Rhymes with Devil's Brew

It started when I was 17. I began doing it because a girl I had a crush on at the time loved it. This combined with an increase in it's availability made it easy for my to get my hands on. It was harmless enough at first but insidious. It got hold of me without my noticing. A small dose once a day, slowly became three or four times a day until I realized I can't start my day without it. It's bad for me and I know it but don't care, it rots my teeth and gives me heart palpitations. The withdrawals are painful and once off it just the memory of it makes my mouth water and a month later I'm back. I think the peak came yesterday when I did it at work and went from angry to giddy in an instant. I was literally blabbering like I was drunk.

Heed my cautionary tale of woe and DON'T DO THE DEW!

Unambition

So 2007 was a rough blog year and for some strange reason I felt some guilt about not posting. It's not that I wasn't writing however. I was writing the crap out of stuff. It's just that it was exactly that, crap. It's getting harder and harder to come up with stuff for this blog. I've decided to make an effort to write something every couple of days though. Sometimes I don't come up with stuff for a few paragraphs so bare with me.

I've been so busy with work since I took the position of a site manager I haven't felt like writing. Believe it or not I didn't even make the connection until right now. I always joked about how I prefered being a "neck down", meaning my job didn't require any thinking, but I really hadn't thought it was anything more than a joke. I'm the oldest cliché in the argument against excelling in a Capitalist world. My God! The hippies are right! Money isn't everything! For the last year I've felt like the world has been passing me by. It's been like the boat scene from the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Everything has been sliding by in a swirl of nonsense with an occasional glimpse of something real, and that more often as not has been a chicken getting it's head loped off. Thank you Mr. Blog for giving me this epiphany. I've been interviewing for a job with less money and in a way less responsibility. And I've been worried about whether we can afford it or not. The big draw was it is in one place and Lisa and I can be together but now I can add the benefit of getting my life back somewhat. I feel a lot more confident with whatever decision I make now and the scale has tipped back in favor of the new job.

Life seems to run in cycles. I've been in a place before where I felt I had to keep working and worrying about the next paycheck. It goes on until I get some perspective and I step back from the situation. After that I relax and go to a happy place for awhile until I start swirling around the whirlpool of anxiety again. I don't even realize it. This seems like I've been rambling a lot and it might not make sense to any one but me but at least I feel better.

A New Feature II

The results are in and it's official. Joe Walsh and Angus Young are the greatest non-Van Halen guitarists the world has ever know. Bar none, end of story as this is the definitive poll. Next I'll be polling voters during the elections. Now I have to think of another poll because that was kind of fun (for me anyway). I didn't realize that four people read this blog although one of the votes was mine so I guess that would be three readers. If any of you guys have a suggestion for a poll please send it in. I feel my creative juices have already dried up.

A New Feature

Check out the new poll thingy all the way at the bottom of the page. It should keep me entertained for a few days.

Demolition Operations

Here are a few videos one of my co-workers took a couple of weeks ago. They are a little small and hard to see but still kind of neat. I particularly enjoy the terrified reaction from our health and safety officer.

A Look Ahead To Tomorrow's American Idol

I've been blessed with the the power of precognition. I can tell you what will happen next week on American Idol well in advance of actually seeing it.

• One of the Davids will sing a slow, boring, girlish ballad and make a face like a three year old. The other will remake a rock version remake of an old song.
• One of the blond chicks will sing an unremarkable cover of an unremarkable song while twisting her lips in awkward positions and making maddening puppy dog eyes. The other will just sing unremarkable period.
• The Irish girl will dress in an ugly outfit.
• The black girl will cover a Whitney Houston song and be in the bottom three along with the blond "country" girl.
• The Australian guy and dreadlock boy...well, they'll be there.
• There will be more of that awkward repressed love crush hostility between Simon and Ryan. Just consummate your love already.
• Paula will jump up like an over-stimulated chipmunk when the loser sings his or her last song.

And in my most impressive feat I will give you the critique, word for word, for every contestant -

• Randy, "Dog, check it out, check it out, it was a little pitchy to me but it was ah-ight!"
• Paula, "You are going to be...unintelligible...you have the...mumble...you will do great things...mumble."
• Simon, being credited with being the most honest and wisest of the bunch, is a little harder to see. I believe however, his insightful commentary will be, "I didn't like it." At which time he will stick his index finger in the air, thumb to temple and wink at someone just to the right of his position.
  

I Saw A Guy In A Hat

He looked really, really stupid and for some reason it pissed me off.

More Favorite Photos

Last month I posted some of my favorite motorcycle photos. I enjoyed doing that so much I thought I would do the same with some of the pictures I've uploaded to Flickr over the years. I love going through my Flickr account and looking at old photos. It's a little like having my favorite photo albums on the road with me. I think Flickr is a lot of fun and while it isn't quite as cool as it was before Yahoo bought it they haven't really messed it up too much. I've only posted about one third of the pictures I had originally intended to but I may put some more up later.

Not much explanation needed of why this is a favorite. Look how cool that is! That's Lisa driving our little Toyota down the face of a cliff that I thought only existed in Road Runner cartoons. That's so cool!

Canyonlands National Monument, Moab Colorado July 1 2006

I love this one of Lisa and Angela Pace. It makes me laugh just because I made her have this taken last summer while she was temping at the 10TV offices. She was working for Angela but being from Colorado had no idea who Angela is. And being Lisa, she didn't really care. For those of you not from Ohio, Angela used to be the anchor woman on the evening news, a bit of a local celebrity. Now she's a producer. Lisa was so embarrassed to ask for this picture and Angela laughed when she explained her lame ass husband wanted a picture of the two of them together.

Lisa and 10TV producer Angela Pace, June 6 2007

This one is of my friend Al Grant taken during a job we did in Alaska. There were a lot of great things happening at this time. I had just left that crappy job in Aurora Colorado and got to go back to Fairbanks where I was stationed while in the Air Force and got to see how much it had changed. This was where I began this blog waaaay back. There's nothing particularly artistic about this photo but it's a damn good snapshot.

Al Grant fishing on the Chena River north of Fairbanks, Alaska May 2005

I love this one because it was Lisa's first visit after I left Colorado. It kind of made our relationship official. San Fransisco as I've mentioned a few times is one of my favorite cities and this is a beautiful shot. If there's one thing I would fix it would be the bridge tower coming out of my head.

Golden Gate Bridge, California November 2003

Something I've noticed is I seemed to be more artistically inclined when I had my old crappy Kodak DC290. Since I've gotten the Nikon my photos aren't as pleasing to me. This picture of Lisa at the Great Dunes is a good example. The lighting is cool looking and I like the composition. Of course I'm not saying I'm any Ansel Adams but some of my favorite pictures were taken with that old Kodak. As time passes, I enjoy these older photos more and more. Granted it's less than four years old but it seems like a lifetime since I lived in Colorado. It's understandable I guess since I've lived in about a dozen or so places since than.

Lisa, Great Dunes National Monument, Colorado June 2004

The thing about this photo is the weather. It's a given that one of the reasons I like it is because it reminds me of the ride I took to Clarksdale on my motorcycle. That's the whole point of a photo, to capture that moment that your brain might not be able to hold, but something else photos do for me is capture the weather. Like the next photo of Ohio in the sticky, hot summer, I can feel the cold damp Arkansas spring when I see those clouds. I was worried about all the stuff on my bike getting soaked and it felt like there was a literal cloud hanging above my head but now in the hindsight that's what made this trip so special for me. I'm not crazy about the square crop job I did on this one though.

The crossroads of Clarksdale, Mississippi April 2006

The thing I love about this picture are all of the different layers of green and the layers of light and shade in it. This was taken at Dawes Arboretum where Lisa and I got married. We were married on the little island down in the bottom right corner. About a week later we went back to Dawes just to look around and enjoy the area. We both agreed that during the wedding everything was a blur and we didn't get to appreciate the surroundings. The wedding was perfect, it was my favorite time in Ohio, mid-July. Believe it or not I actually love the hot, muggy weather of Ohio in the summer.

Dawes Arboretum, September 2006

Here's one from our time in Arkansas. The thing I like about this one is our pose and the great backdrop. I love the clouds and how you can see half of the western side of Arkansas with the river right below. This picture always reminds me of how much I really liked being together Arkansas. It was our first place living together as husband and wife and was a really special time.

Petite Jean State Park, Arkansas in September 2006

This one is from last summer's camping trip in Colorado. I like it just because of the colors and the clothes. This is one of those kinds of photos I always enjoyed looking at as a kid. I hope in twenty years someone looks at this picture and wonders what our story was and thinks "These two people look happy".

Above Georgetown Colorado, Summer 07

I have a thousand more photos I could post and maybe I will in a few months or years. This post has made me think a little bit about the popularity of the internet and the blogs and the social & photo sites. Maybe a big part of the allure is the chance at immortality. We are reminded constantly that whatever we post here will haunt us forever. I kind of like the idea that long after I've gone on to something else some grad student working on his thesis of early 21st century history will stumble onto my picture of Lisa and Angela Pace and think "Look at the size of that belt!"