albert Speer-wannabe World War II Memorial has been allowed to be built on the National Mall.
.3) Malls without shopping confuse tourists.
.2) People voluntarily leave Portland. Yes, I know, hard to believe, but at least 4 people in my office lived in Portland and LEFT. To come to WASHINGTON, of all places. My personal theory: they were bamboozled into thinking they were going to Washington, the state. Actually, Otto (person at work) said the the quality of life in Portland is way too high and he felt guilty living there.
Which brings me to my next point...the VERY MOST IMPORTANT THING I HAVE LEARNED ON CO-OP
.1)Not all people named Otto or Fritz are large, bald, German men. Hard to believe but true." ++

++ SAN FRANCISCO - this past weekend. we left friday after work and drove the 14 hours there through the night. s-uper s-paz m-inx r-aving housed us and heather and i showed them around 'their' city for most of the weekend. it was as if we were living there and it was just any other weekend. a day of surfing (well m-inx surfing, s-paz, heather, and i not watching, but eating breakfast at dennys), a walk through the haight, the buffalo exchange, amoeba music, o-n "t-reatment"'s house (where he was sleeping, but as usual the front door was unlocked, and there were lots and lots of self-portraits of him snorting something, which i'm pretty sure were not pixie-sticks filled with sugar), crepe vine in the castro where we got to watch m-inx be super uncomfortable while eating his food, oysterbed to visit my old place of employment, twin peaks 2 to lean on the wind (aka, not get blown over), and lots of sitting around and watching movies at their place. it was foggy (of course.) and we didn't see the golden gate bridge once, or fisherman's wharf, or the piers or any other thing which even slightly resembles anything tourist. it was nice. until we had to leave monday morning and drive the 14 hours back. once a weekend=ok. twice in a weekend=poop. and of course as soon as we hit the washington border, it started raining.

the 4th of 7 lessons in the installment:

Boston, MA
"Since my first email was just info. and was also forwarded to my family I don't think it should count as my mass email contribution... so this will.
Jumping on the bandwagon of the top 10 lists... this is what I've learned in Boston/New England as of yet...
.10. Be thankful that your family doesn't live all in the same place so if you ever need to hit them up for a place to stay they might just be in the same city as you... it's saved my butt more than once!
.9. Even though I-95 says it only goes north-south it can really go east-west too. (very good to know if you don't want to go on a 20 some mile detour)
.8.Boston is the Windy City, not Chicago.
.7. Second day on the job: "If you don't smoke and drink coffee you're not in the right profession."... hmmm, I do neither.
.6. There still exists those dispensers that give you a sheet of toilet paper at a time as opposed to taking off of a roll. (if you care to see them visit our restroom on the fifth floor in 286 Congress St.)
.5. You can get a place to live that costs twice as much, but is 1/2 the size as you can in Ohio. (case in point, my place in Beacon Hill)
.4. Prior to popular belief, laboratory floorplans do not lay themselves out, they need co-ops to do it.
.3. There are actually IT guys who know less than us... scary...
.2. You're in a real city when you have a baby shower/beer party at work.
And the #1 thing I've learned:
.Jerry Larson can find you even if you haven't talked to him since 1985. (guy that sits behind me graduated in 1984 and got a call from jerry when he came through with the 2nd yrs. for their turkey tour... hadn't heard from jerry for 18yrs.)... be afraid, be very afraid." ++

++ I'M GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO! i'm going to san francisco, in 6 hours! woohoo! but i have to drive all night to get there tomorrow. boo. but i'll be there for 2 days! woohoo! but then i have to drive the 13.5 hours back. boo. but heather may get a computer in oregon on our way back! woohoo! but i won't, because i don't have my insurance money yet. boo. but i will soon! woohoo!

i broke the streak. i didn't even leave the house until 7.30am today. go me.

lesson 3 of 7:

Atlanta, GA
"It's been 4 months since I left the bubble of college, but in my heart I'm still there. I really do enjoy the real world so far, nothing too shocking has come up. The worst is that don't have that timeline in your head. The one that says this is the beginning and this will be the end, and then something new starts. The real world time line goes on forever. and if you have seen "The Sandlot" I mean to say "forever" in that tone, FOR-EV-ER.
what I have learned in the real world
.10. There is no one to pay your bills except you. If you don't pay them something bad happens.
.9. you think you are getting a college education so that you don't end up as the receptionist. It's all lies.
.8. After 10 weeks you still have to go to work.
.7. you are still paid poorly even though you have more expenses.
.6. everyone around you is either getting married or pregnant.
.5. Atlantans are still bitter the Yankees burned their city and won the war.
.4. the zoom game works just a well in the real world as it does on co-op.
.3. office chit chat centers around the important current events, like the Bachelor and American Idol.
.2. going a few days without a shower is frowned upon.
.1. surfing the Internet can ALWAYS be billed to a client, you're doing research." ++

++ MY CAR IS FIXED. it just cost me an arm and a leg. $978.78 to be exact. just to replace some cv boots, a split v-pipe. and a muffler, and to get an oil change. didn't know my one arm and my my long leg costed so much. i could survive with just one of each of those i'm sure. possibly no legs and no arms. then maybe i could buy me a nice camera.

and its 4 straight days now. i hope to break this streak.

the lessons continue... this time from cincinnati:

Cincinnati, OH
"Good to hear from you all. I've been checking my email every 5 minutes for the past week just waiting for those inevitable emails from the likes of Mr. Siwek, R Gill, and J Dubs. I can now rest peacefully at night. I would send you one, but I'm not sure I've learned 10 things since starting co-op. Let's try.
.10. Co-op = receptionist's bitch when she leaves to go to an afternoon Reds' game.
.9. Turning drawings into PDF's from AutoCAD is considered a worthy investment in my time here.
.8. Punch lists on crappy urban housing are fun cause you get to punch walls and stuff.
.7. Having to work for someone that is a big Browns fan can truly be painful.
.6. Co-op doesn't mean more free time; conversely, during co-op, other things will find ways of eating up your time, such as getting a new car. (Yes, the Tangerine Dream has officially been retired. The new "chick magnet" is an 89 Pontiac 6000, affectionately known as "White Thunder", or perhaps, "Creamy Goodness". I'll let you guys vote.)
.5. Once the office boiler has been turned off for the winter, it can't be turned on again (or at least that's what they tell us).
.4. Sports and war are touchy office conversation topics.
.3. Weather is an okay office conversation topic.
.2. Co-ops get the crappy computers while receptionists and the office manager get the new, faster models. (Cause they do more work anyway.)
And the number 1 thing I've learned on co-op:
.1. Chose your roommates more wisely next time. (Jason Fofrich + Sara White = BEST ROOMMATES EVER.) Sorry J Dubs and Mark. Sara buys jellybeans." ++

++ MY CAR IS BROKEN. i was driving home from the climbing gym last night and i went over a bump and then my car started making a really loud ugly noise. real loud. real ugly. i can't hear my radio over the sound ofthe car. its the cv boots. don't ask me what it does. i don't know. i do know whenever i accelerate it makes the loud ugly noise. so i'm taking it into the shop tomorrow morning at 7.30. which sounds really early, but then again i've been at work this whole week at 7.30am, so its not too much of a stretch. why? because i have nothing else better to do. really? no, not really. i'm lying. i don't know why. i just have been.

this is what everybody is learning on co-op (one a day for 7 days. yes thats all my 'friends', so yes 70 things to learn in 7 different cities)...

Charlottesville, VA
"Howdy everyone, I completely forgot (living in Cincinnati last summer) that the cool thing to do over co-op is to send mass emails. Consequently, I'd like to take this moment to apologize for my substantial absence, or conversely, my inevitable return (however you see the glass is your prerogative). Luckily, however, this time I got the memo. Two of them actually , because every now and then I do need a little prodding to jump start those creative juices and whatnot (a veritable "shout out" to Rebecca and Jason...East Coast represent!). Taking personal liberties to disregard traditional notions of cohesive paragraphing strategies, I have compiled a list of important life lessons that I've gathered from my first week here in Charlottesville, VA. A "top ten" list if you will. (I would like to preemptively acknowledge that there is a largely architectural undertone to a number of these points. Additionally, I would like to turn that acknowledgement into an apology).
.10. You can't do red lines if the firm doesn't do any construction documents.
.9. When I grow up (which will obviously never happen) I want my assistant to have an assistant, who in turn would have a secretary.
.8. Hydrogen fuel cells are actually a conspiracy of *gasp* big oil companies. (I'm actually not kidding on this one...).
.7. Pedestrian streets can work in regions in which snow falls as late as April.
.6. Northern Virginia, despite my deepest wishes, isn't really the Deep South.
.5. The storage room is actually a perfect place for a ping-pong table (thus confirming a personal heartfelt belief of mine).
.4. A 9:30 start can begin to seem early even after only a week of the unusual practice.
.3. Chicken is truly a respectable addition to any breakfast meal (particularly waffles).
.2. I will never again rent an apartment 20 minutes walk from the nearest Laundromat.
.1. I am no longer convinced that Mr. Jefferson isn't actually a deity.
Well, there's probably paint drying somewhere that I'm sure I will regret if I don't watch for at least a portion of the day." ++

++ WOOHOO! check it out. look at me being all up with the technology! i've added a tag-board, meaning people can leave messages to anyone they want! or talk about whatever they want! i'm either super up to speed with the cutting edge or a super nerd.

memo from work ...
Dear Men-Folk of ARC:
Please lower the toilet seat when you are done using the comfort station – also – please mop up all youe whisker shavin’s after tending to your facial hair.
Thanks Much

response from someone else ...
now wait a minute...how do you know one of youzzz woman folk weren't shavin your legs?

response to the response ...
Sorry to be presumptuous. Ladies – if you must shave in the work place – please do so in the shower. ++

++ I LOVE THE OUTDOORS. heather asked me the other day what i like to do. i answered, " i like to be outdoors. i like to climb, i like to hike, i like to camp, i like to play soccer, i like to golf, i like to be in the outdoors, doing physical outdoor stuff. i'm not a big fan of sitting in a classroom, of sitting listening to lectures, of being passive." if it were me, i would wake up do something active outdoors, then eat, then do something else active outdoors, and then eat again and then do something else active outdoors and then sleep. wake up and do the same thing again. i'd never get sick of it. and if i did, then i would do something different active outdoors.

white water rafting - was awesome as it always is. there weren't any swimmers, although j-ackleg w-hitewater almost bit it twice. if it weren't for those footholds... and he's a good shield for blocking water from hitting the person behind him. i think between him and heather, they got more soaked from incoming water after lunch in the first rapid than the other five of us got the entire ride. the water was freezing. we had to wear wetsuits and booties and i had on a fleece, a raincoat, and a life jacket and i was still a little cold!

camping - was cold. i like fire. i was a pyro when i was a litt..younger kid. i loved fire. camping lets me re-live my younger childhood. isn't it great though? you like a fire and throw stuff on it and it burns. then you throw more stuff on it and it burns as well. and then you throw a lot of stuff on it and it burns like crazy. its so great. and then it goes out and its cold.

kayaking - heather and i went kayaking out on lake union and lake washington on sunday. apparantly two days of camping, the matrix reloaded, and a day of white water rafting weren't enough, so when we got back on sunday, we went to the university avenue street fair and then kayaking for 2 hours. the place we went to has a dock right in between lake washington and lake union, but to get out to lake washington you have to paddle through the montlake cut through portage bay and then out to lake washington, which is fine when the water is flat, but when the boats are going past you the wake tends to get a little higher the closer you are to the boat, which is fine unless you are right next to the boat, which you are when you go through the montlake cut, which is creepy, especially since i don't think i would know what to do if i flipped the kayak over. but anyone can kayak. all you have to do is fill out a little piece of paper with some information on it and sign your name saying you are responsible for yourself, not the company, and then they give you a boat and off you go. no experience required. but then again, they won't save you if you start to drown.

sleep - is good. especially when you fall asleep at 8.30 and sleep soundly for the entire night and then get up at 7.00 the next morning to go to work. believe it or not, it actually makes work easier in the mornings as well. and you don't have to visit the coffee machine as many times. (although if you are the first one in, you have to make the coffee. found that out this morning. apparantly it doesn't 'magically' make itself.) ++

++ I'M GOING CAMPING. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. i'm going camping. in 4 hours. yay!

and i get reimbursed money for my stuff being stolen. double yay! ++

++ MAN, I'M FEELING BLUE. ok, well not blue literally, but kind of sad. maybe not sad, burdened maybe? seriously, i know how i feel, i'm just not so sure i have the words to explain it. i started looking at how much money i should save up for school next year and how much i will/should have to borrow and its a whole lot more than i have. i'm so bummed right now. i went climbing last night and was too bummed to have a good time there and i never let anything bother my time climbing. i'm so bummed i don't even really have anything to write about other than this. i'm not even that excited to go to san francisco next weekend or that it will be a three day weekend. maybe a good hike this weekend will do me some good. get away mentally. ha, maybe i'm mental. yeah, mentally bummed. ++

++ KAYAKING - is an absolute blast! if it didn't cost so much money and i didn't have other things to worry about such as how i'm gonna pay for school next year and all the stupid costs which come with that such as rent, food, books, and trying to replace my laptop, camera, and camcorder, then i'd buy one right now. the class was mellow. basic. how to get in and out of the boat. the different strokes. how to go straight. how to turn around. how not to tip your boat over. how to tip your boat over. now i'm a pro. uh, right. but at least now i can go rent a kayak whenever i want and not feel like an idiot trying to get in and out of it. and actually vaguely know what i'm doing in the water. or at least know enough to fake it. right, so this entry is boring. i swear it was a lot more interesting last night.

whitewater rafting this weekend on the wenatchee river. woohoo! that water is going to be so cold!

i'm getting big. i gotta start eating less. this entire entry is boring. i'm gonna stop now before i suck it up even more. ++

++ WE'VE BEEN BOMBED. and not just normally bombed. 'drity bombed'. and i'm not talking about who number two works for. and it doesn't have a good view either. seattle is suppossed to be going through this huge exercise, "the largest, most extensive simulation ever" and yet it hasn't interrupted anything i've done today. thats too bad, because i really didn't feel like doing any work today. i saw some of the pictures and its actually pretty awesome how realistic they made the scene of the bomb. overturned buses. real raging fires. debris everywhere. it looked almost as good as the real thing.

leavenworth this past weekend. wow, that city is something. not great. kind of funny. very kitsch. big tourist trap. and yet there's something about it which makes you like it. and then you blink. its one of those places where you go for a day or a weekend, but you definately don't live there. well at least i don't live there. or ever will. but icicle creek/canyon is there and the wenatchee river are there and its georgeous. so is a bunch of rock climbing, which we did for the weekend. except its mostly trad/free climbing and i'm too much of a wus to do that, so instead i just do sport climbs and bouldering, of which there isn't much in leavenworth, so we did a lot of hiking with a lot of gear to make ourselves look like we know what we are doing when in reality we really don't. ever. ++

++ WE LOCK our doors now everyday, no matter where we are going or for how long. are we paranoid? not the door to the outside, because well yeah obviously (at least to me) we lock the outside doors. but we have locks on our bedroom doors as well. we've always had them, but just never bothered to lock them during the week, just on fridays when the little kids are having school at the place. but now, they are locked always. so what if someone breaks into our bedrooms? well they get everything in our rooms, but can't get to the rest of the house. basically our house now is a bunch of small locked rooms. i feel like i'm on star trek or the titanic and there is a disaster and everything needs to be locked down and shut off from everything else, so that everything else doesn't get contaminated or the house doesn't sink. the best part is the deadbolt is now a dual cylinder lock, meaning you have to hhave a key to lock and unlock it on both the outside and the inside. meaning if there is a fire, i better have my key in my hand, otherwise i'm either screwed (and by screwed i mean burned) or i'm going out a window (which wouldn't be hard either seeing as they are single paned windows). i wonder if its time to start looking for another place to live? i wonder if i can find any other place to live which is just as cheap, but safer. is there really any place thats safe anyway? maybe i'm just paranoid. ++

++ YAY IKEA. your cheap danish knock off furniture sucks. ++

++ BELLEVUE ART MUSEUM - BAM! and you're there. well at least on the first fridays of every month to get in free, which is where heather and i went this past friday. people in bellevue are pretty. pretty people. seattle=ugly people. there must be something in the water. water is easy to come by here in the northwest. water which makes you pretty is hard to come by unless you are on the east side of the water. so the art museum. and there was a free fashion show. which you would think a fashion show set in a place of pretty people would have very pretty people. try again. the exhibit was intriguing though. it was about installation and exhibition fashion shows. think installation art, except its about fashion and clothes and the everything is moving. its a show, its a fsahion show. its art. its a fashion art show. its way cool. BUT we didn't see that at the BAM. oh yeah, its designed by steven holl. i think he ripped it off of chiasma. copy cat. back to the fashion show. the exhibit is about e.v. day and it was titled g-force. now i won't go into details but i watched the fashion show from the top of the staircase staring at at hordes of people through g-strings strung up by wires. i'll stop there.

food - dick's drive in restaurant has to be the coolest greasy spoon joint in town. its greasy. its cheap. its 'retro'. but not quite. more like they started in the 50's and never bothered to advance with time. and have kept the same look since they started. even the people who work there wear the little white hat thingy. hamburgers are $1. cheeseburgers are $1.10. french fries are still hand cut out of realy potatoes and sold for $1.40. its faster than the fastest fast food place you have ever been to. its a great place i must say.

i'm looking into buying a new laptop, although i can't decide what i'm going to get. a pc ... or ... a mac. everyone says mac. although macs cost about $1000 more. and i don't have an extra $1000 laying around. but i want a mac. i'm not sure how to justify spending more money for a computer i don't really really need. more research. we'll see. ++

++ ON WEDNESDAY after heather and i got home we noticed our laptops were missing...as well as my digital camera...as well as my digital camcorder...(about $10,000 total) and the back door was open. no problem i think, our landlord just came to borrow all four of those items without asking. uh huh. someone did come to 'borrow' those items without asking and i don't think they intend to give them back. i can't say i feel violated or defiled contrary to the expectation of everyone (all of 2) who have asked. i don't feel cheated or paranoid. i don't feel jumpy or obsessive/compulsive at checking to make sure my personal belongings have not been taken. i am not mad, angry, upset, 'homicidal' (as the seattle policeman told us he was when he was robbed twice in a two week period), or any combination of any of the above mentioned. i am however sad. not sad that someone would come and personally take my stuff. not sad that my stuff stuff is gone (well kind of). not even so much sad that someone else 'needs' the money so bad that he had to steal from someone (being me). more so sad that i can't get to the pictures and video that i had taken. 130 pictures i was going to upload that night. 57 minutes of 15 second clips of video dating back to last summer and the tail end of my trip to taiwan. pieces of my life and memories which i can't get back. thats what makes me sad.

anyway, if someone offers to sell you two laptops, a digital camera, or a digital camcorder, ask them if its from seattle. and if it is. kick them in the ass. and the balls too if you get the chance. ++

++ I SLEPT for 12 hours last night! yeah, i took some medicine for what i suppose is allergies, ate dinner and fell asleep. heather woke me up at 10.30 and slumped off the couch and into my bed without missing a snooze, i mean snore. i'm still tired today.

the house i live in is a triplex. they broke up the two story house with the basement into three livable spaces. the landlord lives on the top floor with her two children and husband. heather and i live on the first floor and the landlord's sister lives in the basment, which is converted into a nice living area (it even has windows). well the landlord has decided to go on a landscaping/cleaning spree and what was once a front yard overgrown with bushes and errant 'stuff' in the yard has/is becoming what looks like will be a nice landscaped front yard. the only drawback is the recently popular (among heather and i) snails which used to live in the bushes in front of the porch haven't been back since they have removed the bushes. i can't figure out if its because the snails lived in the bushes or because it hasn't rained in a while, because the snails never came out until night-time and only if it had rained that day. i hope they come back. i promise i won't accidentally step on on them again.

i had a dream last night and it was weird. l-ulu k-itten was in it. apparently in my dream i was at her house, which is actually my friend's parent's house. i was trying to drive my parent's old red minivan from their garage through the door into the house and down the hallway. well i had just got it into the driveway when l-ulu k-itten's parents came home. they also had a minivan. they pulled up into the garage and l-ulu k-itten walked past me standing in the doorway to put her food in the fridge. her parent's (who i have never met or even seen before) stopped on their way in the house to talk to me. l-ulu k-itten came back and stood next to me. her parent's kept on asking me questions and talking. end of story. it was really awkward. good story i know. ++

++ WENT TO VISIT a-n (old) p-al today in beautiful portland, oregon. heather and i drove to the washington coast and then down us-101 (the same us-101 in california .. the pacific coast highway) all the way down the southern half of washington's coast and then down a bit of the oregon coast to seaside, oregon and then east to portland. the weather along the coast was much nicer today than yesterday. cold, not as much as yesterday (i didn't use a jacket today). windy, not so much. fishermen, nope (there were people flying kites though). sand, the same amount as yesterday. rocks, must have been high tide, there were only a few. overcast, i saw a spot of blue in the sky. rain, nada. scenery, still awesome. worth it, yup. i even had someone to share it with today.

we also stopped by the washington state capitol (in olympia, washington) and had a poke around. they have a fountain out in front of the capitol which they say is a replica of the tivoli fountain in tivoli park, copenhagen, denmark. (which honestly, to me doesn't look anything like it, but uh i've never been there i guess, so who am i to make judgements and comparisons from pictures off the internet? oh wait, this picture of the fountain looks a little more like the one in washington )

oh right, so we drove 3.5 hours to see a-n (old) p-al (who had just flown in today and drove straight from the airport to the pearl district to meet us for dinner) and had dinner at this little french restaurant named Chez something. it was super good. a little expensive (for my feeble money-in-the-bank) and of course small proportions, but good food. an hour and a half for dinner and then we said goodbye and left to drive back 3.5 hours for seattle! its always nice to see old-school friends. ++

++ I WOKE UP at 6.00am this morning. that is by far the earliest i have been up this entire quarter. a few hours drive and it was the beaches of washington. cold, yes. windy, yes. fishermen, yes. sand, well kind of. rocks, where the sand isn't. overcast, (its washington in the springtime, of course.) rain, the mist kind. scenery, awesome (its the coast, of course). worth it, yup. ++

++ TWO THINGS occurred to me today (well more than two, but two specifically). 1. referring to monday, april 21 - i am not a murderer of snails. it was involuntary snail-slaughter. (knee-slapper. haha.) 2. referring to saturday, april 19 - peeps are just marshmellows and sugar. this didn't occur to me when i was biting the head off one of those yellow bunnies which all sit in neat little rows stuck together at their sides and ears. yesterday at work i was looking at the decapitated (invluntary bunny-slaughter?) peep and noticed it was white inside. i'm an idiot.

weak of heart, don't click here. those who wish to see something gross click here. i'm warning you though, its pretty gross. as in snails dying by the foot of some woman who decided to make a video of it and sell it for $65. ew.

this morning was absolutely beautiful! it was the best spring morning i've seen in seattle so far. it was sunny through a light fog, the kind that makes the entire place just glow and radiate with omniscient light. and the air was crisp, but not searing or cutting, just crisp. and well it was a good morning to be in seattle.

and we went to a mariner's game last night. i got to see the roof close before the game. "holy cow" that thing is big. and the whole roof is actually these space trusses turned vertically, which act as columns upon which these huge 15 foot hydraulic jacks support the space trusses which span the field. its pretty incredible. oh right, the mariners beat the indians last night 4-2. i was torn between being a seattle fan or representin' the big OH. (granted i'm not from cleveland, but its 'east of the mississippi, way over there'.

joke of the day: "what is the longest word in the english language?"
..
..
.."smile. between the first and last letters of the word is a 'mile'." ++

++ SOUTHCENTER MALL - think any suburban mall (because they’re everywhere) and put it next to a highway (because that’s where they are always located) and put a sea of parking around it (as always) more smaller strip malls surrounding the sea of parking (because it wouldn’t be a mall otherwise) and then put a rainforest café in it. and that’s where we went yesterday. nothing new. nothing shocking, i know. here lies the point of my story. heather and i were walking around the mall (because that’s what you do at malls) and heather wanted to go into abercrombie and fitch (because she had not been in there in a very long time) so who am i to argue with, there are hot girls in there (granted half of them are in high school) and who knows, maybe I’m cool enough to shop there now (nope, never was, never will be) and they play good music. so of course i didn’t find anything i wanted, i could afford, i want, but heather found a $5 sweater. so she goes to buy it and the girl who was at the cash register (actually all the girls) was wearing ¾ pants and a maroon tank top and she was falling out of her shirt! it was enough where even heather made a comment about it. anyway, the reason why I write about this is because seattle is full of people who are physically unattractive. not that that means anything, yeah yeah i know, because there is more to the book than the cover. but seriously, people in seattle are ugly on the whole. (maybe you could argue they are weathered or they are beautiful in other ways, but traditional beauty here, traditional meaning east-coast style is rare) so if you want to see physically attractive people, go to the suburbs or to abercrombie and fitch.

a&f bad things: i’m not cool enough to buy their clothes. their clothes fall apart easily.
a&f good things: i’m not cool enough to buy their clothes. pretty people to look at. (and girls who are wearing practically nothing and falling out of what they are wearing)
a&f gross things: high school girls who are looking at lace, see-through g-string panties, who are ugly and bigger than people who should be wearing stuff like that.
a&f even grosser thing: 8 high school girls who are no older than 16 looking at the g-string panties and thinking about trying it on.
a&f make me puke most grossest thing: the ugliest 1 out of the 8 high school girls who are no older than 16 try on the lace, see-through g-string panty (thank goodness I didn’t see). ++

++ WEEKLY OFFICE MEETING - whenever there is an office meeting or any meeting for that matter where food is involved, i know when the meeting or appointment is suppossed to occur. i know when we are late in starting it. i know when we should have started. i know, only because the food is free, sometimes i don't even know what the meeting is about. sometimes i'm not even suppossed to be attending the meeting. still, i know. oh yes. i know when free food is abound.

i saw snails outside on the porch again tonight. it was amazing! i saw about 20 of them. the smallest being about 1/8" in diameter. the largest being just a tad bigger than the size of a quarter coin. these dimensions being the size of the shell. and i saw a snail without a shell. it looked weird. kind of like a slug. (i'll slug you.) did you know a snail has both male and female reproductive organs. and its eyes are actually on the tentacles which protrude from its head, but it has really poor eyesight (probably because they keep moving them around in small circles kind of like i dance.) most everything i've found says that snails eat plants and decaying matter. well after i stepped on a snail a few days ago i went back outside a little later and the snails i had not stepped on were eating the dead snail. these things are carnivores also apparantly! we have cannibalistic snails living in the bushes next the porch outside our house! lovely. can't wait to see what else washington throws at me.

more useless animal facts.

it rained today. which is both a good thing and a bad thing. good-makes everything green. bad-rainy, again. good-free car wash. bad-more standing water in my car. good-get to see the snails on my front porch. bad-i might step on another one. good-going climbing. bad- too poopy to enjoy the outdoor for the evening. good-time to drive to another part of the city i haven't been to yet to explore. bad-heather hates driving, when its dry out. rain just means i drive more. good-i like driving. bad-not all the time. good-well it's mostly moisture outside in some form or another all the time so this isn't a big change. (its atmosphere). bad-its all the time. good-not all the time, just most of the time. bad-right, whatever i'm lying and i know it. good-whatever. bad-see, i told you. good-whatever. bad-ha. i win.