I'll skip the excuses for being a poor blogger and just get right to business....
1. The United States just elected its first black president, and I feel that I should at least say something about it, so bear with me:
I will not say who I voted for or what I believe, in an attempt to avoid random angry comments from people. I will say, however, that for the first time in a long while, I have hope. I am so tired of hearing how horrible our government is, and hearing that things need to change, and I am just happy to finally hear that change is coming. Even bad change is change, and anything that changes has a chance to make something better. I wish The future President all the best, and I hope that he may be numbered among the great in our History.
2. I have a job. after what seems like ages of joblessness and searching and interviewing, I have landed the perfect job as a Graphic Designer. I am so excited to have finally reached the point in life where I will no longer have to wait on tables or hold temporary jobs just to make money for gas. This job comes with an arsenal of fantastic benefits and perks, and I could not be happier.
3. Troy bought me a flickr pro account today. randomly. So that means that I have something to keep me occupied until I start my new job, and I will be scanning in my moleskine paintings. I also no longer have to delete pictures just to add more. so keep an eye out for flickr updates.
4. Troy and I have been re-thinking the marriage thing. I mean, the marriage is still on, its just the Wedding that is up in the air. There is alot to consider, but I think that, once we make the big decisions (venue, food, day) things will be fun, and much more easy. and, FYI, i do not want to hear wedding horror stories. I wont say that mine will be different, because I know it wont, but I refuse to allow fear to run my wedding.
Now, if I could just afford the dress I want. Believe it or not, it is part of the Disney's Princess collection. It is beautiful, but I am afraid of the price tag.
5. We have begun working on our future home. Its a complicated narrative, so I'll save it for a later day.
6. I have finished my first moleskine book. I'm addicted, and I'm glad. The motivation and creative outlet is good for me.
7. Maryland might get its first snow flurries this weekend. Not sure how I feel about it yet. I'm not really ready for it.
8. "If All Goes Wrong" just came out, and of course Troy bought it that day. If you are a Smashing Pumpkins fan, or just a fan of music and the artistic struggle behind good music, you should see the interview with Pete Townshend and the documentary. Genius. BIlly Corgan always has a way of taking my own personal beliefs and putting them into words.
9. The Pour House closed down. The Pour House is a local coffee shop in my town, and, while it was always packed with obnoxious teens and the prices were pretty high, it was still a local business beloved by the community. I spent the better part of my highschool and early college years there, and now I cannot believe it is gone. I have been going less and less in the past few years, but it felt good to know that the place would be there if ever I needed it. NOt to mention, now, that is one less local business. some person's savings and dreams, devoured by the economy. As much as I love starbucks coffee, I would rather see the local starbcks shut its doors, at least starbucks has a chance to come back. a local business, however, cannot just bounce back, it sucks up every resourse the owner has, and then thats it. I try my best to patronize local business as often as possible because they have more integrity and sincerity toward customers than a giant corporate chain. But, alas, the pour house is no more.
10. Gas is currently 1.97 in my home town. How crazy is that? I do not even know what else to say about it. lets just leave it at this: I hope it stays that way.
11. finally, a word about football: HURRAY RAVENS. lets just keep moving forward and I'll be happy.
thats it for now. good day to you, my random reader.
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snow. Show all posts
Friday, November 14, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
this is it.
the day has arrived. i am sitting on troy's couch waiting for him to shower. we're leaving for dulles in a little bit. im going to drop him off and return home alone.
as was expected, the day for this scary trip (my first ever driving by myself in, over, around, near, through dc) has turned out to be quite the fun, warm, pleasant, sunny, peachy day.
and by that, i mean i just spent a good hour scraping a layer of ice from all sides and surfaces of my car. and i was soaked. it wouldnt be bad if the temperature would rise. but the ice will turn to rain and the rain will turn to snow while i am on my way home.
thrills.
troy doesnt seem worried that the weather will be too bad for me to drive in, so i guess i shouldnt worry.
but then again, my car stalls out and starts smoking in deep puddles.
i need a new car. first item of business after graduation and new job.
in the mean time, i had a fight with my mother over sheets this morning. i had a fit because the sheets I bought (for over 50$) were given to my brother to use. my mother said i shouldnt take my problems with troy leaving out on her. i think she missed the point.
she doiesnt understand that i basically confine everything i own to one room. i buy all of my own things. the only public domain items in my house that i use are water, electricity, and food. i buy and wash my own sheets, towels, clothes. i use very few dishes, and wash them when i finish.
i swear, i was not made to share a house with five other people.
but graduation is around the corner. i cant wait.
so i got a little sidetracked.
the point is that i will be stuck with her for three weeks telling me any time i am angry that i should go yell at troy or that i shouldnt take my anger or frustration at his leaving out on her. she loves to rub this sort of stuff in.
i finally gave troy the big project. i hope he doesnt think it is dumb. i hope he appreciates it and likes it for what it is. i hope the whole thing wasnt a waste of my month and a half.
i skipped school yesterday. my department head/faculty adviser said i made the correct decision. i feel a little less guilty now.
im hungry. i took troy's word that he was going to make us breakfast. somehow i think our plans have changed.
as was expected, the day for this scary trip (my first ever driving by myself in, over, around, near, through dc) has turned out to be quite the fun, warm, pleasant, sunny, peachy day.
and by that, i mean i just spent a good hour scraping a layer of ice from all sides and surfaces of my car. and i was soaked. it wouldnt be bad if the temperature would rise. but the ice will turn to rain and the rain will turn to snow while i am on my way home.
thrills.
troy doesnt seem worried that the weather will be too bad for me to drive in, so i guess i shouldnt worry.
but then again, my car stalls out and starts smoking in deep puddles.
i need a new car. first item of business after graduation and new job.
in the mean time, i had a fight with my mother over sheets this morning. i had a fit because the sheets I bought (for over 50$) were given to my brother to use. my mother said i shouldnt take my problems with troy leaving out on her. i think she missed the point.
she doiesnt understand that i basically confine everything i own to one room. i buy all of my own things. the only public domain items in my house that i use are water, electricity, and food. i buy and wash my own sheets, towels, clothes. i use very few dishes, and wash them when i finish.
i swear, i was not made to share a house with five other people.
but graduation is around the corner. i cant wait.
so i got a little sidetracked.
the point is that i will be stuck with her for three weeks telling me any time i am angry that i should go yell at troy or that i shouldnt take my anger or frustration at his leaving out on her. she loves to rub this sort of stuff in.
i finally gave troy the big project. i hope he doesnt think it is dumb. i hope he appreciates it and likes it for what it is. i hope the whole thing wasnt a waste of my month and a half.
i skipped school yesterday. my department head/faculty adviser said i made the correct decision. i feel a little less guilty now.
im hungry. i took troy's word that he was going to make us breakfast. somehow i think our plans have changed.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
SkiLiberty
After years of seeing Ski Liberty in the distance from the giant hill on 97, I finally got a chance to go there. We (my family, troy, and Aaron) went tubing last night and then stopped at Tony’s in Tawneytown for some pizza. I expected tubing to cost more than $16 per person, but by the end of the night, I changed my tune. 16 is reasonable, but the lines to get up the hill and then back down are so long that you really only have time to go down four times.
On a week night, or any night when it is not so crowded 16 would be reasonable, but the crowds made the lines move so slowly that it really wasn’t worth it.
I find it ironic that on a crowded night, like a weekend night, the cost is $16, but on a weeknight, when you will get more chances to go down the hill and the overall experience will be better, it only cost $12. Makes no sense. In the future, I will want to go on a weeknight.
I loved the snow machines. It was awesome watching them blow snow high into the air, but the snow would hit you in the face on the way down.
It really was not too cold last night, either. I did not start getting cold until the end of the night. Other than my face, I was warm.
I took many pictures with my Lc-a, but I am worried that it was too dark for them to turn out correctly. If I could be sure, I would just double expose the whole roll, but I also took some direct sunlight pictures, and they would white out. I often miss having a display screen to preview my pictures. But I guess that’s part of the game. The nature of the beast, as Troy would say.
Today is my last free day. I plan to do nothing. Nothing. I am going to wear pj’s all day and a hoodie, and my Ugg boots. I plan to not go anywhere and sitting around Troy’s house all night. Maybe watching a movie. Gonna be a good day.
Now, if my parking pass could be here today, that would be great.
Schedule for the semester:
Monday:
Writer As Reader- 5:30-8:00
Archeology Of Language- 8:15-10:45
Tuesday:
Publication and Performance-2:00-4:30
Seminar in Writing: the Modern Tradition- 5:30-8:00
Wednesday:
Work.
Thursday:
Work.
Friday:
Contemporary Literature- 2:00-4:30
On a week night, or any night when it is not so crowded 16 would be reasonable, but the crowds made the lines move so slowly that it really wasn’t worth it.
I find it ironic that on a crowded night, like a weekend night, the cost is $16, but on a weeknight, when you will get more chances to go down the hill and the overall experience will be better, it only cost $12. Makes no sense. In the future, I will want to go on a weeknight.
I loved the snow machines. It was awesome watching them blow snow high into the air, but the snow would hit you in the face on the way down.
It really was not too cold last night, either. I did not start getting cold until the end of the night. Other than my face, I was warm.
I took many pictures with my Lc-a, but I am worried that it was too dark for them to turn out correctly. If I could be sure, I would just double expose the whole roll, but I also took some direct sunlight pictures, and they would white out. I often miss having a display screen to preview my pictures. But I guess that’s part of the game. The nature of the beast, as Troy would say.
Today is my last free day. I plan to do nothing. Nothing. I am going to wear pj’s all day and a hoodie, and my Ugg boots. I plan to not go anywhere and sitting around Troy’s house all night. Maybe watching a movie. Gonna be a good day.
Now, if my parking pass could be here today, that would be great.
Schedule for the semester:
Monday:
Writer As Reader- 5:30-8:00
Archeology Of Language- 8:15-10:45
Tuesday:
Publication and Performance-2:00-4:30
Seminar in Writing: the Modern Tradition- 5:30-8:00
Wednesday:
Work.
Thursday:
Work.
Friday:
Contemporary Literature- 2:00-4:30
Monday, January 21, 2008
the winter of my discontent
I have lived in this house since 2001. Seven years. Seven long years without air-condition or heat in my bedroom. I have silently suffered freezing winters beneath multiple layers of down, wool, and fleece blankets, and seven blistering Julys with a small desk-fan to relieve the sultry Maryland summer.
My house is not old—no more than 12 years old—and it has central air. Every room in the house has central air conditioning and heat. Every room except mine. It is miserable.
Summer is not so bad. My room faces the back of the house, and I rarely have direct sunlight. Combined with the constant breeze that flows through the valley below my house, I am comfortable during the summer.
Winter, on the other hand, is miserable. If I am in my bedroom during the cold season (I call it that because winter is not always cold here, as we have already discovered in a previous blog post) I am under a blanket.
The worst part is the draft. My bedroom (the one I picked out of the four possibilities on moving day) is directly under the attic. The attic is pretty open, and wind gets in easy. On particularly windy nights, the plywood that sits over the entrance to the attic will shift in the wind. I also get drafts through my window. I am not sure how. I spent my morning draping a heavy blanket over the window to keep some of the draft out and the heat in. I then stood on my bed with my hand right below the vent in my ceiling (the one that is supposed to deliver the heat) and noticed a slight cool draft coming from there as well. Makes no sense. The rest of the house is toasty, and I have a cold draft.
At least I don’t have to worry about my Macbook overheating. I’ll never die of heat exhaustion. I will be able to survive if the world runs out of heat.
Those are all of the situational pros I can think of. Right now, my cold fingers can only think of cons.
Getting out of the shower is the worst. My bathroom has the best heat in the house. (funny how a house has different heating scenarios in each room, despite the “central” air conditioning.) The bathroom is always perfectly toasty in the winter and refreshingly cool in the summer.
Getting out of a hot shower and walking into a freezing bedroom is unbearable. This morning, the doorknob was even cold to the touch. The way the metal of a seatbelt is when you first get in on a snowy day.
Nothing beats the terrible feeling of being cold and getting under a comforter that is still cold. The minutes of waiting for your body temperature to catch on and kindle the heat trapping properties of said comforter could feel like hours. But once the heat is trapped in, life is good.
Until you have to move your leg and it happens to reach just beyond the warm area and into the uncharted cold desert that is the uninhabited sheets outside of the body-heat zone. Perhaps the leg of your pajama pants becomes stuck around your knee, leaving your whole leg exposed. You might kick and swing your leg in attempt to pull the pant leg back down. A shiver runs from that foot to the very tip of your nose, and you gather the blankets closer to you, tucking them beneath your body to keep the cold out. For that minute, you are an Eskimo, or a biologist studying the snow in Antarctica. The world outside of your comforter is frozen tundra home for all sorts of misery and suffering.
My bedroom is the North Pole.
My house is not old—no more than 12 years old—and it has central air. Every room in the house has central air conditioning and heat. Every room except mine. It is miserable.
Summer is not so bad. My room faces the back of the house, and I rarely have direct sunlight. Combined with the constant breeze that flows through the valley below my house, I am comfortable during the summer.
Winter, on the other hand, is miserable. If I am in my bedroom during the cold season (I call it that because winter is not always cold here, as we have already discovered in a previous blog post) I am under a blanket.
The worst part is the draft. My bedroom (the one I picked out of the four possibilities on moving day) is directly under the attic. The attic is pretty open, and wind gets in easy. On particularly windy nights, the plywood that sits over the entrance to the attic will shift in the wind. I also get drafts through my window. I am not sure how. I spent my morning draping a heavy blanket over the window to keep some of the draft out and the heat in. I then stood on my bed with my hand right below the vent in my ceiling (the one that is supposed to deliver the heat) and noticed a slight cool draft coming from there as well. Makes no sense. The rest of the house is toasty, and I have a cold draft.
At least I don’t have to worry about my Macbook overheating. I’ll never die of heat exhaustion. I will be able to survive if the world runs out of heat.
Those are all of the situational pros I can think of. Right now, my cold fingers can only think of cons.
Getting out of the shower is the worst. My bathroom has the best heat in the house. (funny how a house has different heating scenarios in each room, despite the “central” air conditioning.) The bathroom is always perfectly toasty in the winter and refreshingly cool in the summer.
Getting out of a hot shower and walking into a freezing bedroom is unbearable. This morning, the doorknob was even cold to the touch. The way the metal of a seatbelt is when you first get in on a snowy day.
Nothing beats the terrible feeling of being cold and getting under a comforter that is still cold. The minutes of waiting for your body temperature to catch on and kindle the heat trapping properties of said comforter could feel like hours. But once the heat is trapped in, life is good.
Until you have to move your leg and it happens to reach just beyond the warm area and into the uncharted cold desert that is the uninhabited sheets outside of the body-heat zone. Perhaps the leg of your pajama pants becomes stuck around your knee, leaving your whole leg exposed. You might kick and swing your leg in attempt to pull the pant leg back down. A shiver runs from that foot to the very tip of your nose, and you gather the blankets closer to you, tucking them beneath your body to keep the cold out. For that minute, you are an Eskimo, or a biologist studying the snow in Antarctica. The world outside of your comforter is frozen tundra home for all sorts of misery and suffering.
My bedroom is the North Pole.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Maryland, my Maryland
here are some pictures of why I hate where I live.
I took these shortly after getting off work.
My work, like most places in Maryland, does not close for snow. Now, I understand why places like Colorado and Michigan do not shut down for a little bit of snow. Actually, I imagine anyone from a high-snow-content area would laugh at this blog. But the truth is, Marylanders are IDIOTIC when it
snows. They have no idea what to do, they all go out to dinner in blizzards and go shopping, and then get into an accident, block up the roads, and killing innocent people who just want to get home.Not to mention, our plow system has something to be desired. We rarely see plows, and when we do, they are never actually plowing. My road will never be plowed throughout this storm. How do I know? Lets call it experience.
Welcome to this lovely state where you can go swimming one day and sledding the next. I swear, when I buy a home, it will be in a place where I can count on the weather being the same for at least one week at a time.
A few weeks ago, Troy and I played Tennis in tee shirts.
A few days ago, I went for a walk with my dog…in shorts.
It has been early fall weather, not winter weather. But, in true Maryland fashion, the warm, 50degre weather has given way (overnight) to a snowstorm.
We already had one bad storm this year. Early December. And then we had a warm spell right after that, and now, we have a winter storm again.
As if the unpredictable change wasn’t enough, try watching the weather and hearing that the storm will be a light mix of snow and rain, accumulating to no more than 2 or 3 inches. It will taper off by mid afternoon, and tomorrow will be a high of 45.
News flash: It is now 3:28 (I’d call that a little past mid-afternoon) and we have a minimum of 6 inches across Carroll county. YAY! The weatherman caught up. It took a while, but WBAL changed their report to include snow in the forecast until Monday.
So now, the weatherman says it will continue to snow into tomorrow morning, and will accumulate no more than 6 inches. Well, weather man, we already have that. Where are we supposed to put the rest of it?
I know it isn’t the meteorologist’s fault. I blame this God-forsaken state.
Highest murder rate for a major city, extraordinarily high cost of living, worst school systems, lowest-paid teachers, massive debt, high unemployment rate, most cases of aids/hiv, something in the water making all of the sports teams suck lately, and insane weather patterns. I swear. In spite of what the experts say, Maryland, especially the north/western counties, has a microclimate.
And if the northern states dumps any of that lake effect snow on us, I’m gonna hate them too. Packers or not.
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