We have domesticated the fox!

and I want one. You will be able to get a little guy like this:

This is amazing news for everyone that wanted a Shiba Inu just because it looked kind of like a fox. It will be like a more athletic Corgi that likes to pounce on things (seriously I looked up pictures and that was like 60% of them). National Geographic did a piece on a group of biologists in Russia who have been working since the 1960s on domesticating foxes through breeding. This is great news. Some day I will have a little dude like this.

Article here and pictures here with the picture above taken from here.

Sign People

We have found the clip art sign people out here in Portland to be somewhat overdramatic. Crushed in Gate and Slippery When Wet are hamming it up real good in these two public service adverts. Portland needs to hire an acting coach.

Marshmallow times

We need some new entries in the Top 10 Movies category over at Marshmallow Fight so head over and submit yours. If you happened to miss music I think you can still submit those, and for those of you who have can now turn in your movie list. The theme for this one is a little different. We're focusing mostly on movies to be watched over and over, the ones that stick by you and would make you happiest if it appeared on tv when you got home from work.

So that's the contest of the season, and we are just about ready for suggestions for the next set. Books and tv shows seem the most obvious, but maybe there's a dark horse candidate you want to put forth. I think I would add Top 5 Superheroes to the discussion.

Citizens! Lend your voice!

Hurry, we are running out of time!

I miss this game. A completely unique game in my childhood. The countdown, taunting, and possibility of all players losing made this seem a mad rush to save something. Like a space station I think. As a little kid this was both nerve-wracking games (by the way, I had to look up wracking or racking, apparently they both work and I'll pick the one worth more in Scrabble) and exhilarating. You really felt like you saved the day AND you got to stick it to a smug little computer virus.

I always wondered if my parents hated some of these games. I mean, it was no Snail's Pace Race, which in retrospect is somehow less exciting than it sounds, but still as a little kid you can hear that computer voice yelling its catchphrases all day. So speak up out there, fond memories or horrible nightmares?

Luggage

I started watching Die Hard and I couldn't pay attention after the first two minutes. Something happened and I just could not help, but fixate on this minor detail. John McClane has just gotten off the airplane and is standing next to baggage claim. This gentleman standing next to him is struggling to pull his bag off the claim belt. Where this goes wrong is in its blatant use of an empty suitcase. Surely there must be someone working wardrobe nearby that could have loaned out a few shirts to fill the suitcase, but no. Let's make this poor guy off the street have to "act." Just watch from the 1:50 mark to the 2 minute mark.

I have no idea why this bothers me, or why I even noticed, but now it will not leave me alone.

Merry Christmas

Black Bear

If you are maybe having an off day, need some cheering up, then have I got the video for you. This is a little old, and was first brought to my attention by Tammy, but every once in a while it needs to be seen again.

Some choice lines:

"This is what the bear probably looked like...except real."

"I'm good. I'm uhh faster than a bear."

And honestly, just watch that bear climb the tree. You'll start feeling better. I promise.

Said Cupcakes

Pirate themed chocolate cupcakes with a peppermint frosting. Sooo good and that blue is fantastic for a frosting.

I'm terribly sorry

but it seems the world is ending. At this moment I am drinking V8 and eating whole wheat pita with roasted red pepper hummus.

At the very least I believe later today will involve mint chocolate cupcakes. Equilibrium restored.

Turandot

We have now officially opera'd! And I have all the notes at the ready. Overall, we were pretty happy, enjoyed it, although I don't think has moved up on our priorities at all. No hurry to get back to another, but we had fun with this one.

Turandot is by Giacomo Puccini, who also did Madame Butterfly. The basic story is that Turandot, the imperial princess of China, has set up a contest wherein any suitor must answer three riddles. If they fail, they are executed. If they succeed, wedding times. Calaf, male lead, answers the riddles, but Turandot throws a fit about not wanting to marry him. So Calaf gives her a riddle of his own. If she can learn his name by morning, he will be executed. A lot of running around, tempting Calaf with money/women/what-have-you, and the torturing of a slave who loves Calaf. By morning Turandot has fallen for him and says his name is Love. The end.

Fun fact: there is a long lost son in the first minute. Over/Under for long lost relative was four minutes and it was still under!

More specifically, I had issues with certain things, but not all things. For the negatives: I was not a huge fan of the female lead, the set, or the costumes. Now, I pretty much knew going into the opera that I probably wouldn't like the female characters. I'm ok with the lower ends, but I really don't like the upper range tremolo singing. The really loud, higher pitched warbling always feels kind of grating to me. So, by the accounts of other people who had seen this showing, I guess she was pretty dern talented, but I didn't enjoy it.

Both the set and costumes suffered from modernization. For the set/scenery/setting/whatever you call it, I felt let down. My impression of opera is that there is generally very few set changes, that most of the drama happens in one place, and this was true for Turandot. The problem was that this one locale was just a semi-circle shaped entirely by corrugated metal sheeting with portraits hung along in rows. I have no idea why the palace was made of corrugated metal. For the costumes, some people were wearing "modern" clothing and some were in full robes. The modern clothing consisted of women's power suits, slacks/button-ups/ties office clothes, and a leather trench coat. It was ridiculous. The four main characters looked like Barbara Bush, Hagrid, Lucy Liu, and Gandalf respectively. How can I take this seriously?

The modernization may have been the biggest problem for me. I don't want them to pick and choose which characters wear updated clothing. I'm completely fine suspending disbelief that this rather hefty male lead is supposed to be a supremely athletic and dashing young prince, but don't dress him in a leather trench coat give him Hagrid's haircut. No power suits! Modernizing this old opera should not mean bring it up to the 1980s. I feel there are three good options. Bring it up to current date stylishly, go with traditional/original costumes, or simplify the traditional/original costumes. It's hard to see the Prince Calaf falling head-over-heels at first sight for someone dressed in a power suit with an old lady's haircut.

There's also, I feel, a major issue with the plot. They contemporaried up the clothes and setting, but the plot of the opera was unchanged. All the characters are still acting like it's ancient China. I feel like if you modernize the accoutrements, you must update the story to fit your chosen era.

Anyway, the good parts were still many. I enjoyed the rest of the music, the female supporting role was fantastic, and it had a pretty good sense of humor. It was in Italian, but the translations were projected above the stage so we could sort of follow along. The dialogue was pretty funny at times and some of the other characters were pretty solid. The three ministers Ping, Pang, and Pong in particular were favorites. It was about three hours long with two intermissions, but we stayed for the full show and never really felt like skipping out early.

All in all a good night, a good reason to dress spiffy and head out. I don't think we would turn down another opera in the future, but I would like any other opera to be in a more august theater, one that really feels like an opera house, and maybe one with a more traditional take. No stabs at modernity. I am ponying up the money to see an opera and gee-for-socks I want to get an opera! Tradition! Gilt boxes! Fancy clothes! It was a fine place with pretty strong acoustics, but it didn't feel like opera. Apparently in this regard I am a firm traditionalist. Who'd a guessed?

Welcome welcome

So these are the new digs. This should be home for this little bloggy for quite a while, I can't see myself switching forums again any time soon. Tumblr, among so many other problems, does not feature any sort of export function, which means all those old posts were basically copied and pasted over. If you are curious and look back through the old posts, they will look kind of rough, but I just wanted to get it all done so I can get back to writing new things.

For the moment there are just a few fellow bloggies that I follow, but they are all worth reading. I've got the Time is my Dad's retirement blog, Pickles and Bleu is Tammy's work, and Marshmallow Fights is run by Nate and hosts some of his writing and some collaborative top 25 songs lists created by family and friends. There should be new content up shortly as everyone interested can send Top Ten Movies lists to either Nate or my Dad to be posted.

Back into regular content on Friday with our reactions to the opera. Thanks for staying with me.

Hip-Hopera

We are going to see the opera Thursday! Marvel at our classiness! Other exclamations! Thursday night we are going to see Turandot.

Bulls v Blazers

Last night we went out to the Bulls game at the Rose Garden compliments of my parents. Game was pretty fun, lost by a bit, but some great plays to see. The Rose Garden was pretty enjoyable, great atmosphere, but I will say pretty miserable food. Next time we go we’ll have to rely a bit more on Dibs and soft-serve.

We have a few notes for everyone out there:

Whenever Rudy Fernandez was taking free throws, a Bulls fan behind us would yell “soccer player!” Not sure why. The best we can figure is that in the program handed out at the doors it had an interview with Rudy and they asked what other sports he liked. He answered soccer and tennis.

There was a dad in front of us and he was fist-pumping and air-punching up a storm. Some incredibly ridiculous moves.

On the jumbotron, they showed a probably 12 year old kid wearing a Bulls jersey, who immediately responded with what would have been a motion with one hand underlining the Bulls on the front of his jersey. However, he did it much too high, so it looked more like a motion conveying the message of ‘we will serve your head on a platter.’ Creepily hilarious.

If you renew your season tickets before March 1st, you will get a Wesley Matthews “3-goggle” bobblehead. This is when you basically make the OK sign with each hand and hold them up to your eyes with the other three fingers pointing out.

I am definitely getting tired of the accopella trend. Every college now has one and you have to see them everywhere. They did both the national anthem and the halftime show. Most of these groups buy their arrangements and so most of the time you hear the same four songs as before. I’m tired of seeing a new group do the same songs in the same way. It really irritates me.

And that’s the news. Lots of fun, bunch of people out in colors and jerseys, and definitely a lively crowd. Sadly, I didn’t have my camera with me. We’ll just have to do it again to get some pictures.

Moved

We are Post-Move! Sunday we dropped off our keys to the old place and we have everything in our new place, although we are still days away from getting everything unpacked and put away.

Honestly, this was one of the easiest moves I’ve been a part of. This is a bit of a surprise since this was to be a move that included only three people, six flights of stairs, no parking and narrow streets for a uhaul, and a shortage of boxes. HOWEVER, we are pretty much the best. By that I mean we were undoubtedly lucky. We only needed two trips with the truck and everything but the mattress and box spring fit in the tiny elevator. Amazing news. Couch, shockingly heavy and razor-edged entertainment stand, dressers, all were wedged into that elevator after much twisting and spinning.

Most of the cussing out the sky came on Sunday. Cleaning the old apartment went well enough, and shopping was fine, but took forever. We were the most tired upon our return, but I still needed to run the bikes over from the old apartment, which took several trips as I forgot the keys to the bike locks like a champ.

Anyway, the new place is getting pretty high marks so far. We are still trying to find a good solution for bike storage, but other than that things are going well. The kitchen is like an actual kitchen, water pressure is good, the amount of space feels amazing, and we get natural light. Who’d a thought that would be a plus?

There will be more words soon, but this is a start and I have been hungry pretty much nonstop since the move. Don’t really know why, but there you go. So I’m off to second breakfast. Back shortly.

Soccer

So I recently got into a pretty big soccer phase. Not that I’m playing, which is probably the basis for all of this, but I’m reading and watching much more than usual. I just finished Seeing Red by Graham Poll and am currently working through the veritable tome called The Ball is Round.

The former is a memoir/autobiography of sorts by the recently retired English referee who famously awarded three yellow cards before sending a player off in the 2006 World Cup. It deals with this along with much of his career in England and Europe, the players he met, the coaches he dealt with, and so on. Pretty interesting. Since we’re all over here and not there, and it’s pretty tough to get any sort of consistent coverage on European soccer, I don’t really know much about the personalities of the clubs and players. I’ve seen most of them play, but don’t really know much else. As a comparison, I know that Ron Artest sometimes drives his kids to school in an Indy car, that Pablo Sandoval’s nickname is Kung Fu Panda, and that Kevin Garnett is insane about peanut butter and jelly man.

The latter book is one of the major histories of the sport. I just now got into the 1900s in England and Scotland. The last chapter has been about the professionalization of soccer, the Irish Question, and the labor struggles of the emerging working class. I’m about 8 chapters in, which Kindle tells me is about 7%. Long, long way to go.

Besides all that, I’ve been digging deeper into Aston Villa (the English team I’ve been doing my best to follow the last four years), trying to get into the Spanish league with Villareal, and watching clips from the last World Cup on youtube. Seriously, how unreal was Donovan?

A few important notes:

-First of the English league will from here out be referred to as the EPL.

-The EPL uses a relegation system which is eminently entertaining. The three worst teams in the league get dropped down to what is essentially the minor league and the top three of those teams are bumped up. Would add a little more urgency to some of the owners here when they realized how much less money the Timberwolves would be making if they got dropped to the D-League.

-It’s interesting that timekeeping in soccer is basically a secret. The major US sports all have scoreboards with clocks. Soccer has only the referees watch to go by.

-The book I’m reading points out something pretty interesting, “The rarity of not only goals, but clear scoring opportunities, is anathema not merely because it appears, at first sight, tedious, but more profoundly because it allocates such a large role to chance in determining the outcome of the game. The enormous number of scoring chances in basketball and the immense length of the baseball season are two devices that ensure, over both individual games and entire seasons, that luck evens out and other factors prevail.” I do enjoy this.

-In fact, one of the biggest arguments I hear for March Madness fits the same idea. Since it’s a one and done tournament rather than best of seven series, you get upsets and upsets are exciting.

-Some day I will not only get cable, but cable that includes the EPL. It is super frustrating to be this excited about a league you can’t really follow.

Anyway, I need to start playing again. I think that’s the moral here. I’ll do my best to keep it limited, but I’ve been pretty starved to talk to somebody about soccer and I may end up posting more things that are basically just for me.

Sorry for the rambling.

One More Week

Just one more week before our move to a bigger and better place. One more week of taking stuff over to the Good Will, one more week of leaving furniture in front of the building, and just one more week of living in our fortress made of boxes. It is insane realizing how much stuff you own when you try to pack it all up. It’s not like we’re pack rats, and we haven’t had all that much time together to accumulate, but we still have a bunch of junk. It just expands and fills whatever extra space you have.

Anyway, we start Saturday morning and it will probably take several years to complete. Then it will be a newer and bigger fortress made of boxes for a while until we actually get everything unpacked.

Oh, and don’t you worry about any of this. We are doing things in an intelligent and orderly fashion to minimize work. None of our boxes are labeled, there is some definite mixing of rooms with some pans going in the same box as the dvds and there are some books in pretty much every box so far.

As for the move itself, there is an elevator in the new place, which is great news. However, some things are not going to fit in said elevator. Mattress, box springs, couch. These things will be going up stairs to the sixth floor. Wooooo.

So there will be plenty of pictures of cussing, laying on the ground, and maybe even one of me on my knees screaming “why?!” to a gray and pitiless sky. We shall see.

Regardless, it’ll be good times and I’ll keep you posted.

Fancy Foods Week

Some important disclaimers: (1) it is hardly a week when truthfully I am only doing two days of fancy foods, and (2) they are hardly fancy foods.

Nonetheless! We have approached this week with gusto and grocery shopping and decided on two new recipes to try. Yankee Pot Roast Stew and Orange Chicken in Pasta. Oh, and maybe some beer bread later on.

Yankee Pot Roast Stew was a successful venture on Tuesday and one that will be repeated. We haven’t done much so far in terms of soups or stews and this one was a long time coming to beat back the winter weather (not our winter of course, but boy it sure was a cold week in the midwest. Don’t know how we survived!). It was a pretty simple recipe, but it was my first ever 2+ hour cooking experience.

Some facts about myself as a cook:

-I am terrible at planning ahead. I’ve been quick enough about everything that this has never really hurt any of the meals I’ve cooked, but it does make it more stressful. I like to start the first step before preparing ingredients for the later ones. So for this stew, I had three minutes of cooking time in which to chop an onion, cube some beef, and find the spices I needed.

-I tend to be intuitive in my cooking. I don’t measure carefully and after I learn a recipe I measure less and less while just throwing in what I feel would be the right amounts. Again, this has surprisingly failed to blow up in my face. Even though I don’t have a ton of experience cooking and don’t understand how flavors work together, I can only remember one or two dishes that turned out badly, and those were more cases of cooking things incorrectly or letting something go too long.

-Truthfully, this matches how I write pretty accurately. Not that I write haphazardly or without proper support, but I do generally start writing and build my papers out from wherever I happen to start. I don’t know how writing has always been my strong point in school.

-Similarly, I have no idea why I’m not a terrible cook.

As for Orange Chicken and Pasta, that is on the docket for tomorrow and I will be sure to pass on any cooking fiascos that prove the above points false.

Good luck to any other fancy food weeks out there!

Christmastime

I think we have reached the end of our Christmas decorations. There was talk of snowflakes and a few other things, but I’m pretty sure we have exhausted our creative spark with construction paper this year. Our first tree did not last long and was pretty weird, but kinda great. Started our decorations off with some class to be sure.

Since then we have put our hands to work on still more string lights in what has become a traditionally haphazard way. The encircle our apartment and even double back at certain points as if we just couldn’t figure out what to do with them. Add to this the strange mix of white and colored lights without any discernible pattern and you have a measure of our style. And then there is our tree. Somehow, even though we had complete control over how it would look, this tree leans more than any I have ever had. It is not at all straight and tilts to the right pretty hard, but we love it anyway.

So there you have it. Maybe someday we will use materials that aren’t scotch tape and construction paper. Even a glue stick would be a huge boost. But this is the theme for our first apartment and it suits us well.

Hope everyone is feeling the season!

Maybe in some small way this helps. At the very least it must help your self-esteem whenever you look at your decorations. They must have had more planning than these.

Merry Christmastime

McBeth Family Thanksgiving

Hello again. Finals have come and gone (lucky me as all of my professors were of the mind to put finals the last week of class rather than during finals week) and I am back to writing. First up on the list is our trip out east, well, I guess everything is out east from here, but I’ll use East to mean ole PA.

This was our first shared major holiday. We’ve done New Years and Arbor Day, but never one of the big ones that have so many traditions attached. So Thanksgiving. Started off with a rather dismal red eye flight that will probably not be repeated. We left the apartment at 8pm and arrived at the McBeths around 3pm. Lovely. With the changeover in Houston around 4am and the millions of screaming babies, this was not one of my favorites. But we made it. Woo! Cheers abound!

Maybe its because of this flight and lack of sleep, but everything hereafter gets a little bit jumbled, so I’ll forgo a day-by-day.

Most importantly for Thanksgiving, the food. Turkey was had, but after that the field was wide open with new options. There were candied yams that involved a lot of marshmallow, baked corn, green beans with bacon, potatoes, stuffing, cranberry tube, and probably a few things I’m forgetting at the moment. There was also both pie and cake. How great is that? Also important to note is that all of these things were great as leftovers. Very crucial.

We also went out to the ever-favored german restaurant in Hagerstown for Sean’s bday, which was as fantastic as ever. True, it is my only experience with German food, but I am positive I would be let down if I tried something similar at a different place. They do food right.

We also spent a day out and about at a pretty sweet model train setup at the Hagerstown Train Room and Museum, which was pretty sweet. Their Christmas set up is pretty intricate and it took a while tracking down all of the moving pieces, finding King Kong on one of the buildings. After that we headed over to see Harry Potter.

The other big event was Thanksgivingston, which was the Saturday following at the Wilkenings’ house and is a bit of a tradition amongst Sean and his friends. More great food, some ridiculously good pies and a pumpkin cheesecake that was by far my favorite.

All in all these were very good things, fun new traditions that will take some getting used to, but are also pretty exciting.

Great times and thanks to everybody out East!

Some Catching Up to Do

Hello all!

It has been weeks upon weeks and I wanted to assure you I am alive and kicking darn near everything. This will be exceedingly haphazard, but I figured it would be a start.

The reason for the long absence has been the uptick in adventure lately. Working our way backwards, I am presently mired in the midst of finals. Everything should be wrapped up by Monday, unless my presentation is picked up and I get to do it all over again, but this time in front of several members of the Bureau of Transportation and related agencies. I doubt that will happen, but you never know.

Before that we were partying hard with the McBeth’s for both Thanksgiving and Thanksgivingston. There will be a detailed post next week covering the wonderful food and good times had there.

I’m sure there were things before that, but at the moment I can’t remember them. There have been a few promising applications sent out, most notably to the Pedestrian Advisory Committee and America Walks.

There will also be news on our Christmas preparations. We have lights up at the moment, but we still need to craft a tree and maybe some other things out of construction paper. There will probably also be some baked goods. We do things right.

Anyway, really just wanted to say hang in there. There will be real news up here at some point.

Until then

Turkey Team

Welcome Thanksgiving! We have turkey town in effect and our apartment is gearing up for the holiday. We left up the orange lights on account of them being the best and there may be a few more turkeys before November is over. We apparently love to do crafts, again on account of them being the best, but probably also because we are adults.

First up is Tam’s turkey. He is a rather large, but an elegant friend with tiny feet. He has a sweet pilgrim hat. After him comes my Captain Gorton inspired turkey. He knows all about the rainy season and he is ready. Oh, also don’t be alarmed. His butt is not on fire. Those are some sweet tail feathers. Not flames.

Finally, we have our next attempt at cupcakes. These may not have turned out as well, but that is mostly because I was involved. Our decorating hit a bit of a wall when we ran out of Thanksgiving themed ideas. This happened after the third cupcake. I have no idea what is relevant to this holiday. We have autumn leaves, a native american, pilgrim hat, turkeys both standing and cooked, and then we ran into some problems. You may also find the number 8, pac man, a gravy boat, a gourd, and the x-men logo. Hooray for Thanksgiving!

So we are living up November, happy autumns!

Sony Only Has Been Defeated

Sony Only (now featuring Samsung) has changed its name to Encore Audio. I have campaigned long and hard on this crucial issue and I bring good news to my followers: this travesty has at long last been addressed. I know it was tough, but you stuck by me as I spoke on this topic for hours on end, some might even say ranted on the subject, in my attempt to break through to the public and bring some pressure to bear on this shop sign. No longer will our neighborhood be a place of misdirection and confusion. Embrace the clarity my friends and rejoice.

I can almost guarantee that my posts will get more inane as the rainy season drags on…sorry. Stout hearts and stoic faces.

Welcome to the Rainy Season

We are now into the winter season, meaning everyday will have some rain. Some days it will rain three or four different times, but you can always count on at least one. Goodbye sun. Goodnight moon. We will see you next year. Me and my soppy bike will hope to see you again soon before we go crazy. There will be 40 days of rainfall for the last two months of the year. There will be 65 hours of daylight in December.

Boooooooooo

A Little Background on Who I Am

A text from my Dad:

“Just wanted to let you know I had the Mike breakfast this morning - yellow cake, chocolate frosting.”

How am I ever going to convince any future kids to eat healthy? On what grounds could I possibly exude any moral authority in this endeavor?

Me - You need to eat a nutritional breakfast.

Kid - But I saw you just put starburst in your Marshmallow Blasted Fruit Loops!

Me - Ummm…I added more fruit?

Woo Woo!

I am officially published! Sage publications has finished the 2010 Encyclopedia of Geography and I am the co-author of one of its articles!

From May to July 2008, Euan Hague and I worked on a foundation article for the relatively new field of mobilities. So while it isn’t terribly cutting or incisive, it is the base article that many authors may use as a jumping off point for other papers.

Now to the weird part. For some reason, maybe it’s just too common of a name, but they put my full name. Including middle. It looks super awkward to me. Euan Hague and Michael Christopher Armstrong. Kinda weird.

Whatever. Exciting times. It is a bit difficult at the moment to access, but I am working on it. If you are a student of a school that has library access to the sage articles database you can search for me, but otherwise it is a bit tough. The entire encyclopedia in hard copy is around $800.

I’ll try to figure something out. But anyway…Woo!

Halloween Festivities

Halloween is in full swing! We have our spooky lights up, we have pumpkins carved, cupcakes baked, cider has been poured and we are ready!

Pumpkin carving was the name of the game last night and this was our first real attempt together. I had carved my first one in years last year with Nate and Dana, and this was Tammy’s first one in forever. So as you can guess, the pressure was on. We spent quite a while working on templates, conceptual ideas that were well beyond our technical abilities. My first inclination was to make a Magneto pumpkin and Tammy was talking up Scott Pilgrim pumpkin. As reality set in, we decided on simpler subjects. She would go for more traditional monster pumpkin and I, for some reason, decided on less traditional raccoon pumpkin. As you can see, the finished products were Frankenstein (10 points to Tam for succeeding in monster category) and vaguely bear shaped (6 points for adorable, but misguided).

Tammy also gets extra points for making amazing orange cupcakes, although the decorating part has been called into question (primarily the one in the bottom left that is a vampire). They were super delicious though.

The lights are finally staying up all night, which is great news. They are a lot like a baby, although in the opposite direction. You can finally get some sleep when the baby sleeps through the night, and we can finally sleep now that the lights are staying up through the night. It was not pleasant when the strands would fall around 3AM, knocking over anything and everything in its path. Anyway, on to parts that have less terrible analogies.

We are also watching Buffy, which is a solid Halloween time series. I have forced many shows upon Tam so far, so we decided to work our way through one of her old favorites. We’re about halfway through season 1, and the effects are delightfully cheesy. The show managed to become remarkably dated (I love seeing the mid 90s version of a laptop) but it’s been fun.

Anyway, it’s been a pretty enjoyable October thus far, we still have the holiday itself coming up, and Sam and Melody are coming out here in a week or two. Should be a strong finish. Hope everyone is having equally fun October days out there, and let me know if you have competition to put our pumpkins to the test. Can you top the FrankenBear duo?

The Search Goes On

On and on with the job hunt.

My latest application turned out to be a toughie. There were tricky questions like:

“Describe your use of meth over the last six months”

“How often have you used amphetamines in the last three months”

and “How would your friends describe your usage of cocaine?”

How am I not getting a job? These questions should be weeding out almost all competition. I should be getting acceptance letters brimming with cash. But no. Somehow these just aren’t discerning enough, though I can’t understand how this could be improved.

I just don’t know.

Classes Start Tomorrow

Seems superweird to be starting up again. Of course, it’s just two classes for a single term, but it’s a start. Tomorrow will be 3rd World Cities and Development, Thursday will be Portland Traffic and Transportation. I have a notebook and some pens and everything.

I am ready!

For Those Who Can Still Ride an Airplane for the First Time

for those who can still ride an airplane for the first time from Anis Mojgani on Vimeo.

A little bit NSFW. This has been in my head for most of the day.

“Slow down Quentin. You don’t have to touch and go.”

As I get more and more frustrated with not working, not doing enough, having the few things I do find dwindle back down to nothing, I find myself thankful. I go for walks, I read faster and more fervently than ever, and I welcome home my wife each day. The days are clear and refreshing, and I am happy. I want to do more and give more, but sometimes I have to wait. Additional classes, additional applications, additional lost responses and I wait. So long as I keep pushing, something will fall in.

Bear with me as we try out some new formats.

The Scourge

If you come visit, this will undoubtedly be a topic of conversation. Sorry, but that’s the way it is. For some reason, no one else takes this in quite the same way. Really all I’m looking for is some camaraderie. That’s all. Some fellow feeling that this store has some serious issues.

So I put this to the rest of you. The Sony Only store. Notice the new banner declaring “Now featuring Samsung!” Someone explain this to me. Someone tell me why that shouldn’t spark indignant anger. Sony Only. A ridiculous name to begin with, but an exceedingly clear-cut one. Sony. Only. If you really think that is the store-name for you, then I want to see some serious follow through.

Come on Sony Only. You chose your game, now play it out.

Weekend Success

Thanks to everyone for making this a fantastic weekend to connect, catch up, and enjoy a wonderful wedding. Congratulations Pat and Brittany, hooray for a ceremony that went smoothly, and double hooray for dance parties. Several new dance moves were discovered (my personal favorite being the Black Belt) and good times were had. We also heard a phenomenal speech from Jon Lighthall, written with much support from Jamie, that brought down the house.

Now we move forward into the Fall with the leaves starting to change and cooler winds blowing through town. I even had a Christmas song in my head for a little bit, but I managed to fight it back down. There will be time for that, but not yet. There are Halloween decorations to put up, pumpkins to carve, and all sorts of Octobery things to enjoy.

Embrace the Fall ladies and gentlemen and we hope to see everyone again before too long!

Goodbye Labor Day, Hello Halloween

Labor Day was well spent on exploration of the Pearl District. We are still operating under the mission of picking a direction and walking until we get tired, and this was a fun hike. We saw three corgis, one of which was riding in a shopping cart. It was a good day, to be sure.

So now we look forward to Halloween, and even though we don’t have any plans for it, I am super excited. Fall is here which means sweaters and cool breezes and soon enough there will be days meant for hot chocolate, though I will sorely miss Fright Fest.

We will be rolling through Michigan in the near future for Pat and Brittany’s wedding, which should be loads of fun. It will be good to see family and friends again, and we can only hope that Thanksgiving gets here soon so we can get back to the East Coast as well.

Coming in the near future: a detailed post of our recent trip to Ashland, an in depth look at why the Sony Only store sells Samsung, and hopefully some better writing. I have been in a slump and I am ready to break out.

Oh, also the Themals/Ted Leo show tonight. I will tell all and hopefully some pictures will turn out. There has not been enough pictures lately.

Waiting

and waiting to hear back. That is the theme for the weekend. Tuesday I should hear about my test scores and find out if I will be employed by Portland Energy Conservation Inc.

Besides that we have been taking it somewhat easy. There has been some playing of Scott Pilgrim, a little bit of soccer down at Portland State, and we took our first pass at a budget.

Over the past couple weeks after I have exhausted the days updates of job postings and day to day chores, I have read Down and Out in Paris and London, Madame Bovary, The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, Ender in Exile, and am working my way through all my GIS textbooks. So, I have a couple more books from my Dad’s wonderful box of stuff, but I will be through those shortly. I have Heinlein lined up through OES’s library, but J-Pod will take a little bit more looking, so I am still open to suggestions.

Anyway, I’ll let you all know when I hear about some of this job stuff, but either way I will put up a better post in the next day or two. I really just needed to get back into the habit.

Ganbatte!

We've been trying to make new friends!

Beware bear paws from above!

At this point it was quite a while ago, but we have actually made our way over to the Oregon Zoo. The clear cut winners were the otters (both sea and river) with second place going to the perennial favorites: the polar bears. The PBs got a point taken off for scaring the bejeezus out of us when one reached right down through the ceiling trying to snag a child like a fish. Otters got full marks for doing front flips, swimming upside down, and holding things on their chests..plus yawning. Otter yawns look ridiculous.

Maybe more on this later. Depends on Tammy’s photos.

X-Men

Our very first outing to a barcade (for some reason Portland loves just squishing different places into a single noun) was amazing. One of the reasons for this was our companion Daniel Tafelski. Another was this specific machine. This is the best arcade cabinet on the planet. Up to six people can play at once and your joy will know no bounds. This picture was taken from the balcony above while others played.

The 2010 Corgi Parade!

did not go as well as planned. When we first heard of such a thing we were naturally excited. A fleet of corgis wiggle waddling down the street. It would be the stuff of dreams.

However. The morning came and went. We walked over and eventually found a pretty good turn out of corgis, maybe 25 dogs in all. The problem was that this was not really an attended parade. The longer we waited the more we felt like creepy potential dog-snatchers looking for the opportune moment. So yes, it was funny to see so many of these little dogs walking around, but we failed to take any pictures because we didn’t want anyone to call the authorities. It was a strange feeling and we walked back home far from satisfied with such a ridiculous event, but so it goes. Some days you get to hang out with a bunch of puppies, some days you feel like a weirdo.

Booksbooksbooks

I need new books my friends. I am trudging my way through Down and Out in Paris and London and not really enjoying it. So, if you all would be so kind, I am happily in the market for book recommendations. Tell me tell me what you are reading, have been reading, or wish you were reading. If I don’t hear back from anyone I think Madame Bovary is up next sooo the clock is ticking.

Besides that, I’ve started volunteer work with the Coalition for a Livable Future, which has been enjoyable. Seems like a fun office and their projects have been pretty interesting so far. Hopefully this will lead to some new opportunities and if nothing else will certainly be a plus for my PSU application. Speaking of which, in September I will start taking classes at large, also as a boost to my application and to get some credits out of the way.

The heat has finally broke, today was a glorious 74 degrees and bike riding was a singular enjoyment. Frisbee is still happening every Wednesday and soccer is happening some weekends, its a pretty defunct league.

The end!

Submitted by Nathan Armstrong and completely made my day. My faith in otters has been restored!

One Other Thing

Can someone please verify for me if otters actually cruise over waterfalls like it is no big thing? This was the other major Yellowstone debate. Though I am not sure who originally posited this one, I can tell you that Tammy has been a huge proponent of this so-called fact. Personally, in my gut I feel like it is too good to be true. The very idea of the river otter as adrenaline junkie, getting itself all pumped up and ready to go, then just pulling down its little goggles and taking the plunge downstream seems too fanciful. Or maybe it is just the goggles that get me. Who knows? But! This fact has been near impossible to track down online since every search just leads to waterfalls named after famous otters, though most of these have since been renamed generically as Otter Falls as a way to downplay the great deeds done by otters throughout the years, as otters have become less and less popular. Most historians blame this on the otters ongoing 24 year ban of actually appearing in their own exhibit at the zoo. I mean, I came to the zoo just to see you guys and you weren’t even there! In 24 years of impassioned zoo visits I have yet to see a single otter even though I’ve seen multiple otter exhibits! Its insanity. I’ve even seen the wolves and their habitat is huge!

Anyway, that’s what the unbiased historians are saying. I have no idea what the reason could be for the declining otter approval rating. Probably the economy.

So let this be your forum if you have some insight on my nature question of the day. Do otters go over (and enjoy) waterfalls?

One More Thing

I’m pretty sad that I didn’t get the picture I thought I did, my digital proof of this statement, but I will have to make it nonetheless. Buffalo love to stick their tongues up their own noses. I bring this up partly because it shaped part of our road trip as we debated the truth of this and did numerous impressions, although no human could be as successful as that buffalo. But I will stand by it forever. I was there. I saw it. That buffalo was way into its own nose. In a gross way.

Nature fact of the day.

But wait...there's more

Thought I would put up a quick something to keep momentum going on this fledgling blog. My week has been dominated by walks to and from the DMV trying to get my Oregon license, overcoming countless obstacles along the way. There was a man in a hawaiian shirt who was perhaps the worst I’ve seen when it comes to accurately entering information onto a computer, several miles of walking each day, and insane questions. They asked why it was that there are more accidents during the sunset commute rather than sunrise and one of the answers was that more than half of the people in the sunset commute had been drinking. More than half. Five days a week without fail.

Anyway, there are a few posts already in mind for the coming week about such relevant topics as why do buffalo stick their tongues up their own noses, why do otters enjoy going over waterfalls, and how well my tryout goes today for the Shooting Stars Football Club (soccer).

Enjoy the weekend