Channel mania... I feel so dirty.

I've been living without television for several years now. But while I crash at my aunt's place, I can sort through the umpteen-thousand channels available on the space... dish... television... machine.

Seriously. This is an unreasonable amount of entertainment.

I can tell you the proper steps to make swiss, gouda and cheddar cheeses separately. Should you need anyone to fashion a hydroelectric dam on a large river in western Mexico, I will happily do it. I can show you the best way to catch catfish in Borneo and I really had no idea the Tour de France was so freaking long. Diving competitions, surf competitions, Paul Newman's cookie factory and lunar landings are all... three feet away. With Harold and Kumar keeping me company, I sit here and recall the design for the indoor ski resort in Dubai. I saw two guys create quicksand and I saw a man create a cake robot.

It's endless.

I've been helping my aunt around the house and around her office this week. She's in charge of moving her office into a new building and it's way too much work for one person. She's been pretty much the go-to person for any old thing, whether it fits her job description or not. And her health is suffering because of it. So I've been going up there and helping her coworkers pack stuff, load stuff, etc... just making sure she can think straight. I'm heading down there tomorrow and I think we're transporting a refrigerator. I was told I need to be there before noon so I can partake in the office pizza party. It will be done.

This evening, I left on my bike at about 5:45 and just explored. This area, Montgomery Village, is rife with paved walking paths that wind through the woods between several neighborhoods. The slow rolling hills and the hand-crafted, wooden fences could easily be mistaken for a neighborhood in Colorado. The only difference is the background. There's only one mountain in Maryland and it's not really visible unless you're actively looking for it.

The heat here has been pretty comparable to the Texas summer. I was just about soaked by the time I got back from my ride about 45 minutes later. I've yet to get into the city on the metro and honestly don't know if I'll be able to do it before I leave on Saturday.

I have absolutely no idea what to expect on my trip. I know I'm going to swim a bunch. And I might sleep a lot. I saw an episode of a show called "Aerial America," which I didn't know existed until tonight, in which a helicopter flies over a particular destination. The show tonight was on Hawaii. And... I'm super excited.


Anyway, I'm staying as busy as possible in anticipation of the trip. I'm hanging out with family and have played the guitar a couple times. It felt a little foreign after the drive up, to be honest. But, all is well. And... I'm getting ready for about a 12 hour flight on Saturday :)

Paradise City

Against all odds, I made it to the East coast this week.


Now I'm just sitting here, reflecting and generally attempting to process what seems to be a new world altogether. I commented on the air quality to my sister this afternoon on the phone. I spent a lot of time in New England growing up and, although the DC area is considered southerly, there is an absolute richness to the smell of the air. The soil and the grass are thick and the fir trees sit close to the ground. I have a sagittarian fantasy to crawl under one and take a nap.

The drive up was pretty nice. The car did well and the scenery, the bits I could actually see, were beautiful. But it rained horribly both nights. Driving into Nashville, I had to buddy up to the 18 wheelers and follow their tail lights because I was not willing to drive slow enough to see the actual lines on the road. This notion seemed completely unreasonable at the time. I effectively tailgated the truckers completely blind through the hills of Tennessee. Given that I had already been on the road for about ten hours, this was exactly what I needed to stay alert...

Other noteworthy events are as follows:

*gas gauge failed and car died with what appeared to have been a quarter of a tank left 55 miles outside of Austin (yesss AAA)
*rekindled my love for Sunkist
*hit 86mph in Virginia (cause im a badass)
*experienced some priceless right-wing talk radio ("Thank goodness that World Cup is over.")
*got "Freebird" and "Paradise City" in Arkansas
*power went out at the hotel in Nashville, children got stuck in the elevator, got locked out of the room, could not eat my pizza
*powered through flash flooding just South of DC


I found a place to stay today. All the places up here are considerably more expensive just because of the geography. But I'm really happy with this place. It's super close to the metro station so I'll be able to get into DC proper to play in traffic on my bike. And you can imagine my surprise when I saw the freaking FIOS modem IN the damn room :D I'm pretty ecstatic. The owner is a super cool older lady whose son is in grad school in Michigan. The room is abnormally large and... it's maybe a mile and a half from my new office. I can now say with confidence that chewing industrial leather will indeed keep you alive if and when sustenance is scarce.

I've visited with my grandparents, cousins and aunt :) My grandfather, 90 years old, shot a hole in one the other day when he went out for his customary 18. We went out and got some Chinese food and he told me stories about hotels in Hong Kong and India in the 60s. He told me about the time when, 72 years ago, he drove his brother's fiance and her mother across the country from Rhode Island to Ventura, California. He said he got the car up to 100 going across South Dakota and he made the women think he was a ravenous bear by scratching on the screen at a camping cabin in Yellowstone National. Entertainment is comfortably cheap on long road trips. Gram's still dancing and they're both rocking the internet every day.

I'm not starting the new job until late August but I went in for an orientation of sorts yesterday. Paul and I went over all the network architecture and I got a good idea of the scale of the operation. It was a really long day but I ate it all up. I'm really excited to get started. But... it will just have to wait for the time being.


Audrey is taking me and my mom to Hawaii :) My mom is still in a slow state of recovery after she was rear-ended... I think over a year ago now. It took some serious maneuvering to convince her to brave the trip out there. But now that the dates are set, she's been feeling better mentally. Auds said I've been working too hard in general over the last couple/few years and that I needed a clean slate before starting the new job. This will indeed by my last hurrah before digging into a virtual timewarp of instances where that little man from Princess Bride says, "Inconceivable!" We're going to the island of Kauai, leaving next Saturday, and I'm going to spend much of the time in the water. This next week I'm going to take the metro into the city and sightsee. I've... been... sorta chomping at the bit.

>> no music?

Summer storms returned

Summer storms returned this afternoon with a warm welcome.


This morning, I ran errands for my mom and helped her around the house up North. I loaded the playlist from my roommate's old hard drives and straight-up jammed all the way up there. I'm gonna miss the pace of things down here. BUT... the mix includes Neon Indian, Yeasayer, Tallest Man on Earth and Ratatat. :D

I came back down South and made it a front-porch afternoon. I moved my lil amp to the screen door and threaded the cable between it and the door frame. Propped up against the wooden chair with the sun kindly across my legs, I pushed notes over the stone wall, through the rose garden and deep into the oak trees across the street. Green, the resident Schäferhund, lounged and snoozed in the yard with the occasional roll/back scratch/snort.

The clouds and thunder started to roll in soundly from the West. And as soon as the shade hit the yard in full, the mosquitoes descended like bloody vampires and hassled me straight into the house. When Texas mosquitoes come after you, you can either pull out the garlic and silver bullets (maniacal jazz hands) or run away like a man. I chose the latter... with half-hearted jazz hands.

I grabbed a bag of Sun Chips and headed back out front to check the state of the storm. It was just grumbly... frustratingly so. It never actually rained here, but it sure did sound nice. After feeding Green and myself an ample amount of Sun Chips, I came in and just plain passed out on the coffee table to the sounds of thunder. Green was the enabler. You might be surprised how good a flat surface feels after an hour and a half of musical recklessness.

I woke up all out of sorts and the sky was still growling about something. It was all talk.


I watched a movie called "Keinohrhasen" last night. And it was pretty freaking funny. My only other exposure to Til Schweiger prior-to was his severely disgruntled character in Inglourious. He directed Keinohrhasen and it was hilarious. It seems to me that one clear sign of a good director is that the movie makes perfect sense to an audience who doesn't speak the same language. Such is this movie. I'd like to see it with subtitles at some point because it was definitely pretty raw in a couple places.

This evening, after waking up on top of the coffee table, I watched "Das Wunder Von Bern," another German film which loosely documents the German World Cup victory in 1954 around the story of a family's struggle to accommodate a grizzled father/husband recently returned from the war. It's a great look at the man's battle to reconcile his nearly-forgotten domestic sentiments. The movie did this succinctly and, although I was watching subtitles most of the time, I feel the acting was pretty good. I recommend it. It probably also helps if you're a soccer fan, to some degree.

I've got a roommate to take my place here in July so now... I've basically got the green light to boot scoot outta town (def. number 2). I'm gonna get my car checked and enjoy some final miscreant adventures before I vacate. I've loved Austin and am still not completely comfortable leaving my mom here in her current state. But now is the time. She and I both agree.


>> "Hold Tight, London feat. Anna Lynne" by Chemical Brothers

Goose attack

I haven't been to Virginia in a long time. I'm just trying to remember what it's like.

I imagine it's green and hilly. And maybe the people there speak slowly like Texans?


The last time I was in Virginia, I was going to a summer tennis camp at UVA when I was... 14 maybe?


I'm looking for someone to take my room right now here in Austin. But with rental market plateauing right at the "apeshit" level, it's gonna be hard. As soon as I get someone lined up, I'm packing my clothes, guitars and computers into the Oldsmobile and headin out.


I was in Washington DC a couple weeks ago for my grandfather's 90th birthday party. The night before, my sister and I went out with my cousin and her husband and his twin brother and his wife and... we all know eachother. I hadn't seen them in about 4 years and... we usually just go for broke.

We started drinking and talking about IT stuff and Mr. Man said, "Hey Rich... hypothetically speaking, would you be interested in...?" To which I replied, "Abso-damn-lutely."

We had intended to crash out at a reasonable time to prep for the party the next day. But when we got back to the house, Paul said, "I'm gonna get a drink and then play some trivia."

The events which followed can only be described as a goose attack of the mightiest proportions.


The feral Grey Goose of western France attacked us repeatedly in the face, several times an hour.

I processed about a quart and a half of unholy pheasant juice over the course of four hours on an air mattress. Then, I was awoken by my sister and she coaxed me into the car.

After some very fortuitous automobile dormancy, I woke up with what I felt was an expanding fault line, a rift, if you will, between the two hemispheres of my brain. I made it to the party. But any discerning eye will be able to spot the traumatic trappings of our bird hunt gone awry.

Grandpa's great and Gram's even better. And I got myself a new job to boot.


Things are moving quickly and I'm going to have to update this periodical a bit more periodically.

For now, suffice it to say that there are several uncertainties at present. But the goose...

Oh, the goose...


>> "November" by Music Box on Lydian Label

Weekend warrior

Well this post has nothing to do with the term you might recognize from the movie Cocaine Cowboys. In an ongoing effort to get my head as far away from work as possible, I set out on my bike multiple times this weekend.

Ray gave me a new seat so I really wanted to get out and test it. As I told him on Friday, it's like a Cadillac for my butt. It's awesome. My old seat had become completely defunct after a spill I took a while back. I went end-over and somehow the seat took the most damage. Ever since, the seat has effectively been on about a 30° slope to the left. For one reason or another, the single bolt that held the seat in place needed a metric sized allen wrench.

Any excuse will do for a trip to Home Depot. The smell of lumber is attractive to me in the winter. Yep. I also enjoy going while maintaining the appearance of someone who has never actually set foot in a Home Depot. Day laborers covered in paint, foremen on a deadline and heart-of-Texas employees see me in boat shoes, shorts and a busted old GAP shirt with half the collar folded in and a pair of headphones stuck in my head. I got the allen wrenches and replaced the seat.

I scrambled over to work (on my day off) to meet with my 401k advisor. He's spot on and I was happy to meet him.

After the meeting, I took off into the city. At times, I wish I was in a bigger city simply because there is only so much that can be seen. I'm... trying to remember exactly where I went at the moment. I did a dumb thing and went into town on a Friday afternoon... just when everyone was scooting to get out of town. Whatever. I'm on a bike. Cars must obey. It's a beautiful thing.

My face-mounted mirror is growing on me. I've finally figured out how to make it work without being too awkward. For the record, I shall always look awkward on a bicycle. Off the record, I am awesome regardless the amount of face-mounted hardware I might be sporting.

I scrambled all over town, I guess. I took nearly the same route today, albeit a bit extended. I think I just went around South and Central Austin yesterday. Yes indeed. That's what I did. I went to the bank and to Zilker. And then I paused at the top of the hill at the Long Center and looked out over Town Lake and all the dogs doing what they do best.

I repeated the process today whilst jamming Little People, Emancipator, Fischerspooner and Brother Ali. Brother Ali is the perpetual Man.

Today, I started out by chugging up to the UT Campus and going to Wheatsville Co-Op for some Frito Pie (note the capitalization). For one reason or another, there was a massive Woodchuck/Boy Scout/Father-Son Excursion event on the UT campus and there were brown shirts all over the place. It was interesting.

Given the sheer, frightening amount of children, I decided to eat away from my usual grubbing spot. I require a certain degree of (general) peace and quiet for the proper levels of grubbing to take place. I hopped back on the machine and made my way down to Austin Proper. I ended up going to Whole Foods and eating on the roof.

I burned down 6th street comfortably with my mirror and completely ran 110% into the last intersection. Just at the last moment, I tore into the huge parking lot adjacent to Whole Foods and enjoyed the chorus to one happy-go-lucky song and a break in the clouds at the same time. I was content to do figure-eights with a stupid grin on my face while everyone was actively congesting my roadway by the store. Who in the world would be in a hurry on a Saturday? Whoever they were, I was happy to let them stew in their own anxious juices while I did an urban ballet against the condos' rooftops.

There were many people at the store. I've found it's not nearly practical to expect anything else at any given time. If the store is open, it's going to be packed. And that's fine. It's people-watching season right now through this time next year. Folks can't figure out if it's hot or cold out. The ladies are doing their best to prolong the winter season by wearing boots and matching earmuffs in 55° weather. I parked and locked the bike and took my frito pie up to the rooftop to get my digestion on. Jalapeños. Woot.

Come to think about it (because I think about these things), those cub scouts weren't nearly old enough to watch me eat frito pie. Once I start eating that stuff, it's a no-holds-barred digestive event. It couldn't possibly be rated anything less than NC17 by the stiffs at the MPAA. Let's put it this way. If Tarantino directed a short covering the life of a small Wheatsville frito pie after being purchased by me, there would (very accurately) be an enormous body count, multiple explosions and just general mayhem. I would be played by Jason Statham and the frito pie would be played by this guy.

I finally got a chance to watch some of the Olympics. Since Time Warner's accounts database failed continually, I was not able to register my ISP (which is required) to watch them live on NBC.com. I did, however, manage to find some pretty good recordings online. Ms. Vonn is infinitely awesome and the biathlon was... interesting at best.

I came home and talked to the landlord. Mr. Man has not paid rent in several weeks and I've been instructed to find a new roommate. I've already met with 3 and have a match. Now it's just a matter of time until tons-o-fun decides to move his butt... and his xylophones, Nirvana posters and broken keyboards.

I played guitar for a while today and... I don't really even want to put it down. Now... I had previously affirmed the fact that I will never be a guy who treats his guitar like his significant other. I'm a hopeless romantic and am ever entertaining the possibility that my songs will sound better when played with a woman in stride. But I recently found myself comparing the scent of a passing lady to that of my guitar case. With a highly critical inflection, I thought, "Wow. My guitar case smells way better than her." Nonexistent love life, beware. The 86 is on the up and up.

Speaking of odor, I'm going to break for a second and go on a mental tangent. Follow if you dare. An olfactory excursion's prepared.

So the sense of smell has evidently been proven to be the most primary of our senses as it relates to memory. I am attempting to consider easy ways (easier than standing on my head for extended periods of time) to take my mind away from what's in the foreground.

I rode by an industrial construction site downtown yesterday and was met with a great memory of being in bigger cities. The odor of raw lumber and cement blowing through the hollow floors took me back to city streets in Houston, DC and New York. A few hours later, I found myself considering whether or not it's feasible to plan a day or a weekend to include any number of these odoriferous experiences. Biologically speaking, it should create the emotional levels required to suit a proper break in the pace of Life. After considering this concept thoroughly, I have come to the distinct conclusion that it's not currently, not in any way possible, to be a bigger tool than I currently am. I do, however, expect women to smell like my guitar case. So anything is entirely possible.

And with that, I jam the rest of the night away with Joss Stone. Sweet, merciful Jesus.

>> "Killing Time" on VA Ibiza Lounge Cool Jazz Edition Vol. 2 by Joss Stone

Noses and keyboards

I just finished stretching and I successfully got my nose to the ground. I wrapped a 20lb weight in a pillow and balanced it on the back of my neck. Then, I grabbed my feet and made increasingly pitiful noises until my face went all the way down to the ground.

I need to work on getting my shoulders down and straightening out my lower back. I've found that a mix of Ulrich Schnauss' album Goodbye and recordings of birds go very well together. And I might go so far as to say it's damn near "heavenly."

I don't know exactly at which point I became such a sonic enthusiast, but I'm... happy I did. I edited out an expletive there. I know I've mentioned this before, but I often entertain a weird possibility which would subject everyone around me to the music that's in my headphones... at the same volume and in the same language. Sometimes people need to get rattled. Sometimes people need to be uplifted. Sometimes people just need to be reminded that there's very much a plot and storyline in any direction they might be facing at any point in time. The colors we see in our days have nothing to do with what's in front of our eyes.

I read an article this morning which summarized a recent study done on human sounds. The researchers found that humans from vastly separate cultures can comprehend the human/emotional connotations embodied in different bodily sounds. Groans, laughter and screams were all correctly related to their corresponding circumstances.

Insofar as we understand our own (Western) music, I think the minds of even the most recreational music listeners pick up on the emotional suggestions of the piece at hand. At some point in our not-too-distant past, humans were actually able to feel tsunamis coming in the distance. This awareness has since faded. And perhaps a bit further back, there were actually a greater frequency of instances of unbridled love and emotion. It'd be like a human acting like a happy dog who wants to lick every animal it sees. I can't, however, say it's a bad thing that there aren't more people like Richard Simmons and Pee-Wee Herman running around. But that doesn't mean the intention can't be recognized and used just a bit more often in public. I imagine more than one caveman met his demise by attempting to cheer up the wrong cavewoman in the company of her apelike-manfriend.

That was a tremendously bizarre tangent. And if you pieced together any sort of meaning from it, I'm both impressed and appreciative. Take some time to think what you would choose to subject the world to if you could hijack the global airwaves for a second. I'm going to take a moment and appreciate the very under-appreciated Nicola Tesla.

It's cold again in Texas. We had a couple of weeks in the 60s but now it's frozen. It's actually freezing tonight. And I'm wearing two pairs of socks just to stay comfortable. It's... please pity me. Pity the unsuspecting Texan who got caught in the cold front. It went alllllllll the way down to 30 degrees. I'm actually just happy we didn't get it as badly as the rest of the country. I spoke to someone on Thursday in Tulsa who was expecting over an inch of ice. Terrible.

I'm only a few pages into Philisophical Investigations by Wittgenstein and I've stumbled onto what I think is my favorite literary quote to date. While describing the journey of a thought from conception to vocalization to reception, he states:

"Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination."

It's brilliant. I couldn't have put it better myself. I could launch into an over-sized description of what I think Communication is to me, but I don't have the energy at the moment. Suffice it to say that I'm happy we got vocal chords along with our opposable thumbs and I think more care should be given when speaking to others in general.

I'm going to have the house to myself in the not-too-distant future. I was talking to my landlord earlier today and went into my housemate's room to check on the current state of things. In the room, I happened upon a certain informative brochure. My 40 year-old roommate-person apparently has the time and resources to consult an audiologist for two custom-fit ear monitors (turbo expensive musical performance enhancements), but he's completely unable to pay the (horribly cheap) rent on time... consistently. Anyway, Mr. Man is going to be gone in the next month or so. I'm looking forward to it. The place will smell better and I'll be able to clean things without hearing him bitch and moan about me harming his various percussive instruments. According to at least one person I know, I will never be a good drummer unless I have at least four xylophones on display while they actively collect dust.

I've been playing my guitar a lot. And it's fun. It pulled a couple melodies that have been floating around in my head for a couple years now. It's nice. I don't really have any words for them. Go figure. But they'll be there when I do. I might just start dedicating some time to songwriting. Who knows. I would like to send some songs to friends and family at some point just to let everybody know I'm still kicking. Whatever. Time will tell. I'm gonna work on my pancake and keep trading.

I'm also kicking around the idea of composing some type of literary piece of moderate length. The idea of communicating reason by compounding emotional experiences in someone is appealing to me. Right now, I talk to people on the phone and am walking a very fine line between caring about what they have to say and shoeing them into the pen of Resolution with a linguistic cattle prod of monstrous proportion.

Anyway, in lieu of a serious relationship, I'm considering writing a book. Granted, it will take many months before any measure of reciprocation is seen, but... time is on my side. Life is endlessly short.

My tablet arrived in San Jose for repair two days ago. They haven't called me to tell me just what exactly is wrong with it, but I suspect they will shortly.

I currently have a 32mb image from the Hubble telescope as my background. It's spread across three monitors and is dreamy :)

Part of this being my blog means that I can geek out a little bit about completely lame things. It's beautiful. I didn't get a dial-up internet connection until I was 17. I didn't get a computer that ran faster than 1ghz until I was 20. This machine, although considered to be out of date already, rocks hugely :D

Okay. I'm going to read into slumber. I'm working in 8 hours.

>>"Never Be the Same" on Goodbye by Ulrich Schnauss

The dream

Sometimes, things fall into place so kindly that it feels like a dream. Such was the case today. It's not so much that anything was especially out of place, but the fact that it was my Friday smoothed everything over like a big wave after a sandcastle contest.

While jamming to The Nits, I decided to post on here again. It's been a really long time.

January has gone by quickly. I celebrated a horrible week trading last week by getting myself a new guitar. It's my first, and probably last, electric guitar. Yes, I have been sleeping with it. No, I have not named it. And no, I have not ruled out naming it at some point in the future. I've played about 3 hours every night this week and... will do so again tonight.

I read that a 16-year old Haitian girl was rescued from the bathroom of her school after 15 days of isolation. 1.2 million people are without homes. That's the size of Dallas and San Diego. Rescue officials mentioned that with the most extensive governmental aid available, the temporary housing for these people might last more than six months. Before the earthquake, one in four children were not living until their eighteenth birthday. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that it took a catastrophe of such magnitude to bring their economic state to my attention. I've mentioned this before here. But what hope for global improvement can we possibly maintain if an island nation so close to us geographically is living in such squalor? The Haitian government has been on the list of the world's most corrupt in the last few years. But... I still can't imagine why we can't have a profound effect on any nation in such close proximity... especially a democratic one hurting for development as sincerely as Haiti. I've known people from Haiti and they consistently said it has one of the most beautiful cultures in existence. It's bad. I donated.

Otherwise, Steve Jobs finally unveiled his most recent creation. I'll say this... it's long overdue. I still, to date, have no idea why tablets have not yet acquired the popularity they deserve. I think Mr. Jobs has done a great thing for the computing industry. Well, I suppose he's brought computational mobility a long way in general. He hasn't pioneered mobile PCs by any means, but he has helped many people put operating systems in their hands. And that's a huge accomplishment.

The iPad is quite literally a large iPhone. It is not a tablet computer. Anyone who tries to use it as an actual computer might very well be disappointed right out of the gates. As I told a co-worker today, any "tablet computer" without a USB port is not a "tablet computer." It has the speed and resources to run email, video, browse and play music comfortably. If that's all you need a computer to do, you should get one with more durability... and a USB port. The base price under 500 dollars is great if you only need a 16gb (flash) hard drive. The 64gb model will run you $840... and not include a USB port. The iPad is going to outsell the Kindle and the other book readers quickly and easily. It might even outsell iPhones and iPods, for all I know. If it outsells those, I will excitedly wait to see what their R&D dept. puts out for the third generation model. Based on the first generation model, I can comfortably say that the second generation model will not excite me, either. If you want to use a tablet PC, get a TC1100 from this crazy bastard who can apparently sell them for $150. Otherwise, Google Fujitsu Stylistics and enjoy an actual mobile pc.

I have no doubt in my mind that every Mac owner with three or more children will own an iPad before the end of the year. What I don't understand is that these people already have the ability to check their emails on their smartphones. So this really might only shape up to be an oversized media player. And that's fine. But I personally like my computers. That's what happens when my cell phone catches me w00ting over technology.

In other news, my mother is successfully relocated. I lifted many heavy things and I was compensated with much food. It was a brilliant success.

I've been balancing on my head recently and working on my pancake but... it's hard. My neverending manliness does not want to let my groin relax. Too much information? Maybe so.

This evening, I went to the grocery store and got some lasagna and a huge Guinness. That's all anyone needs, really. As an added bonus, I fell in love with three beautiful women while walking the aisles and conversed kindly (flirted mindlessly) with the cashier.

Happy weekend to me.


>> "2012" on Music for Men by Gossip