french press project
Once again, some photos of me have made it to the mirror project:
Daniel in the french press.
Chris in the french press.
Daniel and Chris in the french press.
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July 31, 2002
scanner madness
What a therapeutic late night. Finally I spent a night in my own house. For some reason decided to do every little personal scanner project I'd been putting off. Here's one more:
a face i like to see
at sam's request
Some people may have noticed that I have some links to photos of me (and others) on my sidebar. There used to be different ones I was hosting on another server and it crashed, and those scans were lost.
Little did I know that little Samadhi liked to look at them all every day. Well, when the photos went down I made my pretty new 'fotographia' pages, and picked a whole new set of photos.
Well, it turns out that the old photos have been long missed, and so I finally got around to digging them out, rescanning them, and putting them up...at Sam's request:
July 28, 2002
he thought it was groovy
Last night I had a bike party. Micheal, my boss, called me and asked me if I wanted to get on bikes with a few of his friends and ride around the city and downtown to see what kind of fun we could find.
It was a delicious warm night and so of course I said yes, and we cruised to my friend Hudson's massive house party. My god. I mean seriously, like you could hardly move during the peak times, and I heard that people were still arriving at 3am. We rushed into the crush of people and danced and said hi to people we unexpectedly saw for the first time in years. We smoked and drank a bit until the claustrophobia set in and we were back on a bike again.
It was colder now and the wind rushed past us as we cruised at maximum speed down Capitol Hill in Seattle. Micheal said, "The rule is, you don't stop at an intersection unless you know you're going to get hit by a car." This seemed like a pretty foolhardy rule to me, but in the warm magic of the Seattle summer evening, it was somehow completely perfect, and no red light could contain us.
By the time we got downtown it was 2:30am and nowhere was still serving liquor. There were a couple of bars still open for people to dance at, but none of them looked attractive. We bought sausages from street vendors near The Bohemian, and wolfed them down hot. Then we were off again.
We cruised the nearly dead streets, and down one secluded street I saw a group of people, one of them singing some old Sam Cooke song (cupid, draw back your bow-ow, and let, your arrow go, straight to my lovers heart for me). They were already past it, and I started to speak up to say I wanted to go back, when they already started turning around.
It seems Micheal and Alison knew them. At the heart of the congregation was a penny taxi...a cart that rides behind a bicycle, and Micheal's first job in Seattle had been driving one. Alison was a cab driver and knew him as well. We went down to meet them and it was a merry group.
Some were sitting drunkenly in the penny taxi, and the rest were standing around, smoking and listening to this guy sing and just generally bullshitting jovially. We joined them and soon I was making requests (do you know any al green, can you sing any otis redding?) and we were enjoying a smoke with the penny taxi driver.
We caroused for a little while and then it was back on bikes as we rode to Alison's apartment, above a local club called The Graceland, to settle in for some tea. From a nearby apartment I heard the wafting strains of a guitar. Mellow and watery and beautiful, it sounded a little like Funkadelic's early mellow grooves, or perhaps some Hendrix a la Castles Made of Sand.
"What are they playing?" I said, "It sounds like Funkadelic but I don't think I've ever heard that song."
"Oh," they replied, "those are our friends. That's live, they're in the studio playing right now."
Entranced, I walked down the hallway into, sure enough, a little recording studio, where they were sitting in dimly lit corners twisting away at their instruments.
"Hey," I said, "That's really beautiful...it sounds like Funkadelic!"
"Thanks," said the man nearest the door, in what I could only discern as a completely fake british accent.
"Who is it?" said one of the players who was a little deeper into the studio, in an accent almost as fake.
"It's someone who was listening to us from across the hall and thought it was groooouvy," and when he said groovy he drew it out, making the accent even more rediculous.
So I sat and listened for awhile until I decided it was awfully early in the morning, and decided to ride my way up the hill and return the bike to it's home so I was free to go wherever I liked. It was a hard ride all the way back up Capitol Hill, but very satisfying.
July 27, 2002
why I haven't been posting much
You see, I used to work a job where I had about 6 uninterrupted hours in front of a computer screen. Games were blocked, chat was blocked by the firewall, and so my only method of communication with the outside world was Email and the bloggy. I could just sit and think about what I was going to blog about for a few hours, and then have an hour or so to actually write the post and teak it a little bit as the morning got a little busier and people started to file in looking bleary eyed.
Now most of the time I'm in front of a computer I have writing and web work to do that I'm actually being paid for, and I'm being paid pretty well, so I really feel this responsibility to actually work when I'm at work, so I'm really having to think about actually *gasp* setting aside some of my own personal time in order to blog.
In other news. I got laid. Yummy.
July 23, 2002
the tasty two (2)
The tasty two is a new feature brought to you jointly by the tinyblog and drivelwarehouse.
My answers to last week's questions:
When is enough not enough?
Enough is not enough when you're watching Eight is Enough. This mediocre late 70's show has an official website, a yahoo group, and two photo galleries. Enough already!
What is the name of your kingdom?
Well, when I played dungeons and dragons as a kid, I was always the dungeon master. My first created worlds was called Cretoria, and my second (and most enduring) was Anaray.
Why does everything taste like chicken?
Daniel's Question:
What do you like to get in the mail?
July 16, 2002
the tasty two!
The tasty two is a new feature brought to you jointly by the tinyblog and drivelwarehouse.
Each week both of us will come up with one mouthwatering question apiece. I know I don't need to tell you this, but 1 + 1 = 2 in most cases, and that is two, yes two fine questions each week.
The following week we will post our answers to The Tasty Two, as well as the next question. You can answer the questions in your own post, in the comments, or using the email form in the sidebar.
Without further delay, the first Tasty Two.
When is enough not enough?
Daniel's Question:
What is the name of your kingdom?
dhammapada six
Better than a meaningless statement of a thousand words is a single word which, when heard, produces peace.
Better then a thousand verses that pile up meaningless remarks is a single verse of deep meaning which, when heard, produces peace.
Better than reciting a hundred verses that have no meaning is reciting one verse of Dharma which, when heard, produces peace.
The one who has conquered himself is a far greater hero than the one who has defeated a thousand times a thousand men.
Beings who have mastered themselves move always with restraint. How much better to conquer oneself than to conquer a host of others!
July 11, 2002
spacelabs->lxis
I worked for Spacelabs Medical for almost three years. Longer than any other job.
I am writing this post in the last hour of my employment here.
I've been working part time at my new job, and Monday morning will be my first day of full time there.
Here's a shot of me and my new boss, Micheal, talking some business:
May the force be with me. Hehehehe.
July 10, 2002
shoeshine shoes on the bus
I had been going around in sneaks so ratty that a damp sidewalk would get my socks wet. Finally I went out and bought some sturdy leather shoes, brown, with beige stiching, and real hard leather, not suede.
I scuffed em' up real quick, and it reminded me what it was like to have shoeshine shoes.
I got on the bus to go downtown and there was a guy with his shoeshine setup...a frame built from two-by-fours, basically a low seat with a platform for someone to raise one knee and set a shoe before him.
"You going to work or coming from work?" I asked him after awhile.
He was pretty reserved at first, "Goin' to." he said.
But pretty soon he started to get all animated about it, "I been doing this for fifteen years...you believe that?"
He looked down at my shoeshine shoes, "I could do your shoes...right now...wouldn't take me but a minute."
"I don't have even a buck in cash."
"I'm not talkin' about cash," he said, "it's the start of my night and I'm just ready to get to work!"
I looked at the time. "I get off by Westlake. Let me get you a couple of bucks at the ATM there, and you can shine my shoes at my bus stop, so I don't stress about missing the last bus."
He was really excited by the time we got off the bus, and I could tell he was really on his game that night. As we walked he was already working the people sitting in front of the Starbucks so he could come back to them later. I got out some cash and finally, with great relish, he slapped his 2x4 frame down on the brick surface of Westlake Center and I lifted up one shoeshine shoe and placed it on his little platform.
He took out an almost-empty can of brown polish and did a good, quick job, making little shoeshine kung-fu noises and trying to get pretty girls or people with shoeshine shoes to stop and be next.
I handed him the ten dollar bill (which I can only assume is still a pretty fair rate for a shoeshine, even these days) and caught my bus with shiny shoeshine shoes.
July 7, 2002
door-to-door popsicle saleman
When I was a kid I used to love Italian Ice. I don't know how Italian it really is, but it was the midwest's version of gelato, and came in two flavors, strawberry and lemon-lime. The lemon-lime was the best.
I walked into the grocery store near my house one day and found these lime popsicles that taste exactly like the Italian Ice I used to eat as a kid. My god they are good.
As I was preparing to go to work, leisurely strolling around in front of my door, I saw my neighbor lounging around on her couch watching a movie and thought perhaps she would like one of the best popsicles in the world.
I knocked on her door, "Do you want a popsicle?"
She did look a little puzzled, "I uhh, I just brushed my teeth."
"Oh." I said, lamely, and then trying to explain, "I was just walking by, thinking how good my popsicle was, and I thought maybe you'd want one."
"Okay, I guess I will have one then."
"Let me go get one."
I ran into my apartment to get her a popsicle. I returned with it and she took a tentative lick.
"Oh wow. It is good," she looked at the popsicle for a moment and then asked me, "Do you want me to give you some money?"
In retrospect I should have said straight-faced, "Yes. It will be twenty-three dollars." But, shocked and mildly insulted I could only sputter out, "No!"
July 3, 2002
every day is a holiday
Jehovahs Witnesses (like Prince) don't celebrate holidays because they believe that every day is special in God's eyes.
I'm guessing that although pretty girl is not a Jehovahs Witness, she carries on in this very special celebration by celebrating a new and very special holiday each day for you to participate in.
Now before you rush over there to the sort of confusingly named GIRLS ARE PRETTY, I just want to let you know that it's pretty caustic, in the same spirit as Rabbit Blog, or the now defunct I, Asshole. That being said, I find more posts than not to be quite punk rock and brilliant!
It's not to late to celebrate some of my new favorite holidays, like:
Date Someone Who's Hot And Has A Terminal Illness Day!
Pray To Baby Jesus To Help You Find Lots Of Money Day!
Spend All Your Money And Die Day!
Right now pretty girl is on vacation for a week or so and kindly left us with our next seven days of holidays in advance. So happy Policewomen Are Amazing In Bed Day!
Enjoy!
the beauty and stress of change
There I was, cursing everyone who writes a weblog I like for not updating more frequently when it occurs to me that I've only updated once in the past week or so.
I quit my job. I've never worked at one job for so long, and I'm about to leave all the boringness, bus rides to Redmond (far, far away from me, for those not in the area), and direct deposited paychecks behind.
Bless that bus driver last night. The bus I catch to work on the weekends is the last bus to where I work. If I miss it, it's an expensive cab ride that takes a half an hour even to get to me. I got to the Transit Center and saw my bus number. I hopped on.
I realized after about 15 minutes that what I was seeing out the window wasn't familiar.
Me: Did we pass NE 40th?
Bus Driver: You got on the bus going the wrong way.
Me: Shit. There's no more buses out to Overlake tonight is there?
Bus Driver: No.
Ice filled my veins. Only about a dozen more of these lousy bus rides and I had to go screw one up...bad. We pulled into a transit center several miles away from where I was supposed to be and I started to get off the bus. The bus driver didn't open the door.
I looked at him.
Bus Driver: Are you getting out here?
Me: Y-yes! As well here as anywhere. There's no Metro Bus that's going to be any fucking help to me right now.
He still didn't open the door.
Bus Driver: I'll...uh...I'll take you to Overlake on my way back home.
I bowed my head, a little ashamed that I cursed. I quietly slinked back to my seat and sat there until while he ran the rest of the route, and the last few people got off the bus one by one near the end of the line.
He took me near where my bus route would have gone, about 4 blocks away from my work...and as we neared the intersection it started to pour down rain.
Bus Driver: If I was a really nice guy I'd take a left here and take you to your front door.
Me: (silent)
He swung a left and drove me right to the entrance. I got to work on time, and was only medium instead of soaking wet. I was pretty touched.