Nothing

Blogger seems not to want me to post. I have gotten an error each of the three times that I have tried to post.

Book: Sorry Everybody
Iraq: March - 35
Total - 1533

Beautiful Day

I would have biked today except that I had a flat tire. I bought an inner tube yesterday but was too tired to replace it yesterday and tomorrow I will be working at Chicagoland Bike Federation in preparation for Bike The Drive which will be occurring Memorial Day Sunday. Oh well, in any case, I will be able to bike the next time the weather is good.

Iraq: March - 31
Total - 1529

Busy and uninspired

As I said in my last post, I was going to be incredibly busy so would have little time to write. Having said that, if I had really felt like writing, I probably could have put something down. I really feel uninspired but I will give a rundown of what has happened in the last wek and a half. March 19th was the 2nd anniversary of the war and I marched. The protest was pretty big, the biggest since the start of the war and the state cops made me really nervous but luckily the police kept their cool and things stayed relatively calm. Saturday evening I volunteered as an usher at the PAC/Edge festival and met several more cool people. Sunday (the 20th) I worked helping set up a community art center in Rogers Park called the Wisdom Bridge Art Project. A few of us went out for a drink afterward and had a pretty good conversation with several new friends.

On Monday, I went to a volunteer managers meeting at Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. We talked about Bike the Drive and tried to figure who was going to do what. I think that I am going to be the Data Entry guy on volunteer Wednesdays.

Tuesday was our monthly book club meeting. We read Last Call which I found to be decidedly mediocre.

Wednesday, I had a great date.

Thursday I got ready to got to Midland for Easter. Friday, I drove to Michigan, helped my brother in Lansing move and then drove to Midland for the weekend. The weekend was great, my sister Melissa was in rare form and was cracking everyone up and my sister Kathryn got me an early birthday present, a book called Sorry Everybody, An apology to the world for the election of George W. Bush. It's a selection of pictures that people sent to the website, Sorry Everybody.com. Some of the pictures were incredibly creative and the book is great.
I also got to see Michigan State win two basketball games. Final Four!! WooHoo!! Because of this I got home late last night and am now really tired.

This has caught me up so this is where I end this post. Goodnight everyone.

Nonsequiters

I am going to be very busy in the next several days so I will post no when I actually have some time. I went to a circus last night. One of my friends, Jill, a member of the book club that I belong to, took a class in circus arts at Triton College. The class started around November and ends in March with the circus. She did some trapeze work, a rolling wheel, some acrobatics on a stack of chairs, and was a member of the Dimwits, an act that combined acrobatics with clown work. It was very cool and I was proud of her.

Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the Iraq war. I was arrested in the protest at the beginning of the war, the first and only time that I have been arrested. I have participated in other protests but luckily nothing has happened. I will be marching again tomorrow and hopefully will be able to again avoid arrest. This war is ridiculous and must end.

Saturday night, I will again be ushering at the PAC/Edge Festival and Sunday I will be contributing to the Wisdom Bridge Arts Project for One Brick. Monday, I will be going to a volunteer managers meeting for Chicagoland Bicycle Federation for Bike the Drive.

Tuesday is my book club meeting and Wednesday I have a date.

Movie: Curb Your Enthusiasm (season 2, episodes 6-11) (3 stars)
Book: Last Call by Laura Pedersen
Music: Part of You - Blectum from Blechdom
Iraq: March - 23
Total - 1521

Lots to say, little energy

I have been pretty busy of late so i have either been busy doing something or busy recovering. I will be busy every day for the next week so I figured I should write something while I have the time. Sunday's show with Lou Barlow was excellent. It reminded me, sort of , of Bob Mould's most recent tours in that it was just he, a guitar, and an ancient keyboard. Lou talked a lot and did songs from several of his post-Dinosaur, Jr. incarnations. His opening act did a good 45 minutes, but Lou did 2 hrs and 15 minutes. It was very simple but it was very cool. I got home really late on Sunday, so I didn't feel like doing anything on Monday and yesterday, I had a very nice phone call. I am going to be busy every day for the next week except Friday visiting friends, protesting (2nd anniversary of the Iraq war is on Saturday), or volunteering.

It has been over a year and not much has been heard about them lately, but the Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, are still going and sending back data. The rovers were predicted to have lasted 3 months but have quadrupled that time and recently a dust devil apparently increased the life of Spirit by cleaning off the rovers' solar panels.

I really do not understand those people that see a homosexual agenda in everything. Jerry Falwell, accused the Teletubbies of being gay because one apparently carried a purse. Last year, James Dobson, of Focus on the Family accused SpongeBob Squarepants of being gay because he held hands with another male character. Marshall Fields, every Christmas season, does a series of wind recreating a famous fairy tale. This year it was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Marshall Fields received several complaints about the fact that the seven dwarves being gay because they all live together and sleep in the same room. This is so ridiculous. Why would someone be so homophobic? If they are so worried about what two people are doing in the privacy of their own home, I have to wonder what their private lives are like.

Afternoon post

I don't normally post in the middle of the afternoon and I don't normally post on the weekend but I wanted to talk about ushering at the PAC/Edge festival, I was out really late last night, and I may not get a chance to post tomorrow. I also said that I was going to list the names of the American servicemembers that were killed in February.

Before I get to the PAC/Edge Festival, I should say that until then, my weekend has been fairly quiet which is good because I expect to be busy this coming week. Friday evening, I spent at home after the typical payday billpaying/grocery shopping frenzy. Saturday afternoon continued with the bill paying and then went to loading my iRiver with singles I downloaded from the internet (legally) from Insound. Saturday evening, as I said, I ushered for the PAC/Edge festival. This was the first project I did with One Brick it will not be my last. I didn't know anyone that I worked with but I did notice, when I was signing in, a friend that I knew through Social and Service Chicago, Tom Li. Tom, unfortunately didn't make it last night. There were several performances that we ushered for, most of the time we were put in pairs to work a performance. My first performance I ushered was a free performance that was held in the entryway to the main theatre at the Athenaeum. It was a multimedia piece by a group called Mrs. Rao's Growl called The Role of Tourist as Seen in the Performance Piece: The Techno Buddhist as Tourist. The piece consisted of a movie of a group of people laughing in a cemetary and a group of people filming the people watching the movie. I didn't have a One Brick Partner for this but I did work with a very nice employee of PAC named Stacy, who was originally from Grand Rapids. I then went to prevent people from entering a show in one of our theatres after it had started. The person that I was going to work with originally for my last show, I was ushering a show that started at 10:30 PM had to leave at 10 PM so I expected to be working by myself. One of the girls in the group though volunteered to work with me (or that's the way that I understood it at the time). She had a show to do at 9:30, so I expected that she wasn't going to watch the show that she was ushering. I didn't see her at 10 PM when I went up to the theatre so I figured I would work by myself. There was no one around so I went down to look for someone at about 10:20 PM and saw no one. I figured everyone had left. There were three audience members that had come by the time the show had started. I went in shortly after the show had started. Theater Oobleck did a show called The Quasimodo Variations which featured two actors playing Quasimodo and Ludwig Von Beethoven sitting at a desk and talking about the troubles of artistic collaboration. It was very funny. I was embarrassed though when someone came in at the stage door after the show had been going for about 15 minutes. After the show, I went to get my coat and found a note from the girl that was going to work with me. She said that she had come up but the door was locked and wished me a good evening. So she had watched the show she was ushering and came up afterward to watch with me but was to polite to enter via the stage door and tried to enter via the rear door which was locked. I was flattered and a little sad. Hopefully, she comes to the show next week.

Tonight, I will be going ot see Lou Barlow in concert at Schuba's. Lou Barlow was the original baseplayer for one of the bands that could be considered the godfathers of Grunge, Dinosaur Jr. He then went to form his own band, Sebadoh and eventually Folk Implosion. He just released his first solo album which, surprise, suprise, sounds a lot like Folk Implosion.

In Iraq last month, there were 58 Americans (officially) killed. They are:

February 1: Spc. Robert T. Henderson

February 2: Capt. Sean Lee Brock, Lcpl. Sean P. Maher

February 3: Lcpl. Richard C. Clifton, SFC Sean Michael Cooley, Sgt. Stephen R. Sherman

February 4: Sgt. Daniel Torres, Ssgt. Steven G. Bayow

February 5: Lcpl. Travis M. Wichlacz

February 6: Spc. Jeremy O. Allmon, Ssgt. Zachary Ryan Wobler

February 8: Spc. Jeffrey S. Henthorn

February 9: Sgt. Jessica M. Housby

February 10: Ssgt. William T. Robbins, Lcpl. Richard A. Perez Jr.

February 11: Ssgt. Kristopher L. Shepherd, Spc. Robert A. McNail

February 13: Ssgt. Ray Rangel, Sgt. Chad W. Lake, Sgt. Rene Knox Jr., PFC David J. Brangman, Spc. Dakotah L. Gooding

February 14: SFC David J. Salie

February 15: PFC Michael A. Arciola

February 16: Spc. Justin B. Carter, Spc. Joseph A. Rahaim, Sgt. Timothy R. Osbey, Sgt. Adam J. Plumondore, Ssgt. Jason R. Hendrix, Spc. Katrina Lani Bell-Johnson, Sgt. Christopher M. Pusateri

February 17: Sgt. Frank B. Hernandez

February 18: Sgt. Carlos J. Gil

February 19: 1st Lt. Adam Malson, Cpl. Kevin Michael Clarke, Spc. Seth R. Trahan, Spc. Clinton R. Gertson

February 21: Ssgt. David F. Day, Sgt. Jesse M. Lhotka, Cpl. John T. Olson, 1st Lt. Jason G. Timmerman

February 22: Lcpl. Trevor D. Aston

February 23: Ssgt. Eric M. Steffeney, Sgt. Nicholas J. Olivier

February 24: Spc. Michael S. Deem, Ssgt. Alexander B. Crackel, Spc. Jacob C. Palmatier, Ssgt. Daniel G. Gresham

February 25: PFC Chassan S. Henry, Spc. Jason L. Moski, Spc. Adam Noel Brewer, PFC Colby M. Farnan

February 26: Lcpl. Andrew W. Nowacki, Pvt. Landon S. Giles, PFC Min-su Choi

February 27: 2nd Lt. Richard Brian Gienau, PFC Danny L. Anderson

February 28: Sgt. Julio E. Negron

Music: Hold Your Breath - Denali
Book: Last Call - Laura Pedersen
Iraq: March - 18
Total - 1516

Mt. St. Helens, Words, and Hunter Thompson again

I have been writing all day so this may very well be a short post. Geologists are watching Mt. St. Helens closely again because there was a small explosion on Tuesday. Air traffic had to be rerouted because the resulting ash cloud rose to 36,000 feet. 5 of 7 monitors that were in the crater before the explosion are no longer responding and are thought to be disabled. There is thought that this is the beginning of a more active period in the mountains eruptive cycle.

I found this really cool website about words. It consists of 19 pages of word oddities and trivia from various dictionaries. While it all is pretty cool, some of the words aren't English, so they don't (in my mind, count).

Hunter Thompson's family is looking for a cannon to follow through with his last wish, which was to shoot his ashes out of a cannon over his compound. They have put a request out for people with cannons to submit a 1000 word essay with a picture of the cannon. Ideally, they would like to have a cannon with historical significance and hopefully one from Kentucky. Send your pictures to the Thompson compound in Aspen, Colorado.

Music: Paperwings - Damien Jurado
Book: Last Call - Laura Pedersen
Iraq: March - 15
Total - 1513

Update

This update could potentially be very long because I haven't updated in several days. Having said that, it probably won't be because I don't feel like writing an exceptionally long post. I went to Michigan on Thursday night and returned on Sunday. Because I was out of my routine for the weekend, it would have been very difficult to write on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. On Sunday, I returned home but the drive tired me out and Monday I spent catching up with my email. I went to Michigan to celebrate my Mother's 60th birthday. I didn't let her know I was coming up and in fact lied to tell her I wasn't coming up. I stayed Thursday night at my friend Guy's house and walked in on Friday to surprise her. Her birthday was on Saturday. My sister Tracy was in Midland for Mom's birthday and set up a baby shower for my sister Melissa on Sunday. Tracy also planned a surprise party with a couple of my aunts, for our Mother at the Michigan Train Museum in Durand, MI. Tracy mentioned that there was a really cool train museum that was having some sort of celebration and she convinced Mom and Dad that we would have fun. I just played ignorant and my Dad was also along for the ride. My brother, Terry, said that he would meet us there. My mom was suspecting a little until several of her sisters called on her birthday and told her that they were going to be doing other things. It was very funny to watch her jaw hit the floor when we got to the room in the museum where we were having the party. It was a very nice party, all but two of my mother's 11 siblings were there, in addition to several of her cousins, my Dad's family, and a few family friends.

I figured that I was going to have a quiet day Sunday because the women were going to have my sister's baby shower. It was going to be very big, so they had it in a hall. As I said, I thought things were going to be quiet until I left. I was having lunch when my Mom called to let someone know that she forgot something and she needed it delivered. My Dad was watching two of my nephews so it fell on me to do the delivery. Unfortunately, that roped me into being errand boy when I got there. I had to make three runs for various things after I made my delivery. It was okay though because my sister had a successful shower.

Movie: Traffik (episode 5 and 6) (4 stars)
Book: Last Call by Laura Pedersen
Iraq: February - 58 (will be listed on Sunday)
March - 14
Total - 1512

PETA

Animals are not people. They were put on the Earth for humans to use as they wish. Having said that, their is use and there is abuse. If an animal is killed, it should be for good use, for food. If someone intentionally kills an animal (as opposed to euthanization) they should be prepared to eat it. Zoos are a good thing. Humans, at this point in time, do not yet live in an environmentally friendly manner, so day by day they are destroying the environment. This means that animals are losing their habitats. This is why zoos are a good thing. It provides a place for the displaced animals to live. It can also help raise money to help preserve habitats. Wildlife preserves are a good thing but they have two major problems. First, because the animals are free to wander, they are harder to keep account of. This makes the animals more vulnerable to poachers. Secondly, a zoo can raise a heck of a lot more money for habitat preservation than can a wildlife preserve. Why do I bring this up? PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was in two stories in the news today. First, a gigantic Maine lobster, weighing about 22 pounds, was caught today. The lobster named Bubba by the fisherman and didn't know whether to sell it to a zoo or for food. At market prices, it would have gone for about $350. I would think that a lobster of that size would be way too tough to eat. PETA offered to buy it for about $500 in order to release it but the fisherman decided to give it to a Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. This lobster was a spectacle and deserved to be seen. Besides, as big as it was, it was very old and it was anybody's guess when it would die. Having said that, it died shortly after getting to the zoo. Despite the fact that it died, the shell can still be used for viewing. The other story had to do with elephants in zoos. I addressed most of this story already but surveys have said that elephants are the most popular animals at zoos. Elephants help to bring people in to the zoos and raise more money for habitat protection.

One last thing, Happy Birthday, Devon!!

Book: Last Call - Laura Pedersen
Iraq: February - 58
March - 1
Total - 1499