Hate me all you want you, teabaggers, but I love this guy.
Twitter Haiku
6 years ago
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Humbled
Sometimes, special moments catch you off guard and remind you just how generous human beings can be. Fuller and I were humbled last night when we saw this on our way to Olives in Clifton. 
Thursday, June 3, 2010
POV Experiment: story three
Selfishly, I'm enjoying this little experiment. But I feel I should warn you that more so than the others, this next one is really only interesting if you know the characters.
Here's my point of view: We camped in Sedona, AZ after a day of hiking the red rocks. When we got to the site and set up camp we needed firewood. Instead of buying it for like $3 we decided to march into the forest and find a batch of logs the campsite manager said existed. He told us the electric company downed a mess of trees as they cleared the way for a new line. The campsite manager was being a jerk I think. The logs were literally over the river/creek, thru the woods and up a monster hill. And they were the size of bass drums. And they were half granite. So we ended up throwing the half ton logs back down the hill, hauled them over the creek and up to our site. It was easily the most exhausting day of my life
Here's another:
Gordon's roommates were missing. Absent on their own accord. They were off getting wood or something. Gordon didn't pay attention. He was busy thinking. He sat there looking at trees and rocks, but really he was ruminating. About the internet. His concerned look was unrelated to his AWOL buddies. Gordon was nervous the internet missed him. He knew he couldn't gain access in the lousy wilderness. He thought about his mouse. He smiled as he imagined its strong, ergonomic back that carried him thru the caves and canyons of the world wide web. He dreamed of his monitor. Its warm glow heating his soul at night. He thought about his ethernet. A river of adventure that swept him away on daily adventures thru the rapids of gossip and news and....? For a moment, Gordon sits up. Could he send his internet a postcard? Some kind of brief explanation? No, he realizes. That would be insulting. The internet hates paper and the USPS. He will have to wait. He decides that when he gets home he'll create an e-card and beg forgiveness for his lack of commitment the past week. That's all he can do. He continues to sit, waiting for his roommates to get back from whatever pointless task they're gone doing.
Here's my point of view: We camped in Sedona, AZ after a day of hiking the red rocks. When we got to the site and set up camp we needed firewood. Instead of buying it for like $3 we decided to march into the forest and find a batch of logs the campsite manager said existed. He told us the electric company downed a mess of trees as they cleared the way for a new line. The campsite manager was being a jerk I think. The logs were literally over the river/creek, thru the woods and up a monster hill. And they were the size of bass drums. And they were half granite. So we ended up throwing the half ton logs back down the hill, hauled them over the creek and up to our site. It was easily the most exhausting day of my life
Here's another:
Gordon's roommates were missing. Absent on their own accord. They were off getting wood or something. Gordon didn't pay attention. He was busy thinking. He sat there looking at trees and rocks, but really he was ruminating. About the internet. His concerned look was unrelated to his AWOL buddies. Gordon was nervous the internet missed him. He knew he couldn't gain access in the lousy wilderness. He thought about his mouse. He smiled as he imagined its strong, ergonomic back that carried him thru the caves and canyons of the world wide web. He dreamed of his monitor. Its warm glow heating his soul at night. He thought about his ethernet. A river of adventure that swept him away on daily adventures thru the rapids of gossip and news and....? For a moment, Gordon sits up. Could he send his internet a postcard? Some kind of brief explanation? No, he realizes. That would be insulting. The internet hates paper and the USPS. He will have to wait. He decides that when he gets home he'll create an e-card and beg forgiveness for his lack of commitment the past week. That's all he can do. He continues to sit, waiting for his roommates to get back from whatever pointless task they're gone doing.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Hey Deer
Deer, much like everything else on earth, find me intimidating. It's a curse I deal with every single day.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
POV Experiment: story two
I'm taking old stories from a college road trip and retelling them from another point of view. Here's my pov of story two: We watched the Bearcats lose in their typical March-fashion to UCLA on St. Patricks Day in Flagstaff, Arizona. We sipped Guinness as a 13 year-old bagpipe virgin terrorized our ear drums. His insane mother/teacher thought it made perfect sense to hold his first lesson in public. It sounded like he was torturing a goose. And maybe he's gotten better since then, but that day he was the worst thing to ever happen to music.
Here's another:
Aaron, 13, is very blond and very German. His grandpa was born in Bockenheim just outside of Frankfort and came to the US in 1917. St. Patrick's Day has as much significance to their family as First Nations Day (Canada's June nod to their natives). Despite this, Aaron and his mother Kat, 43, walk into McTeller's with a new set of bagpipes. They were the first of eight booked bagpipe players that day. Kat lied earlier that month about Aaron's skill level.
Aaron holds the door for his mom. "I don't think I wanna do this."
"Sure you do. You were so excited last night."
"Yeah but there's people."
"Oh...there are four man babies drinking beer at 11 in the morning. Don't worry about them."
"I still wanna go I think. Please."
"Aaron. Who's idea was this? Hmm?"
"Mine."
"And who said he needs to practice if he thinks he's going to play in front of our entire family and all of grandpa's friends?"
"I did."
"Well..."
"But it's not going to be for years."
"How do you know?" Kat pulls the pipes out of the case and hands them to Aaron. "It could happen at any time. You gotta be ready."
"Maybe he doesn't even like bagpipes. Maybe it was a stupid idea."
"Aaron. He's going to be dead. You could play the trombone for all he cares."
Aaron stares at his mom, shocked by her bluntness. He loves his grandpa. More than baseball, more than the Hustler magazine he and his friends have hidden in their woods, more than his 12 old lab, Saddie, who also is going to die soon.
Kat recognizes she went too far. "I'm sorry. It's not a stupid idea, Aaron. He will love it."
Aaron looks, deciding if he believes her. "How do you know?"
"Cause I know. But you have to practice. He won't love it if you don't practice. Now c'mon."
Aaron regains his strange but noble courage, and fills the bag with air. He takes a quick glance around the room. It'll be fine he says to himself. He pictures his grandpa inside that pillow-filled coffin wearing a blue suit. He does need to practice. His mom is right. Using his bony elbow, Aaron sets out on his terribly loud, maiden voyage. His grandpa could have been more proud.
Here's another:
Aaron, 13, is very blond and very German. His grandpa was born in Bockenheim just outside of Frankfort and came to the US in 1917. St. Patrick's Day has as much significance to their family as First Nations Day (Canada's June nod to their natives). Despite this, Aaron and his mother Kat, 43, walk into McTeller's with a new set of bagpipes. They were the first of eight booked bagpipe players that day. Kat lied earlier that month about Aaron's skill level.
Aaron holds the door for his mom. "I don't think I wanna do this."
"Sure you do. You were so excited last night."
"Yeah but there's people."
"Oh...there are four man babies drinking beer at 11 in the morning. Don't worry about them."
"I still wanna go I think. Please."
"Aaron. Who's idea was this? Hmm?"
"Mine."
"And who said he needs to practice if he thinks he's going to play in front of our entire family and all of grandpa's friends?"
"I did."
"Well..."
"But it's not going to be for years."
"How do you know?" Kat pulls the pipes out of the case and hands them to Aaron. "It could happen at any time. You gotta be ready."
"Maybe he doesn't even like bagpipes. Maybe it was a stupid idea."
"Aaron. He's going to be dead. You could play the trombone for all he cares."
Aaron stares at his mom, shocked by her bluntness. He loves his grandpa. More than baseball, more than the Hustler magazine he and his friends have hidden in their woods, more than his 12 old lab, Saddie, who also is going to die soon.
Kat recognizes she went too far. "I'm sorry. It's not a stupid idea, Aaron. He will love it."
Aaron looks, deciding if he believes her. "How do you know?"
"Cause I know. But you have to practice. He won't love it if you don't practice. Now c'mon."
Aaron regains his strange but noble courage, and fills the bag with air. He takes a quick glance around the room. It'll be fine he says to himself. He pictures his grandpa inside that pillow-filled coffin wearing a blue suit. He does need to practice. His mom is right. Using his bony elbow, Aaron sets out on his terribly loud, maiden voyage. His grandpa could have been more proud.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
We're all gonna die
If you don't see this as the beginning of the end for all of us, you're blind. I'm 5,000,000% positive that armies of ninja bears are training in West Virginia as we speak. There won't be any youtube videos of that. We'll all be dead.
POV Experiment: story one
Here's my point of view of story one: We stumbled upon an Irish pub in St. Louis that served entire pitchers of beer for a quarter. That enabled us to spend the night dancing with Refrigerator Perry's daughters (figuratively speaking).
Here's another:
Theatrice walks off the dance floor and up to the bar. She wipes beads of sweat off her forehead with a cocktail napkin. Her sister Rondelle and cousin Maylinda remain on the floor. Theatrice orders a drink with a simple finger-wave to the bartender, Mike. She (and her cousins) are regulars on Wednesday nights. It's Quarter Pitcher night but Theatrice (and her cousins) hate beer. They drink white zinfandel spritzers.
"One Zin Spritz. Do your partners in crime need one?" Mike asks looking to the dance floor where Rondelle and Maylinda are dancing with three white boys.
"No, they're good right now." Thea leans against the bar watching them.
Mike takes Thea's money and says, "I see they found some dry fish out there."
Dry fish are the reason Thea and the girls come out on Wednesday nights. Quarter pitchers are bait for the Abercrombies and Fitches of St. Louis University. They consume gallons and gallons of draft beer and always end up on the dance floor.
"White boys are silly aren't they?" Thea takes a sip of her spritz.
"Like fish out of water on that floor. These ones are especially bad. They from SLU?" Mike asks.
"No. Ohio."
"Ohio? What are they doing here?"
"Flailin'." Thea laughs as one of the white boys smacks her cousin's rump.
"That looks more like smackin'." Mike says.
"White boys are silly aren't they?" Theatrice shakes her head and walks back onto the dance floor. One of the white boys is convinced Thea is in love with him. He raises the roof and flails his way toward her.
Here's another:
Theatrice walks off the dance floor and up to the bar. She wipes beads of sweat off her forehead with a cocktail napkin. Her sister Rondelle and cousin Maylinda remain on the floor. Theatrice orders a drink with a simple finger-wave to the bartender, Mike. She (and her cousins) are regulars on Wednesday nights. It's Quarter Pitcher night but Theatrice (and her cousins) hate beer. They drink white zinfandel spritzers.
"One Zin Spritz. Do your partners in crime need one?" Mike asks looking to the dance floor where Rondelle and Maylinda are dancing with three white boys.
"No, they're good right now." Thea leans against the bar watching them.
Mike takes Thea's money and says, "I see they found some dry fish out there."
Dry fish are the reason Thea and the girls come out on Wednesday nights. Quarter pitchers are bait for the Abercrombies and Fitches of St. Louis University. They consume gallons and gallons of draft beer and always end up on the dance floor.
"White boys are silly aren't they?" Thea takes a sip of her spritz.
"Like fish out of water on that floor. These ones are especially bad. They from SLU?" Mike asks.
"No. Ohio."
"Ohio? What are they doing here?"
"Flailin'." Thea laughs as one of the white boys smacks her cousin's rump.
"That looks more like smackin'." Mike says.
"White boys are silly aren't they?" Theatrice shakes her head and walks back onto the dance floor. One of the white boys is convinced Thea is in love with him. He raises the roof and flails his way toward her.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
POV Experiment: intro
My senior year of college we took a road trip for our spring break. Little pips and tiny squeaks were going to Panama City for a week of jello shots and crotch-to-crotch dancing. That was so literally sophomoric. We were epic. And mature. So we went to China. Just kidding. We were epic lite and went to the Grand Canyon. That was our only real plan. Head West and find adventure. Ryan's parents let us borrow their conversion van. Gordon's parents let us borrow Gordon.
Here are a few moments that became rememberies. (BOOM- I just made up a word.)
We stumbled upon an Irish pub in St. Louis that served entire pitchers of beer for a quarter. That enabled us to spend the night dancing with Refrigerator Perry's daughters (figuratively speaking).
We watched the Bearcats lose in their typical March-fashion to UCLA on St. Patricks Day in Flagstaff, Arizona. We sipped Guinness as a 13 year-old bagpipe virgin terrorized our ear drums. His insane mother/teacher thought it made perfect sense to hold his first lesson in public. It sounded like he was torturing a goose. And maybe he's gotten better since then, but that day he was the worst thing to ever happen to music.
We camped in Sedona, AZ after a day of hiking the red rocks. When we got to the site and set up camp we needed firewood. Instead of buying it for like $3 we decided to march into the forest and find a batch of logs the campsite manager said existed. He told us the electric company downed a mess of trees as they cleared the way for a new line. The campsite manager was being a jerk I think. The logs were literally over the river/creek, thru the woods and up a monster hill. And they were the size of bass drums. And they were half granite. So we ended up throwing the half ton logs back down the hill, hauled them over the creek and up to our site. It was easily the most exhausting day of my life. Those big boys burned good did their best to keep us warm that night as the temperature dipped to about 20 degrees. We slept in our winter coats and shoes inside of sleeping bags and almost died. The moral of the story is we saved $3. We invested that money in the stock market (bought shares in the internet) and now we're filthy rich. Totally worth it.
We made it to the Grand Canyon and there was snow and fog everywhere. You couldn't see more than a few feet in front of you. We were slightly depressed that we drove all that way to see fog. We were freezing, sore and tired. All we kept thinking about was the pips and squeaks in Panama City. But then, like a Christmas miracle, the fog evaporated. We were the groom, the canyon our arranged-marriage bride, and we watched as her veil got lifted revealing a craggy beauty that left us breathless. We spent the next few hours throwing snow balls into our bride's mouth. It was intimate and beautiful. Then Tyler looked at a map and told us we could be in San Diego in five hours. Our sunshine-lust clouded our judgement and caused us to believe him. We jumped in the van and drove thru the night.
Nearly ten hours later (and a brief, border patrol scare) we woke up in San Diego. Shockingly, Tyler was way off. We had slept/parked on the street in a super swank neighborhood and that morning stumbled out of the van for a stretch in the California sun. Rich ladies walking their dogs didn't know what to make of a conversion van with horns tied to the front grill and four grizzly Adams lurking amongst their stucco mansions. We left for the beach. Ryan and I soaked it all in while Gordy and Tyler did laundry. That's how they celebrated our 44 hour pilgrimage. They machine-washed their thunderpanties inside a florescent-lit laundromat. I'm still dumbstruck by that move.
So my next few posts are going to be Point of View Experiments. I'll take these little vignettes and tell the same story from a different point of view. It'll be fun for me and probably boring for you. So...tune in later when I go back to posting the mind-blowing videos you've grown to love and need to survive.
Here are a few moments that became rememberies. (BOOM- I just made up a word.)
We stumbled upon an Irish pub in St. Louis that served entire pitchers of beer for a quarter. That enabled us to spend the night dancing with Refrigerator Perry's daughters (figuratively speaking).
We watched the Bearcats lose in their typical March-fashion to UCLA on St. Patricks Day in Flagstaff, Arizona. We sipped Guinness as a 13 year-old bagpipe virgin terrorized our ear drums. His insane mother/teacher thought it made perfect sense to hold his first lesson in public. It sounded like he was torturing a goose. And maybe he's gotten better since then, but that day he was the worst thing to ever happen to music.
We camped in Sedona, AZ after a day of hiking the red rocks. When we got to the site and set up camp we needed firewood. Instead of buying it for like $3 we decided to march into the forest and find a batch of logs the campsite manager said existed. He told us the electric company downed a mess of trees as they cleared the way for a new line. The campsite manager was being a jerk I think. The logs were literally over the river/creek, thru the woods and up a monster hill. And they were the size of bass drums. And they were half granite. So we ended up throwing the half ton logs back down the hill, hauled them over the creek and up to our site. It was easily the most exhausting day of my life. Those big boys burned good did their best to keep us warm that night as the temperature dipped to about 20 degrees. We slept in our winter coats and shoes inside of sleeping bags and almost died. The moral of the story is we saved $3. We invested that money in the stock market (bought shares in the internet) and now we're filthy rich. Totally worth it.
We made it to the Grand Canyon and there was snow and fog everywhere. You couldn't see more than a few feet in front of you. We were slightly depressed that we drove all that way to see fog. We were freezing, sore and tired. All we kept thinking about was the pips and squeaks in Panama City. But then, like a Christmas miracle, the fog evaporated. We were the groom, the canyon our arranged-marriage bride, and we watched as her veil got lifted revealing a craggy beauty that left us breathless. We spent the next few hours throwing snow balls into our bride's mouth. It was intimate and beautiful. Then Tyler looked at a map and told us we could be in San Diego in five hours. Our sunshine-lust clouded our judgement and caused us to believe him. We jumped in the van and drove thru the night.
Nearly ten hours later (and a brief, border patrol scare) we woke up in San Diego. Shockingly, Tyler was way off. We had slept/parked on the street in a super swank neighborhood and that morning stumbled out of the van for a stretch in the California sun. Rich ladies walking their dogs didn't know what to make of a conversion van with horns tied to the front grill and four grizzly Adams lurking amongst their stucco mansions. We left for the beach. Ryan and I soaked it all in while Gordy and Tyler did laundry. That's how they celebrated our 44 hour pilgrimage. They machine-washed their thunderpanties inside a florescent-lit laundromat. I'm still dumbstruck by that move.
So my next few posts are going to be Point of View Experiments. I'll take these little vignettes and tell the same story from a different point of view. It'll be fun for me and probably boring for you. So...tune in later when I go back to posting the mind-blowing videos you've grown to love and need to survive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)