Category: blahblah

I’m participating on my school’s Bike Commute Challenge team. I figure I can muster at least 7 days of riding in September.

I tried. I really tried to watch the MTV music video awards. I tried to find something redeemable about pop music in 2004. What I saw and heard did nothing to rekindle my interest. In fact, it annoyed me so much I’ve compiled a small list of complaints.

• mainstream hip-hop sucks so much that rock is making a comeback
• Rock hasn’t changed, and seems to only be going backwards, sound and style wise. Mind you, that’s not necessarily bad.
• Music and the corresponding videos are as commercially bent-over as movies. Pretty soon, albums are going to include “the twenty.”
• You don’t have to bob your head when something sucks.
• Wu-Tang is for the children, but where are they now?
• People’s fascination with the newlyweds seems to affect their taste in music.
• When do people actually see these videos? I’ve not seen them before.
• Why isn’t anything else on at this hour?

Here’s a lesson I’ve learned for you. Don’t hang a sheet against your front window when you’re watching a movie on a projector. More specifically, don’t watch the unrated version of an already suspect film on the screen. But if you do, check to see what it looks like from outside before it gets to the raunchier parts. You might regret it when, after the movie, you check the view from outside and discover that its an even better view than from the inside, and you’ve been showing it to the entire neighborhood. Its even worse than when we left the outdoor speakers on for Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle. This always happens on the worst movies.

I’d have taken a picture, but I was so mortified that I busied myself with dish washing, and Michelle promptly took down the screen absconded to the back room. I hope the neighbors have a sense of humor. And I hope they aren’t offended by boobies.

I’ve been putting of getting my hair cut for some time now. I have a hard time justifying paying for a haircut because my mom cut my hair growing up. In the early days, she used scissors. Then, with the perfect mating of vacuum suction, electric razors, and plastic height limiters, we entered the Flowbee Era.

Despite the Suck-Cut parody on Wayne’s World, the device was a great thing to have around. It was great fun for family, and was always a source of laughter. Just imagine seeing your aunt vacuum up your uncle’s comb over. Comic gold.

Anyway, after getting married, I started going to the cheapest haircut places I could. The cuts were lame, and weren’t worth the $12 I usually spent. I even let friends cut my hair at times. But this summer they didn’t come through. No one would bring down clippers when here for the Oregon Brewers Festival. So when in Yakima again for a friend’s wedding, I cut my own hair with the Flowbee. And it was good. Except the neck fuzz, but Michelle fixed that for me.

I’m so pleased with the cut that I decided to return the love. Thank you Flowbee!

This weekend we headed back to Yakima for Clem and Erin’s wedding. Clem has been a friend since middle school, and Erin is a wonderful woman who seems unfazed by his shenanigans.

The night before the wedding, we went out in search of karaoke (I’m not sure why…), but didn’t find it at our first stop: the flight deck. I was unaware that airport bars still existed (especially at non-airports like Yakima’s), but it seems to be one of the places to be in Yakima.

There was no singing, so we headed across town to Las Margaritas. Our entry in to the Cantina lowered the average age to 45. And there were 12 of us, all under 25. Despite a few, um, missed notes, it was a lot of fun, and the rather large group all seemed enjoy most of the same music. Clem got a call around midnight letting him know that the person doing the music for his wedding the next day was backing out. Luckily, replacements were found.

The wedding was a lot of fun, and even the late afternoon rain didn’t spoil the mood. It was surprising to see a number of people for the first time since high school. A friend of the wedding party commented to me that the people there from our high school seemed to be generally more relaxed, genuine, and cooler. I think he was probably right, but he also saw us at karaoke.

Clem and Erin are now enjoying themselves (I hope) in Maui. Congrats, and best wishes.

I’m selling my Bass & Amp if you’re interested. Or if you just want to hear what I did with the contraption back in high school.

Listening to the stuff again kinda made me want to keep it.

My sister called last night to let us know that the Pot Peak Fire ha forced the evacuation of Holden Village and the Lucerne area on Lake Chelan.

My parents have volunteered to stay at the village on the skeleton crew that will be assisting firefighters. Oddly enough, this might include of my sister’s childhood friends who is now on a hot shots crew that is working on the same fire.

My parents insisted that we go stay at the Old Faithful Inn during the Fires of 1988 in Yellowstone. They insisted that we’d be glad we’d seen them, and in retrospect they were right. I was scared stiff, and was relieved to learn that the lodge was evacuated before we visited.

Anyway, I hope they’re ok. Michelle pressed me to get details that I would not have otherwise asked for, and it seems that if the fire danger gets significant, they’ll be evacuated by air. Cool.

Update: – its actually the Deep Harbor Fire that is forcing the evacuation. My mistake.

Michelle signed us up to give blood today because there was a bus in the neighborhood. We showed up early to Ahmadiyya Movement Inc. Mosque on 35th where the drive was taking place and waited to donate. Two different people that donated had bad reactions to the procedure and one ended up being sent to the hospital via ambulance. Another was just a bit nauseous, and was just hanging out on the bus. Needless to say, there was a bit of a wait.

The food offerings for donors was much cooler than usual, and it was a potluck of homemade Mughal style cuisine. After the nearly 2 hours of waiting to donate, then paperwork and donating, we got to have some of the food, and it was great. It certainly beat the typical krispy kreme glazed donuts.

When told to drink plenty of fluids, I pointed out that beer was mostly water. My bleeder said she would pretend she hadn’t heard that. On a previous visit, the technician said that’s how he and his friends would get a cheap buzz.

Saturday Michelle and I helped Scott move in to his new house. Its a fantastic place that looks like its going to be very comfortable. Very, uh, homey. Scott is an excellent packer, so the move was quite easy. It was a little hot, so we took frequent breaks.

After returning the u-haul, Scott took us out to dinner for thanks. We hit the Bagdad theater for pizza, beer, a movie and some air conditioning. Tom was right about Ron Burgundy – it is stupid. But its also hilarious, especially when you haven’t eaten all day, worked the whole time, and precurse the movie with a tall glass of porter.

Its too hot for much of a post. I can barely stand to watch reruns of Red Dwarf. But what else can you do when you’re eating chips & salsa and drinking a cold one?