So I had a dream last night where I rode my guitar case all the way from pittsburgh to my mom's house.  The case had 4 wheels on the bottom of it and it stool vertically, and I sat where the handle would be.  I was just kicking off the ground for momentum.  The dream really lasted all the way home as I remember riding along 79, down through scenery hill, stopped at the national city in richeyville, and then to my mom's house.  Everyone was so impressed that I did it, and I demonstrated how easy it was to just kick off the ground and coast for a bit.  It worked out to 3 hours to get all the way from pittsburgh, which is what I said in the dream, but now I'm realizing that would mean I was doing ~20 mph on a guitar case...that's pretty fast.

so Friday5.org puts out 5 questions every friday for bloggers to answer, so I think i'll play along.

What did you last replace batteries for?

  - I try to use rechargable batteries where i can, but I've used a few AA in my wireless keyboard and mouse from time to time.

What have you thrown away that you probably could have had repaired?

  - My sister gave me her old eliptical machine that needed some sort of belt replaced, but I was too lazy to fix it.

Among items in your line of sight right now, what should probably be put in the trash? 

 - I'm at my desk at work, I have some spare printouts from meetings that i won't use again...

When did you last use disposable cutlery while dining in your house?

  - I don't even know what that is...plastic knives??

Whose actions cause you to waste time you otherwise wouldn’t waste? 

- Well, Erik filled the dishwasher with hand soap earlier this week, and i found out the hard way and had to clean that up.  I'm also driving to philly and back to see Kallie and Tim, so that would be 10 hours of driving i normally wouldn't do.

I've always been a fan of rooftop decks.  The optimal place for a roof top patio thing would be on a sky scraper/condo building, but I'll take what I can get.  Maybe I'll use this desire for a roof patio to go along with my love for open lofts.  You know, the ones where the elevator comes right into the apartment?  No walls, just huge space, exposed steel rafters, HUGE glass windows all around, and nice hardwood floors.  Basically, I want to play basketball in it.  I would love to get some moveable walls and re-arrange the whole apartment and layout whenever I wanted to.  That would be great.

I want to be on a game show.  I think i missed the boat for jeopardy.  I've always thought my family would be great on family feud.  Price is Right would be sweet too.  I just think it must be so easy to get on those things since it's a new one every day.  If I lived near a studio, i'd go every day possible.

New blog topic!  This category will be for the short posts where something particular made me smile.

Kallie and I flew from California to Philly Friday, and Saturday all my family was getting together, but I wasn't planning on flying back until Sunday night.  I called my family while Kallie and I were in the car, and Deirdre thought that I was on my way there to surprise them.  After realizing how bad I wanted to be there, Kallie and I decided to make an impromptu road trip and got home around midnight.  Kallie and I get to spend an extra day with eachother since she'll leave Tuesday morning, but the essence of this post was the text message i got from US Airways saying that I would have been stranded at the Philly airport until midnight Sunday since the flight was delayed more than an hour.  I love how perfect everything worked out.

Yay, I'm secure enough in my adulthood to tell this little gem.  Maybe a testament to my social awkwards, maybe a propellant of my social awkwardness...who's to say, either way, what a childhood.  So I was in scouts as a kid, and really had a great time all along.  If I remember correctly, I skipped the smallest ranking of cub, but had 2 years of wolf, 2 years of bear, and I think there is a 3rd rank in there before webelo scout...had to google it, bobcat.  Webelo is where all the cool stuff happens, in my opinion, but as you can see, i was pretty well invested in the program with around 7 or 8 years involved.  Towards the end, I started getting less and less involved, perhaps a little disinterest on my part, perhaps some parental differences, perhaps going to a private school instead of the public school that all the other kids went to, but probably a mix of all of the above.  I think there was a time where I had missed like 3 months of activity and one day my dad just said, "You're going." when I wanted out because I didn't know anyone anymore.  Anyway, it was a night where there was some structured lecture thing going on, maybe about 50 kids in the room sitting in a grid of fold out wooden chairs.  I don't remember how old I am, I think 5th grade, but certainly old enough to know when I need to go to the bathroom, and I did know I had to...just not sure of what protocol was necessary to go.  Welcome to my oppressed childhood.  The scout master is up there rambling on and on, and I'm stuck worried about getting in trouble for interrupting if I just got up and went to the bathroom without someone's permission.  I tried my hardest to wait.  I knew it couldn't be long until the end of the meeting.  I don't know anyone here anymore.  I really don't want to be here.  Then I just let it flow.

  I remember now that I was wearing brand new white sneakers too.  I just sat there waiting for the meeting to end...not that I new what to do once it ended...but yeah...I was deer in the headlights mentally.  Then the others caught on.  "Dude, you're leaking" someone said.  I played confused and tried to blame it on a leak in the ceiling...haha, wow.  "I know, this crazy leak in the ceiling is falling right onto my crotch and I just don't know what to do about it since I am chained to this chair and the chair is nailed to the floor" seemed like a good explanation at the time at least.  The scout master said the final words, something that would start everyone to get up and do some kind of pledging, and I bolted in the crowd of movement.  I ran outside, with no destination in mind, I was thinking about hiding in a bush until I saw my mom, but thank God she had already parked the van in the parking lot and was cleaning it out.  Mom to the rescue...again.  I remember balling my eyes out trying to explain what the crap I just did.  I can't even imagine what was going through her head.  She helped me come up with a plan to sneak into the house so that Serah and J'aime wouldn't see.  I think they did though.  That, or my mom told them later.  I know my dad told them later.

You'd think that'd be it though, right?  Nah, dad says I'm not allowed to quit.  Time to go to a weekend camping trip with the troop.  I was not friends with the kids before because I just didn't know them, but now they're not friends with me because I'm the kid who peed his pants.  They stuck me in a tent with one of the older kids, probably so I didn't get beat up.  I don't remember much of that weekend, really it seemed like it went pretty well in retrospect.  We camped at a small airport and I got to fly in a plane for the first time.  There was a helicopter there too, and I really liked helicopters.  The worst part about it though was spaghetti was on the menu for the whole weekend...and I didn't eat spaghetti.  It was ham barbecue for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Since that weekend, I've never been able to eat a ham barbecue sandwich without emotionally cringing.  It has become the embodiment of one of the worst childhood experiences I can remember.

Isaac Hayes and Bernie Mac die 1 day apart and they're working on the same movie, Soul Men.  That's pretty whacky, right?  I never really cared for Bernie Mac...at all, but that's farely nuts, I think.  Seems to be an occuring theme for movie stars to die while in production.  New form of marketing?

Alright, first things first.  I ran my first ever 5k on Saturday.  I finished in pretty much 30 minutes flat.  I crossed the line at ~30:09 and I was in the back of the starting line, so take some time to cross the line.  It was on mount washington's grandview drive, and then part of that hill that connects it to the liberty tunnel, so there were some crazy hills that i was not prepared for.  I definitely walked some of those hills.  I also ran 6 miles in an hour last thursday, so I'm feeling a little less worried about Urbanathlon.  My goal was just to finish it without being last, but if i keep going like this, i might actually be able to build a goal time and work on shaving time off of that.  I know the stairs are going to kill me, so i might start practicing on the 44 stories of the office building.  Wish me luck!

Now, as some of you may be in the loop, i've encountered a wonderful lady friend.  Ask me someday about how we met and i'll tell you the story in person.  Anyway, we've had nothing but fun in the past month or so.  We've got a lot to learn about each other, and a lot of tough ground to cover, but I think she's amazing.  I'm flying out to the state of california this friday to meet her family and such since her brother is getting married.  We're going to go to disneyland and have a great time.  I'll report back when I get back. 

Finally got my raise i was expecting at work too.  I'm going to keep trying to make more than twice my age, then i can retire with my goal of making 6 figures.  I'm not driven by money, i would just like to say that i made 6 figures.  Work's getting better too.  I've got a lot of projects, so i'm keeping very busy. 

Going to the warped tour with erik on tuesday.  I havent been there since i was in high school I think.  can't say that i'm excited to spend my day off there, but oh well.  Maybe i'll take a book and read on the lawn.  How old would that make me look?  fun stuff.

Josh Hall project show coming up on august 24th...and we have yet to practice.  tim is talking about staying out in philly for an extra week.  I'm going to be away until the 11th, and andy has family coming in around the 15th or so and they want to take a trip that would have carried into the show, but he'll come back for it, even though he wants to be away for as long as he can before...so basically it comes down to us MAYBE getting 1 or 2 practices together...this is going to be interesting for sure.

Save-a-lot was seeming to become a great addition to the Hill District community along Centre Avenue, but now we've got a horse of a different color on the block, and I like it.  Kuhn's, a homegrown local grocery store, is part of a "Centre City Square" plan developed by a bunch of groups like Crawford Square and the Hill House.  This is just plain great.

We're talking about something that will give the Hill some character.  Not just another Family Dollar or Save-a-lot like every other underserved community.  Those mega franchise places do not spur entrenpreneurship.  We need to bring in locally owned and run businesses to increase the appeal and economic power of the hill district.  Let's see how far this goes...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08223/903263-53.stm

 

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink."

- George Orwell

It's crazy how emotional i am.  I get deeply affected by how I feel and it shows in everything I do.  If I'm sad, my eyes are heavy, i have no "pep" as my pap-pap used to say, and just a general sense of malaise.  I try to tie it to my diet, but that doesn't work.  I try to tie to it my sleeping schedule, and that doesn't explain it.  It really is just emotions.  I wish my grass were emo, so it would cut itself.

Finally got around to uploading the Mp3s from the shows at Robinson Clubhouse and Club Cafe.  They're in the download section to the left and also on the myspace page.

I woke up today and this song was in my head.  I have never had this song in mp3, and I have no idea when the last time I ever heard it.  I can't even say that I think it's a great song.  But it was repeating in my head.

Does the amount of food in your refrigerator matter in how much it runs?  Does an empty fridge use less energy because there's nothing in it to cool?  I guess you can take that further and say does the contents of the fridge make a difference.  Does a fridge full of liquids require more energy than a fridge full of fruit?  I guess it all comes down to how much energy does it take to cool air...If I were to make a prediction, i would say a vacuous space would take more energy because a solid or liquid would act as an insulator...I googled, but couldn't find anything...