My New Car

I got a new car!!

If anyone is curious why I got a new car, it's because my old car broke down. It all started about Labor Day of 2006. The car just stopped working. I've been driving my wife's car since then, which works out for the most part because we were on different schedules, but now that I'm starting a new job, I'm going to need my own car.

It's a used 2008 Honda Civic. It had all of 221 miles on it when I bought it, so while it's "new to me" as the saying goes, I'm also the first owner, besides the dealership. I'm not sure I got the best deal in town, but it drives like a dream and is guaranteed for 100,000 miles. New cars, oddly, only have a 60,000 mile guarantee. At least, that's what the salesman kept repeating.

I test drove the Toyota Corolla as well, and my only comment to the sales lady was, "It's so roomy." The Civic, I believe is a bit cozier and a bit more comfortable. Anyways, I love it, and yes, it drives like a dream.

Here are some more pictures of my new car...

This new car owner is wearing his new favorite shirt here.

Dispensing News

Now that I'm sleeping at night, I'm waking up first thing in the morning. This surprises me. I thought I would be sleeping non-stop trying to catch-up for years of missed sleep, instead I'm waking up first thing regardless of what time I go to bed. Last night, I went to bed around 12:30 and I had to force myself to stay in bed until 7.

All this is just to say that now I'm getting to eat one of my favorite foods every single day, cereal. My cereal of choice I stole from my Mom, Cranberry Almond Crunch. It's a pricey one though, which when I was working overnights was okay, because I was sleeping through cereal time most days. To eat it everyday could put a hurting on my trust fund. Plus, it's not a cereal sold in bulk at Costco, so I have to buy a bunch of small boxes at Wal-Mart.

So why am I talking about cereal? Because of something else I got from Wal-Mart, the Cereal Dispenser. I got the idea from a movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where a very naked man proclaims his love for the cereal dispenser. While I'm not naked at the moment, I would like to tell the world that the cereal dispenser is one of the greatest innovations in my lifetime.

Ah, fresh as the day I unpackaged it. Cereal Dispenser, I love you. You make waking up at ungodly hours of the morning manageable.

Converter Box

We bought a converter box yesterday. The national government is requiring a switch to digital TV, which I think means that if you use bunny ears, you have to use a converter box to watch anything. Then they tried to help poor folks like me out by issuing a $40 coupon over the internet to offset the cost.

We have cable right now that costs us $20 a month. It's actually been climbing recently. In the fall, we downgraded to basic cable which reduced our cost from $45 to $19. Every month now it seems to be going up 30 cents or so, and our last bill topped $22. Anyways, the idea that we could watch most of the same channels for a one-time $10 cost sounds pretty good to me. At least it did.

First off, getting it was an adventure. We walked to Wal-Mart and had to search the store for it, and then the cashier, with limited English, didn't understand what to do with our coupon, that admittedly looks and feels like a credit card. In the end though, we walked out only spending the 10 dollars.

So then we hooked it up. I should say that I bypassed the instructions, figuring you attach all the cables to where they look like they belong, but I'm pretty sure that I did it all correctly. I turned it on and went through the set-up menu choosing autoscan, and waited ten minutes as it searched for channels.

The moment of truth came next, and I eagerly pressed the channel up button and was greeted by a digitally broken image of the weather channel. That was okay, it was just the weather channel... I've got the internet, no need for the weather channel. I pressed channel up again, and... a digitally broken infomercial on ABC.

Hmmm... I tried again, and success! We got, in crystal-clear technicolor, MHZnet2, which was currently showing what looked like India's equivalent to the Gospel hour on your community channel. Hey, I thought, at least it was something. I tried again, MHZnet3 came next showing -
I think - a Japanese documentary on Japanese maids. You know the kind all dolled up and taking tiny steps as they serve you tea with their heads down.

This was not looking good. I tried again, MHZnet6 was next. I believe their programming at the time was on global finance. It was being broadcast in Russian. MHZglobe, or something like that, was in english, and it had an elephant documentary. I might actually watch this normally, but I was hoping to find something a little more... tv-like, so I continued on.

The only other two channels we got were the kids' programming channel Qubo and a channel called Worship that had about twenty four-year-olds jumping up and down on a floor mat. No words, just kids jumping up and down in a dark room. I watched it for a minute waiting for something to happen. I couldn't tell what they worshipping, but it clearly demanded a lot of jumping. Perhaps it was symbolic.

Perhaps it was symbolic of what I expected from my converter box - free TV - and what I actually got - free exercise... well, $10 worth of exercise.

I'll have to try again at some point now that I know what to expect, frustration. But until then, twenty dollars for twelve channels doesn't sound so bad.

(Now that I'm getting back to blogging, I'll try to start taking pictures again.)

Patriotic Flag Burning

I wish I had pictures for this.

Yesterday, on July 4th, I participated in a flag-burning. Before you get all up in arms let me explain. My flag-burning experience was a ceremony, not a demonstration. It turns out that the proper way to retire a flag is either through burning or burial, so we were doing nothing wrong. We were simply following the directions according to the official Flag Code.

Tiff's family did it all up with on official script; I first explained what was happening, then I called out the thirteen colonies in the order that they, I guess, signed the Declaration of Independence as we tossed each stripe into the flames individually. We even had a veteran approve the flags for retirement. It was a very moving ceremony.

It was also amazing how fast a flag goes up in flames, in the rain none-the-less. It's like it wanted to burn. Anyways, that's all the fireworks we saw yesterday, the rain kept us inside most of the day. Oh well, guess I'll just have to wait until next year's Kentucky Derby.

Oh, we got a video of it. It's twenty minutes long. If we ever figure out how to break it up, I'll post it on YouTube.

Freedom!

Happy Fourth of July everybody!

I'm celebrating mine with my first day of independence not working at my old job. While it has a touch of sadness, I'm so excited to never have to work all night again that I think I'll get over it. It was harder to leave than I had thought though. I mean, I didn't have to throw any tea overboard, or declare war or anything, but in the past week or so I've realized how much I've grown working at the Shelter.

Anyways, now, like any newly independent nation, on to the role of the taxman.

Baltimore: Part Two

Not to be disappointed with our luck at the National Ballroom Dancing event, we walked over to Camden Yards to watch the Baltimore Orioles play. There weren't too many folks there so $15 dollars a ticket afforded us some pretty good seats, right down the 3rd base line about even with the left fielder.

Here's a video from the night:

I hadn't been to a baseball game in a number of years, and while I didn't really care who won, Baltimore or Seattle, it was still a lot of fun. One of the best parts about it was that Tiff had never been to a baseball game. Her reaction as we were getting tickets - after the game had already begun - to the swell of the crowd reacting to a play was classic, just like any 5 year old's with bulging eyes and true sense of awe.

It was with that same sense of awe that Tiff repeatedly asked what to do if the ball was hit directly at us. While I'm sure my early responses were something along the lines of both "Catch it" and "Get out of the way," they quickly turned to "If you get hit, we're sure to get on TV." It's not that I want to see my new wife beamed by a foul ball, it's that she seemed so worried about it for soooo long that I ran out of things to say.

That was Dave and Kim that we're with. They're way-cool. For some reason, here's another video just one out after the first one:

And here's the last video we took, one more out later - I do say a bad word here:

Yes, holy shit, I caught a foul ball.

Just to clarify, I didn't actually catch it. I saw it coming and admittedly, "Catch it" was never a thought so I ducked out of the way. Tiff, with literally no time to spare, did the same and the ball crashed into the seat next to hers. It literally would have knocked her out had she not moved at the last second. The ball bounced up a couple of empty rows, Dave throws his beer behind him and lunges over several rows, sprawled out across the seats, only to have a swarm of people do the same hing, but land on him instead of the seats. The ball, meanwhile, slowly rolled towards me and I picked it up.

With that in mind, perhaps my level of jubilation was a little bit extreme, but it's not going to stop from me saying that I caught a foul ball. It will stop me from talking though, as I woke up the next day unable to make any sound whatsoever.

Baltimore: Part One

This weekend I found myself in Baltimore. My way-cool friend, Dave, and his way-cool girlfriend, Kim, had a way-cool hotel room right at the Inner Harbor. Tiff and I went up for a night.

The hotel that we were staying in was hosting a National Ballroom Dancing competition. While Dave dismissed the event off-hand, the rest of us, myself included, were eager to see the dance-off. We waded through countless men with numbers on their back and women decked out in some funny looking dresses that connect to the wrist and enough make-up to make me want to become an Avon lady, to learn that it's by invite only.

While many of them were surprisingly young, as young as 12 or 13 maybe, it was clear that there were several big names in dancing. In fact, in a cramped elevator, a short Asian man with apparently limited English skills, turned to one of the passengers and asked, "Are you, John, Johnny, Jonathon? You dance this weekend?"

John, Johnny, Jonathon smiled with his slicked back hair and coolly said, "No, not this weekend. I'm just a spectator this weekend," just like I'm sure any big name celebrity would do. He then led his lady friend by the arm off the elevator, taking long graceful strides, all the while pointing his toe.

Baseball

I mentioned recently that I was "prepared to give up baseball." I said this as I was annoyed by basketball and all the hubbub around March Madness. Plus, while the steroids issue should probably put a dark cloud over all sports, right now it's just hovering over baseball. And on top of that, those guys get paid too much. They really do.

Anyways, with the start of the baseball season under way, I find myself checking the scores and reading all the stats in my late-night boredom every night, just as I have for the past few years... and I still get excited about it. A seven run 8th inning, wow!

I am frustrated though with the media coverage of the sports world. On Sunday, for instance, I watched the local news hoping to see a few clips of the soccer game from the night before, DC's season opener, a 2-0 loss. They spent nearly the whole newscast - not just the sports - talking about the baseball season opener. Now, Ben Olsen, one of the few guys whose name I know, has to have ankle surgery and I don't know what happened or how long he's out, or anything. The news won't tell me. Yahoo sports won't tell me. Wikipedia won't tell me. DC United's website won't even tell me!

I guess soccer's time hasn't quite come yet. While I will watch the soccer that I can, I'll be hoping for a few more seven run 8th innings too.

My Cat

Because I don't want to shortchange our cat...

We started having her sit in response to a clip of Vanna White trying to make her cat sit for treats.

Oh... and next on my list of things to do: get a haircut.

Skin Test

I'm allergic to cockroaches.

I'm still battling hives, and after a week of scratching as I haven't been able to take any medication for my hives, I finally had a skin test done. The way they do a skin test is to write a grid all across your back and stick you with a bunch of different needles - by my count it was about 342 dozen painful pricks or so. The pricks up near the shoulders are relatively pain free. They are nice enough to start you out up there, but as the endless pricking continues, the lower ones hurt a lot and a number of them sent chills all throughout my body.

When your back is completely covered in small nicks of blood, then you have to wait twenty minutes and not scratch, even though almost immediately that is the only thing you want to do. This is when my long battle with hives has come in handy. I've gotten to the point where I usually don't think about scratching when I itch, which is a little messed up. My experience with the skin test yesteday is that the nurse is nice enough to check back in every so often with friendly reminders that you itch all over. "Oh, it looks like you have a few spots that really itch! No scratching! Fifteen more minutes!" I think she enjoys the torture.

My allergies include ragweed, dust mites, some sort of mold, and yes, cockroaches. I've never had seasonal allergies so ragweed was surprising. The dust mites, the doctor's free brochure tells me, are ugly little things that accumulate in my mattress. I first learn this during my brief time selling vacuums and quickly recall that dust mites excrete ten times their own body weight each and every day! Mold and cockroaches I'm sure that I'm around, but I almost never see them.

Anyways, the good doctor concludes that my hives are not an allergic reaction. What this means is that my body is causing the hives and I just have to live with it, for up to fifteen years, at which point it will be 2023 and I'll be comforted by my flying car and robotic housekeeper.

I also have a minor allergy to my cat, which still has no name, but isn't going anywhere.
Or at least that's what my wife says.

More on My Greatness

Building on that last post, I love England. I've tried to write about this before but I don't think I ever did so successfully, so if this is a repeated idea, I apologize.

I love England for it's greatness. And by England, I mean Great Britain. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. But I think if I were English I'd also be free, and I'd have a good chance of being great. I don't know any statistics, but just think about all the British people. The Beatles, Harry Potter, James Bond, the Rolling Stones, The Lord of the Rings guy, Clive Owen, umm... Sir Francis Drake... that's not too mention the English language and the English system of government and maybe some other stuff. I mean the English are great!

I think England's greatness stems from its size. The entire country is about twice the size of my state, or commonwealth, Virginia, albeit it much more populated. If you're English, you're English, whereas if you live in Virginia, you're American. I feel like there is a responsibility to be great if you're English; you have to represent, whereas for me, if I'm not great, I'm sure one of the other 300,000,000 will be. I know they're out there, I watch American Idol.

Furthermore, I just read that Raphael, the artist not the mutant turtle, was born in this tiny town called Urbino, which Wikipedia says is "small but artistically significant." For some reason it makes me want to be an Urbino-eer, Urbino-ite, Urbinese. I want to be from somewhere important and loved. I want to be important and loved.

I'm from Roswell, GA, which was a great place to grow up, but I don't really have a sense of pride about it. I have a hard time imagining what my future biopic would say about the place I grew up in. Maybe I'm saying I want to be surrounded by greatness, that I want greatness to be expected and applauded in all forms wherever it comes from. Maybe I'm just saying that as I realize my own limitations I look to whatever I can to cast my blame.

I am great. But I'm not English great.

My Greatness

As I've mentioned I do have an under-used notebook that is, for the most part, filled with a bunch of gibberish. I'm not sure if it's a journal or a diary as I write in it so little, but the over-riding sentiment throughout it is that of my greatness.

USA Today recently had an article about how the current generation of twenty-somethings is a drifting generation that has yet to settle on a lifetime goal or aspiration. The article I believe focused on how upsetting this is to parents, who just want their kids to be happy, but that part wasn't very interesting. As a member of that generation, and with a destiny of greatness, I feel like I should have something to say about this... let's see if I do.

...hmmm... well, when I was a kid I told my folks I wanted to be King of North Carolina. My parents encouraged this.

I guess I should say first that I am newly married and have started saving with the intention of buying a home, one day. However, my lifetime goals? I still have it in my head that one day I'll be a United States Senator, that I'll write the Great American Novel, that one day I'll be a beekeeper or at least own bees, that I will commission a giant skyscraper to be named The Tower of Duffy, that I will further popularize mass transit and be viewed as a savior for my efforts, that I will start my own business of selling bonsais, that I'll be a household name, not unlike Lance Armstrong or Jesse Jackson, that I will buy an entire street of run-down houses and turn them all into prize-winning homes with prize-winning rose gardens, that I'll win a prize, maybe the X-Prize for my extensive work on the human genome, that I will own a major sports team, that I will travel the world, learning seven languages in the process and finding beauty wherever beauty is to be found, AND that I will do all of this before I turn thirty... better make that thirty-five.

Anyways, while I'll admit that I have my work cut out for me, I'd hardly label myself a drifter. I'm more of a dreamer. I dream of my own greatness. I want to be great but am well aware of the reality and I would be happier unknown in a quiet place than in the spotlight. As I wrote once in my notebook, it's not that I have delusions of grandeur, it's that I have delusions of delusions. And who knows, maybe my parent's should be worried about that.

I'm an NCAA Loser

Just a quick update: after the first two rounds of March Madness, my bracket is completely busted and I don't stand a chance. With so many upsets this year, I would be surprised if anyone will win the $5 million prize from Yahoo to someone who gets them all right.

Oh well, bring on the baseball season... and soccer.

NCAA Bracket

Okay, so Tiff is gearing up for the big dance and started a Tournament Pick 'Em group if anybody wants to sign up. I think you might need a yahoo email account, but otherwise it's free. And, if you get the picks all right you have the chance to win 5 million dollars. It's a small chance, but it's cheaper than playing the lottery. While I haven't paid any attention this year to who's who, I'll be rooting for Clemson, who lost in the one game I did watch this year, the ACC Championship.

The Madness of Sports

It's March and I am not happy. Believe it or not it has been March for awhile now, but the Madness that comes with March is just about to arrive. That's right the NCAA Tournament is gearing up and looks to be as exciting as always.

I'm not happy because I have unofficially sworn off basketball and this time of year it is hard not to follow along with the festivities. I am prepared to give up baseball as well. For baseball, the departure of Andruw Jones from the Atlanta Braves sealed its fate in my eyes, but I am also determined to get into soccer this year and I didn't want conflicting sports. I also believe soccer to be the next great sport in the US.

My home team is DC United. They are undoubtedly one of the best in MLS, and with a little luck, hopefully they can prove it this year. They've started out right, advancing yesterday to the semis of a pre-season tournament.

It is admittedly hard to get into soccer though, mainly because of the lack of media coverage. One game a week on ESPN2 is about all you get. For this reason too, it's hard to avoid baseball and basketball without giving up on all sports. Baseball's season hasn't even begun and already they've captured many of the headlines. The games aren't even that exciting, and last season I followed along mainly by reading about the games, and if there were any great plays mentioned I'd look to see if they made it onto YouTube. Basketball is a little easier to avoid for me for whatever reason, but this March Madness thing is everywhere.

Basketball has it's advantages though as it's the only sport that Tiffany will sit and watch with me for an extended amount of time. And without any questions too! What I'm getting at here is that they are exciting to watch. Most sports are. That's why most people watch them. That's why there are entire channels devoted to them. So why not enjoy them. Why not join the madness that is March Madness and root for the underdog.

Bees!

Bees are dying off. It's a fact. There aren't nearly as many bees around today as there was just a few years ago. It seems like everyone is so caught up with the fate of polar bears, that this whole bee issue has gotten a bum deal. "Everyone" being anyone who cares about that sort of save the world stuff, of which I proudly stand.

Don't get me wrong, the polar bear thing raises huge concerns and we, as a society, should be worried about the big furry beasts. However, I believe the decline of the tiny buzzing beasts is much more concerning. Plus, with polar bears, we know what's happening. For whatever reason, the ice caps are melting, which is problematic for these bears. With bees though, there's no reason for the die-off. There isn't even a good guess, or at least not a frontrunner. My guess is it has to do something with the all the meds in the water... or MTV.

While bees can be seen as a frightening nuisance - a dead one has rested in peace in the back of my car for over a year now in part because I don't want to get stung by it - they are an important part of agriculture. They help flowers bloom, apples grow, and let's not forget their sweet, sweet pee... I mean, honey. When you get right down to it, they are pretty miraculous little animals, bees are.

Anyways, all this bee-talk is to lead up to a news story about a flatbed truck that flipped over in California. It was carrying some 30,000 bees, which if I'm doing the math right, translates into a whole bunch of bee stings during the clean-up. Luckily, "several beekeepers driving by the accident stopped to assist in the bee wrangling." It's good to hear that the beekeeper population hasn't taken a hit. I mean if several beekeepers are just passing by this turned over truck and stop to help out, I have to wonder just how many beekeepers are there in California?

Also in severe decline in recent years is the bat population, which are just ugly animals all around, so they're not quite as important.

Sanbai Kaeshi

Happy White Day, everybody. Is it wrong that I feel politically incorrect saying that?

White Day is a Japanese holiday celebrated one month after Valentine's Day where women generally give candy to men. The idea behind it is that you give back thrice the value of what you got. In Japanese this is called sanbai kaeshi, or "thrice the return", which like all Japanese terms, I have fun saying. This year, according to sanbai kaeshi and thanks to the savings challenge, I won't expect too much.

For some reason though, women are suppose to be wearing white today, two months before Memorial Day... the horror! On a side note, white is also the color adorned by those who have completed the Shikoku pilgrimage, which admittedly I want to do in part because I want to be able to use the word Shikoku in normal conversation.

In America, while white is not part of the deal, I have heard of a similar celebration of sorts with a much cruder name. If the creators of this holiday weren't quite so blunt with their name giving, it might have actually caught on.

By the way, it seems strange to me that Japan celebrates St. Valentine's Day. I guess Japan falls victim to crazy marketers just as much as the US does... I'm expecting to see Mother's Day decorations at Wal-Mart any day now.

Captivate and Inspire

Along the same lines as the previous post: (this is old news by now)

I love seeing movies in the movie theater; nothing beats a great movie theater experience. Recently, Tiff and I saw Juno, which was great, and the movie we saw before that was Transformers. It's been kind of a slow year for movies. Nothing really looks good to me anymore.

Anyways, the Oscars happened. Juno won one. Another movie I like a lot - I didn't hear about it until it was pretty much out of the theaters - is Once, which also won one, for best original song. It's a good category for it to win as it's about singer-songwriters and stars singer-songwriters. Here's the song, one of several great ones from the movie:

The old news is the story of Marketa Irglova, one of the two winners for Once, who was brought back on stage to give her speech. Turned out to be a pretty good one as acceptance speeches go:

"Hi everyone. I just want to thank you so much. This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we're standing here tonight, the fact that we're able to hold this, it's just to prove no matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don't give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along way. Thank you."

How the story relates to the previous post is that I, however, really, really like the closing words of the other winner, Glen Hansard, who spoke before the music ushered them off prematurely.

"This is amazing. Make art. Make art. Thanks."

Make art. Captivate and inspire.

Art Museum

Last weekend, waiting for the U2 movie showtime, I went to the Hirshhorn sculpture museum. A great part about DC is that most of the museums are free and therefore, it makes sense to visit them this way, almost as a time filler.

I've been to the Hirshhorn museum a few times. It's permanent exhibits aren't all too exciting, but the section that changes every few months is definitely cool. Right now, they have a collection about dreams all done with film. It's pretty crazy, as most of it is not too exciting, but two or three pieces were incredibly interesting.

I was afraid that the doll hanging on the wall with some maniacal guy's face projected onto it would give me bad dreams - it didn't - and I wish I could revisit the lights in the cloudy room. The one that I keep thinking about, however, was a movie of a typewriter in the snow. There was no sound, no real action, just a typewriter slowly getting covered in snow. I have no idea what it means, but I like it.

(This is the cloudy room with the light. In writing a post about art I feel I needed pictures. This is the only picture I could find on the internet from the exhibit.)

I'll admit that I don't really understand art. I don't know what separates good art from bad art or if there even is bad art. It has something to do with emotions and beauty and meaning, but in the end, it seems it just needs to captivate and inspire, something U2 did easily.

After the Hirshhorn, we went to the Natural History Museum where we saw a nature photography exhibit. Pretty amazing pictures, each and every one of them. My favorite, the one that captivated and inspired me, was of a rowboat in the fog. It was taken by a thirteen year-old.

(Again, I couldn't find the one I'm talking about. I must not be a very good blogger. I like this one though. It's somehow patriotic. Here are some others.)

Starbucks

I own stock in Starbucks, a little more than 1.9 shares. I bought it a while ago, after seeing, the Starbucks produced, Akeelah and the Bee on opening night and joining in on the only standing ovation I've ever seen at a movie theater. Different cultures are so cool.

Then I started thinking about what I already knew about Starbucks. They have high-priced coffee that is good enough to turn me on to coffee, which I never thought possible. Their everywhere and always have people in them at all hours of the day. And they originated in Seattle, which I've wanted to go to ever since the Real World Seattle, about ten years ago, because it looks cool in a rainy day kinda way and, for no apparent reason, reminds me of this great song, "White Daisies Passing" by this guy from Seattle named Rocky Votolato.
So, when I found out soon there after that they treat their employees decently and the high prices in part allow them to offer benefits to their employees, I decided "what the hay, why not?" and put $64 into the company. My "investment" is now worth about $37. You win some, you lose some.

Anyways, all that is just so I can mention the interesting move the company is making today. They are closing the doors to all their stores today for three and a half hours, 5:30 to 9 this evening, in order to train their baristas how to make the perfect espresso. While the - umm - muted guerrilla in me wishes they were doing it for some grand cause, like closing their doors to raise awareness for - I don't know - freeing Tibet or something, I have to applaud them on this. It's always important to make sure you are doing something right, even if it takes a little longer, or costs a small fortune in sales.