Greeting from the land of the gimpy. Nothing much going on here, I'm back from working out and decided to post during my cool down.

I still haven't made signifigant progress in my schoolwerk, but I'm fine with that. Chowning is now in town (currently at practice) so that is getting all of my attention. Man, I love my girlfriend! She's just wonderful.

Anyway, in other news, I almost made it my entire Greyhound trip without having to talk to anyone. Jeremy's headphones really helped with that, however after having heard all of my mp3 player's songs three times through, and with only 20 miles to Nashville I decided it would be fine to take them off.

Big fucking mistake as I was then assaulted by al sorts of questions about my knee, stories about people abandoned in Macon at a truck stop try to get home to Kansas City, and others who were curious what life was like in Atlanta. I could have left the fucking headphones on (by the way, kudos to Jeremy for having some of the most comfortable headphones I have ever worn for a long time).

After that Chowning and I headed back to her parents place so she could finish packing. This was nice 'cause I got to see her Mom again. Anyway, after that we headed back to the ATL plain and simple.

I did rectify my loss of Mario/Luigi Superstar Saga. It is great and will probably get played a bit more before Chowning comes home. Aside from that the only really big news is that Mark finished board three in Metal Slug 3.

Oh, then there is the fact that Mark is one step closer to getting into grad school. I guess that is big news. Out.

M

In retrospect this was a bad post and I apologize for wasting your time.

Um, I'm stuck in a mofe that I have been stuck in before.  See, I get in these moods where there is something I am looking forward to (girlfriends getting into town, getting healthy, fucking Matt's Mom, etc.) where I don't really think about anything else except for that event.  Nothing else seems to matter, it is like I am just sleeping through the days until I get to the event. 

And that is where I am right now.  This time tomorrow I will hopefully be on a Greyhound bus to Nashville trying to find my girlfriend who isn't feeling well right now.  Grrr. . . this is when I wish I could sleep forever and just wake up for important things.

On the other hand there is work that NEEDS to get done for school that I am just not motivated to do.  I guess I have next week to get some of it done, but then again we'll see how things go.

Let's see, there isn't much new going on.  We've got Mark stuck on a cycle of crack.  He rotates between Diablo 2 and Metal Slug 3, depending on what's going on.  I've been trying to accomplish small household tasks, but I was stalled at the end.

Jason calls me up in the middle of the day yesterday to explain that his passport was being delivered to his house, and someone needed to sign for it.  He's headed for Finland this monday, and is currently in Amherst, Ma.  So I got to go sit in front of his house until the mail showed up in order to sign for the package.  Then I went to the UPS store to ship the action to Amherst.  Something I'd gladly do for my friend, but it did take 2:30 of sitting in the sun before the mailman showed up and then it cost a bit to ship the passport.  I'm a little strapped right now, so that wasn't a good thing.  But on the other side, there's no way I was going to let Jason miss a trip to Worlds in Finland.  If the US juniors team wins gold he will have two medals, one as a player and one as a coach.  The only thing he will be missing at that point is a medal as a open player.  Anyway, I should start getting ready for PT.  I'll see you later.

M

i like my beats hard like two day old shits

Wow, I remember a time when people used to blog often.  It was a golden era of communication when people would get home and say "man, I gotta blog what happened today so people know what is going on."  As a result years or peace and harmony rain. . . then again I also remember the 2 year drought of blogging that happened.

So my point it I am suprised that no one has blogged recently.  Especially Mark who has action going on with housing stuff and is, I guess, waiting until everything is resolved to tell us what is going on. 

At the same time it is also my fault, the lack of blogging that is.  I've been sitting at my computer plenty, but since a large chunk of my time is spent talking to Chowning on the phone I haven't really blogged much.  Due yto a cell phone bill that was about 3x what I usually pay, there will be a stalling of calls to my girlfiend, so it's back to the blog!!  At some point I'm sure I'll figure out how to work the two into life at the same time, but right now girlfriend beats blog.

Jeez, work starts monday.  I don't have to teach monday, but I have to go back for pre-planning days for a whole week.  It's better than the sucker new teachers who have to go back tomorrow (stupid rookies), but still, Chowning is off until the 19th or something and I'm ridiculously jealous. 

There's a lot of school work that I was hoping to have done before I went back . . . and not much of it is done.  That is going to be the focus of todays agenda, but at the same time I doubt much will get done.  I really need to get back in my room, fix it, and prepare demonstrations.

Chowning will be done with work this Friday, and then spending the next week in ATL.  In typical sappy Martin style (by the way it is nice to have a girlfriend who doesn't find me being a romantic weird . . . have I mentioned how great my girlfriend is), Chowning will be recieving a "congrats" bouquet of flowers at work friday.  The flowers aren't much, but they are really a distraction so I'm not worried.  Later in the day I will be showing up in Nashville to suprise her and give her some company for the ride to ATL.  I can't drive there, because I would have to drive back . . . so I'm taking . . . GREYHOUND!  Despite all of the horror stories about the local, it seemed like the best bet to get there for relatively cheap.  I'm leaving at fucking 8 am, have to get there at 7 to get my ticket.  My plan is go fight my way onto the first bus, then sit in the corner with my GBA and headphones on, a crutch and a bag in the seat next to me, and refuse to talk to anyone for the next 5 hours.  Wish me luck and that I don't find a way to pick up some strange disease.  I think Ellen Honeycutt said it best when I told her this last night and she said, "you're taking Greyhound.  That's love." The concern that crosses my mind is if Chowning is crafty enough to find and read this blog and ruin my suprise. 

Aside from that there really isn't much going on.  I work out most days, but it is easy shit centered around riding a bike for range of motion and doing upper body work.  I have managed to drop 10 pounds since surgery, but I'm not sure how well that will stay off. 

On the video game from things have a different flavor around here.  While when I last posted things were very into Chronicles, we've now been sucked back in time as there is almost always someone playing Diablo 2.  Jeremy is hooked in whenever he is here, and Mark is pretty much always in.  To continue the time warp, my soul has been burning as of late, and I've only been able to quench it with Souil Calibur 2.  I've now begun to quell the fire, and am moving slightly on to Metal Slug 3 (Mmmm side scrollers).  I've also traded in a bunch of games to pick up Tekken Tag, another Crash game, and Mario Luigi: Superstar Saga (again, don't get me started on how I am god's whipping boy).  Plus with a slew of good games coming out in the future, I'm sure there will be many games to come.  Then again, work looms on the horizon and now I've got a girlfriend.  We'll see how things go.

M

Mark Honeycutt should call me either before 10pm tonight, or tomorrow morning at 7709661119 because I'll be calling Costas, the contact for the 2 places in Decatur we looked at, in response to the 2 messages he left me that I just got this afternoon.

Also email (mfaughnan@gmail.com) and cell phones are good options (4049922650)

Also, there is no calculator when a self respecting engineer would always have one on or near [or inside] him/her. (so you always know where it is)

First and foremost I am wearing one of the most uncomfortable shirts known to man. It is the Team Buzz shirt with Buzz as Rosie the Riviter on the back. The silkscreen came out like a big sheet of plastic that if one wears in the summertime... well, you can figure it out.

Sword of the Pheonix was not as exciting as I would have hoped. It is the flat out throw down shit for all D&D but besides that not much else. It did have risk:God's Fury (or whatever varient). They did not have near a wide enough selection of Games Workshop miniatures. Sigh. Crack addiction.

Let me also say that I have taken the GRE's and did okay. I wrote some stuff. (If anyone does not know the new format check it here. I have real issues with this whole test process. You cannot register on the web for it; you must call. I could not find the building easily. Whores. I did not receive the who-ha package because my address that they had me down for was OdOtonan Dr. Which is nothing at all like Odean (the developer's wife, if you care). Also, there is no calculator when a self respecting engineer would always have one on or near him/her. They have a few charts in the math section that illustrate flawlessly why one should make better charts in the first place. If you want to know what the total sales (in dollars) is of the wireless division don't have a chart of Total Company Sales and then another chart of Perctage of Wireless Sales. Make a better chart. Idiots. But, I digress. I received a 790 on the math section (I missed the last question because I ran out of time to put C.... Argh. I know that 15% were playing piano AND reading poetry.) I made a 550 on verbal and can only assume that they graded the first of my two verbal sections (which by the way were painful for me). My first verbal section I saw some 25 and 50 cent words. My second section was describing the reading passages by line number with an exact match to the question, answer, and paragraph passage-- not a good sign. Also, there were words like derth and fend. Probably not the best sign. The written passages also hurt. I will learn the scores of those in a few weeks but I predict a nice average 4.0 (out of a possible 6).

Mmmm... beer. Sweetwater 420 extra pale ale. If you were wondering. Appearently Jeff is having some sort of Bachelor party... I'm going to be way ahead.

So, Martin and this chick Chowning. They have been spending quite a lot of time together on the phone. I am waiting for one of them to receive the phone bill and realize 'maybe we should just move in together.' I am really happy for Martin this Ms. Right just fell out of the sky and landed on his dick. Thats good for him. Lucky fuck. I gotta say, she is a pretty cool chick. Having drank beer with her, seen baseball, hung out, slept at her parents house, watched fireworks, and eaten several meals.... She ranks pretty high on the Cool-O-Meter (patent pending). If you have not had the opportunity to meet her, I highly suggest it. You can also play the my-scar-is-cooler-than-yours game. She has some 'butes.

Also, Martin has some of the details of the trip back from Seattle left out of his story or blocked completely from his memory. So, the Friday that we were to leave Martin was wrong. It didn't matter... Martin was wrong. If any human being could make more wrong deceisions in a single day.... Wow. He was wrong. Let us talk about when we were at the science center and he was wrong. So wrong. On physics no doubt. PHYSICS! Something he is supposed to know something about. Scenerio: there is a weighted disk on a stick that one shoots with a water gun. See photo here under the heading Water Works. And I said that, even though we had tried for a good 15 minutes, those discs can flip over. As in the weighted part rotating 181 degrees about the center axis such that its own weight will carry it over. Martin said, "No way. Its physically impossible." Now, as a side note I want to see one of his minions come up with an equation describing that motion in terms of weight, force of water, and friction on the coupling and prove that it is mathematically impossible. As it stood.... we would have to return in the afternoon to see. I came back to the water gun and waited for the eight year olds (8 year olds, dude) to clear. I step up to the gun and not three minutes pass then I manage to spin the bitch upside down and throw my arms up in victory. Martin was wrong. All damn day. Also, when we got back to the parking lot that we shouldn't have parked at to begin with (because Martin wanted to walk) we ended up paying $16.00 to park. Ouch. The meters at the Pacific center were like $2.00. Oh boy.... was he wrong.

Fortunatly, being wrong so much means karmically you are going to be right. And right he was on visiting Chowning on the way back. Woot for him.

Mmmm... more beer makes Mark a drunk guy.

Mark

To answer Ted's question, my knee is going well.  Rehab is fine, although some meniscal damage is slowing me down . . . it isn't as much as people might think. 
 
Let's see, I don't know if Mark will be posting at any point soon.  He should, since he is spending part of the day on his Mac on the Production Floor.  Regardless he is taking the GRE tomorrow, so more info will be available on him at that point.  I'm sure he has much to talk about.
 
As for me, I've been a little out of the loop this weekend.  Chowning came down from Nashville for Ozone practice so we were hanging out since thursday night.  I can't really put into words how cool Chowning is, or any of the stories from this weekend.  I will just leave it as she is the most amazing person I have even been with and leave it at that.  If you want more information you'll have to ask and be subjected to a 30 minute rant of how cool she is.
 
Aside from that, I've been working on stuff, but not enough work.  I've been making CDs for Chowning and working on Rival's (my team) offensive playbook.  Oh, and I've been sleeping.  What isn't happening as much as I would have expected is video games.  I really dont have an explanation for why.  Obviously this weekend I was a bit preoccupied, but all last week I didn't play much, and even now I'm spending my time at the computer watching sportscenter and trying to get work done.  I've only finished one of the games on my list to get done, and in the meantime my list of books increases periodically as more people tell me I need to read X.  I'm sure the video games will return this week.  Well I'm going to rehab and the I, robot with Mark so I'll talk to you all later.
 
M
 
 

The Patriot Act only outlaws non-applepie wholesome American sports like criquet and racing dromederies. basically, if they dont play it in Texas, its not legal anymore. For any other homeland security questions, contact your local Department of Homeland Security.

golf not a sport?  golf is definitely a sport.  it's competitive, its got rules, and physical conditioning does in fact have an impact on performance.  but golf more popular than tennis?  I don't know, tennis seems more accessible.  i would think basketball would be more popular than golf.  and when you say popular, is that how many people participate, how many people watch the sport, some formula that combines the two, or some other formula that involves differential equations.  didn't the USA PATRIOT act ban all sports though?
 
after some reflection i think i lean towards the idea that chain-smoking in the US is more conservative but chain-smoking in the rest of the world is more liberal.  but then again there are arguments either way.  what a great topic for high school debate teams.
 

Golf isn't a sport. It's a game.

Chain smoking, however, is most certainly a sport. It takes black lungs of iron to carry on a good smoking chain for a long while. As for the conservative/liberal aspects thereof, i'm drawing a blank. i think there's evidence both ways. The most compelling arguement i can think of is that chainsmoking smacks of personal freedoms and giving the government the finger. Which would historically be a conservative arguement, altho i think these days it counts as anarchy and heresay.

didn't the USA PATRIOT act outlaw smoking anything but freedom cigarettes?

So I think in terms of international popularity, I think the top three sports are

1.Soccer
2.Golf
3.Tennis

yeah see it's y'all what be clogging up the works with the world wide fortress domination. maybe we could get a bunch of the WWJD overruns and make them say WWFD with a sharpie or something.

so how is apartment hunting going, mark? how's that knee going, martin? i want one of the GBASPs that look like the NES controller so badly. mmm. hot.

brad i was thinking about absentmind.net the other day myself. mainly how fuckingly rad it was. you need to rewrite it, stat. i bought another domain which i do absolutely nothing with (so far): boozecouncil.org. chris lumens and i are gonna start writing the official gazette of the north american booze council, both a print version and one online. or something. i'm sure we'll get working on that real soon now in our ample free time.

mikex0r how is the carsio wordbank g50 treating you? does it translate real good from engrish to slope and back again?

So Rich bought a fish. that is pretty cool, i guess. frankly, though, fish are pretty lame. they just sort of swim. and have mouths that go moom moom moom. whatever. time to suck dick now.

man alive we have some incredibly good food in chicago. mm. the other night we had twinkie wiener sammiches. delicious.

i tried to use excel at work to go through a bunch of tedious-assed calculations for our two-slot floor anchor weld stress analysis, but lo and behold it failed mightily because excel is a piece of ass. i tried to bootleg nikki's version of matlab but to no avail. they tried to foist mathcad on me but i gave it two days before deciding to pitch that piece of shit. so i need a programming language that'll let me do what i need, namely playing good with vectors, having a non-stupid syntax, ability to do matrix operations both vector-style and element-by-element, for/while/iterative loops. nothing major. it would take me all of a few hours, maximum, to do what i need to do in matlab. i started looking at APL which is now known as J and it seems straightforward enough. also at work they bought a fish. that is pretty cool, i guess. frankly, though, fish are pretty lame. they just sort of swim. and have mouths that go moom moom moom. whatever.

i also called and asked how much a copy of matlab would run. without simulink or any of the fancy add-on packages, it was something like $1200/seat. that's just for vanilla uncaffienated matlab.

holy carp i'm rambling. we also had to get some barcodes affixed to some straps we're leasing to a railroad company. i mentioned that i worked for a barcode place for the 4 months previous to my gainful employment. our purchasing guy wanted to know who i worked for, since he deals with a company in california to get it done, to which i was all 'oh hell no, those folks are assholes. complete dickheads. don't waste your time.'

track 5 on the new dillinger escape plan album reminds me a lot of fragile-era nine inch nails. good stuff.

Yeah, I figured matt's presence in Atlanta is pretty much a given for a while, since he's getting a phd.

You know what my favorite thing to do these days is? Forget the
exact FOR loop syntax for a given language. Cause I sure do it a
lot. I must like it.



isnt chain smoking conservative?

... and that Matt guy.  He's not very dispersed from the Atlanta area either.
 
I realized today that all of my absentmind web stuff has vanished with one of my old missing hard drives.  My gut reaction was one of sadness, where you go looking around places to find something even though you know it won't be there.  Then I had the epiphany that it was mostly crap anyway and I only had 2 or 3 good poems out of the 50 to 100?? that I had written.  Corporate Brad has no time for such silly pandering liberal chain-smoking bleeding heart pot smoking hippie nonsense anyway.  Ice cream is for eating and not for use as a thinly veiled metaphorical device for sex.  Speaking of ice cream, those york peppermint klondike bars tasty.
 
So I have a fish. that is pretty cool, i guess. frankly, though, fish are pretty lame. they just sort of attach themselves to the side of the aquarium and stay there. and have mouths that go moom moom moom. whatever.

Martin was in Colorado, I was in Japan, Mark was in Texas, Brad was God knows where at one point.

Now I think everyone but Ted is in the Atlanta area, mostly in Atlanta. Particularly when there are video games to participate in. Brad's project in NYC is done, Mark is temporarily sleeping on Martin's couch while simulaneously at the same time looking for an apartment, I believe (how is that going?)

I think the last time everyone was this close in terms of square kilometers was 3 or 4 years ago, ie now is the first time in 3 or 4 years that our dispersion has been this low, hence 3 or 4 year low. What did you think I meant?

I figured the archives had to be good for something, including recycling posts.

How do you reckon we're at a 3 year low? I live in Chicago, Mark lived in Tejas and then in Maryland (i dunno where he's living now because he doesn't call or email or write or post), Brad was jet-setting to and from NYC every week. Everyone else is still in Atlanta, but most of us were in Atlanta 3/4 years ago.

Posted by Michael @ 1050 16July2004:

So Rich bought a fish. that is pretty cool, i guess. frankly, though, fish are pretty lame. they just sort of swim. and have mouths that go moom moom moom. whatever.

Posted by jeremy @ 2000 14May2001:

we have fish. that is pretty cool, i guess. frankly, though, fish are pretty lame. they just sort of swim. and have mouths that go moom moom moom. whatever.

Also, now that we've cleared up what the Canon Wordtank G-50 is (Japanese/English/Japanese translator) and what it is not (pack of fuckin peanuts, set of car keys, two ton tank, automatic dong-fu alarm, etc.), i need to know if that 228 gram mass includes the batteries or not for my energy calculations. If it doesn't include batteries, please let me know the formulation you intend for use in it - Carbon Zinc, Alkaline, Ni-Cad, Li-Ion or NiMH, as these all have different masses and energy capacities.


Martin, i'm glad to hear your road trip went well and all the gory details therein, also that the fabled and mystical Mark Honeycutt accompanied you to glory. And that y'all didn't die or get knifed by a semi-cowboy redneck at a Stuckeys in the Dakota territory. I thought Brad was a jet-setting motherfucker and working in NYC during the week. Did you settle down to Atlanta?

For those of you what ain't heard, Nikki and i bought a house in Chicago. It's nice to actually have some space and a garage and whatnot. Also enough room to disassemble and work on the 3 bicycle carcasses i have. It's on the south side of Chicago. With apologies to Jim Croce, our neighborhood is not the meanest side of town (nor is there any evidence of one "Leroy Brown"), but it is fun. Toilet training the cats hasn't been as easy as we planned.

So Rich bought a fish. that is pretty cool, i guess. frankly, though, fish are pretty lame. they just sort of swim. and have mouths that go moom moom moom. whatever.

On a side note, I've been usingMozilla's new Firefoxと言うbrowser lately. Its been cool, but recently something got changed with the blogger interface witch Firefox just isnt cool with. The little publishing animation now never gets beyond 0%, though it does publish successfully.

maybe one day martin should organize an arcade field trip... maybe it
will endear him to his students. I still cant wait until I run into
some Harrison junior and find out they're scheduled to take one of
martin's classes in the fall.

Lately, I've been researching living/working in Japan options. There
are a few of them, and so far I think that the JET program is the
best. One drawback is that they only hire once a year -- so that
everyone begins and and finishes with the Japanese school year. I
missed that, but the next Application process will begin at the end of
this year. So even if I am successful, I will need some sort of
employment for a year or so.

The other options hire year round, or at least semi-annually, but I'd
like to try and get into JET before I try the alternatives.

So I'm getting to that point where my patience is running out as far as
living at home, plus I'm going to be kicked off my parents health
insurance at the beginning of next year. I've been in contact
with my former coop job, but I cant seem to get ahold of the right guy.

It also occurs to me that the dispersion of the members of this blog is at a 3 or 4 year low.

We could always have determined the potential energy as a function . . . silly mikex0r. Of course we'll have issues with the AAA batteries because that is a change, but I'm sure we can get an estimate. The real issue is when it, like most things, will find a well to sit in.

Back to the rest of my trip, and this should be the end of it.

After taking a shower Mark and headed to the nearby wall to watch a movie. I think Mark was up for a few different options, but I really wanted to see Farenheit 9/11, and Mark is a nice enough guy that he let me win. We had some time to burn before the movie so Mark headed to the food court to grab a bite and I . . . headed to the ARCADE across the street.

Ah, the arcade. Bastion of my youth, countless hours spent watching and playing. This was going to be great. I walk in, get 4 tokens for my dollar (a practice I've never been a fan of, games should be played with quarters) and start looking for the comp. I see tekken 4, with no one on it. Oh, theres Soul Calibur 2, with no one on it. They even had tekken tag, a perrenial player, and no one was on it. This was odd, there were people in the arcade, I could hear and see them, but what the fuck were they doing?? After a bit more inspection I realized that I never wanted to play video games in Sioux City again. EVERYONE in that place was playing a shooting game, I mean everyone. I was ridiculous. It was as if they just left their farms, where they were shooting squirrels, and decided to come to the "big city" to shoot fake terrorists and zombies. Worse of all, it means that they will be wasing their money. There's no way to make a quarter last longer than a specified amount on a shooting game. I've run well over an hour on 50 cents in SC1 and Teken Tag before (granted those were both in my hay day and I had a line of people who were convinced they could win). Shit, at Gen Con I'd seen a guy run for 5 hours without losing using Charlie in Street Fighter Alpha. Now that is a smart use of quarters. Shooting games are fun, but really should only be used if you are rich or waiting in line. So I wandered over to the Tekken Tag machine, hoping that I would be able to drum up some comp, but it didn't work. Instead I realized that the controls were askew. Eventually Mark shows up, after failing to find any really satisfying food in the food court, so both of us were dissapointed in our experiences. I hand him some quarters so he can play SC2, and to make matters worse, he drops his money only to find out the stick that he chose (1p) doesn't have a RIGHT sensor. So he can defend, yeah!!!! that's exciting. At this point we said fuck it and went to the movie.

The movie was great. It was emotional, funny and insightful. There were moments when I was quite misty eyed, but that has been a problem lately. Stupid getting older. After the movie it was time to make the last leg of the trip to . . . NASHVILLE. Over the past few days/hours I had gotten more and more excited/nervous to get to Chowning's. Who knows what would happen. Maybe I'd find that there wasn't that chemistry that I felt the last time I was there, but the phone conversations suggested otherwise. Jeez. . . I could go on this topic for a while so I'm going to stop.

We head across the street to get me some food at Outback (cheese fries of course). Talked a bit to the bartender (Ruth??) and some of the waits that were chilling at the bar. I can't remember the contents of the conversationg specifically, but I do remember telling then our story a bit and them explaining that we were those people that drive rich people's cars around the country. I'm not sure if they bought it, but it was a fun story to tell and maybe someday Ruth will be talking about how she met these kids driving some rich guys car from Seattle to Atlanta. Or maye she will talk about his fucking liar she had at the bar. Either way it should be a good story for her.

At this point Mark hit's the wheel and we drive . . . and drive . . . and drive. I took the late shift, and was determined to drive all of the way to Nashville. We did stop along the way. First stop was in St. Louis to try to take a picture of the sun rising in the Arch. Mark and I rad around downtown trying to find the perfect angle before the sun rose, but didn't quite get it. We also stopped in Metropolis Illinois, home of Superman?? Yes, this small town on the Illinois/Kentucky border prides itself on its name and the relationship to the man of steel. Mark had been talking about this stop for a while, and I must admit on some level I was very interested (on the other level I wanted to get to Nashville). So we get off of the interstate, drive a short ways, and make it to a giant (color) statue of superman. There was a museum nearby, but it was closed (it was the 4th after all).

Let me explain my feelings about Metropolis. I'm glad we stopped, it was a good diversion for a bit and a good chance to stretch my legs. I was a bit . . . dissapointed isn't the right word. . . bummed, that the town wasn't more into it. Really what Metropolis had to offer was a large statue, a museum, and some cut out for you to take picture with. I was hoping for this town that was totally into it, such that I could find street names, Lex, Bizzaro, Jimmy, etc. I also wanted the statue to be bronze. I think it makes it a bit more timeless and a bit less hokey (paul bunion is in color and it feels like a cheap gimmick). Mark, doesn't agree with me, but that is fine. I still was very happy with the stop, and was happy to get on the road to Nashville.

Nashville. Nerves. Tension. Excitement. Happiness. I won't write about Nashville here, that is a story that you will have to get out of me either in person or by prodding. I will recap things a bit. When we open the door I see Chowning who looks amazing. Cute hair, great smile, and a nice holtertop. She looked better than the first time I saw her, although this time I was a little better prepared so I was able to make coherent sentences. We proceded to spend a magical fourth together, going to see fireworks, coming back and doing cars bombs (that was all three of us) and then staying up talking for what was forever but seemed like only an instant (Mark had gone to sleep at that point). It was a wonderful evening, and at every turn Chowning impressed me more and more. It got to the point where I didn't want to sleep because I knew my time there was limited and I wanted to get as much time in with her as I could in case things fell apart when I left. But it didn't feel like that was going to happen.

In the morning, I think I slept in the latest and we lounged around the house for a bit before Mark and I had to hit the road. The last 4 hours back to Atlanta are a stretch that I can do unconcious from all the driving I've done. We did hit a massive amount of traffic and it was riddled with conversations about Chowning. I even tried to call Jason so I that I could tell him. Despite the traffic, and the end of what had turned out to be the best trip ever, I had a stupid, childlike grin on my face the entire way, all the way until The End Of The Tour by TMBG as I hit the perimeter. We stumbled back to the apartment and I don't know what happened after that. Over the past three days I had only really gotten 10 hours of sleep (2-3-5) so I was pretty gone. But at the same time I was pretty wired over reflecting on that trip, doing the small things I love to do: draw on my map (to finish the country), walk to friends, and reminisce about how wonderful the trip was. I left, a little unsure about how things would work, and a little bummed about not being able to play at Potlatch, and I came back making all of these new friends, having all of these great experiences and with an fantastic new girlfriend??? O.k., it wasn't at that point yet, but there was still a whole week of stuff to go. Regardless, Chowning is awesome and made this the best trip ever.

So that is it. There is stuff that I left out, and hopefully Mark will pick up the slack. There is also all of the things that have happened between Chowning and I since then (silly to say, since it hasn't been more than 2 weeks, but things have been going on). Those you'll have to ask me about and I'll be more than happy to tell you.

There are some more trips on the way, and of course I will continue my dominance as the person who blogs the most . . . at least until school starts, then who knows what will happen . . . in life.

M

Damn. I forgot the mass and power consumption info. How else can Martin determine the potential energy of the thing if it were dropped from a 5th story window? Sure as hell not empirically.

The G-50 is 140x99x14.5 mm and has a mass of 228 grams. It has about 70 hours of battery life (2 AAA's)

Hey Editor (Whom I suspect is Jeremy; because if it were Martin, I would have never seen the note because there would have been 2000 lines of Martin's life story there. Which I would have been compelled to read):

I think its pretty obvious what the Canon Wordtank G-50 does. Its explained in plain Japanese right there on the datasheet. Tell you what: I'll bring the box over to you when it comes and you can read that.

Philistines.

The Canon Wordtank G-50 is the latest model of Japanese-English-Japanese electronic dictionaries from Canon. Of all the brands of J-E electronic dictionaries, (Sharp, Seiko, Casio, etc) Canon models have the reputation of being the easiest for native English speakers to use (opposed to native Japanese speakers). All the little lookup features work in both directions, and other nicities such as an English manual and English system messages are present. So thats why I chose Canon. As far as the particular model, I chose it from a short-list of the G-50, the IDF-3000 and the IDF-4600. Apparently, Canon has started a new series of dictionaries. The 4600 is basically an updated version of the 3000.

So here are the specifics:
The G-50 has 13112 kanji entries, compared to the 4600 and 3000's 6368

The G-50 has a 230000 word Japanese dictionary compared to the 4600's 230000 and the 3000's 118000

The G-50 has an English-English Dictionary and Thesaurus like the 4600 but unlike the 3000

The G-50 has 97000 Japanese to English entries compared with the 4600's 80000 and the 3000's 79000

The G-50 has 460000 English to Japanese entries compared to the 4600's 95000 and the 3000's 128000

The G-50 has 52500 katakana entries compared to the 4600's 16000 and the 3000's zero

So since the 3000 was a little outdated, and the G-50 was actually a little bit cheaper than the 4600 with the case included I went with the G-50. Of course, since its a graduation gift, price wasnt too much of a factor. And I never intend to buy another one of these unless the Japanese decide to mix things up a little and completely overhaul their language, so I figured this is one of those things in life you want to go ahead and pay a little extra and get the most recent version of.

There are also a couple improvements in kanji searching in the G-50. Looking for a specific kanji can be a real pain in the ass. And finally, there is a new feature only in this model of dictionary. There are about 2-2.5 kiloKanji that can be animated to show you the proper stroke order. Which is damn cool.

I'm happy.

I'm also working from my new office in the Robot Factory. Working naked. Nothing makes a conference call more enjoyable than being naked.

Yeah Martin, your blog stories read like one of my spoken word stories. For those of you thinking otherwise, that's a compliment. Everyone loves my stories.

so you'd better hurry and finish your story martin, or we're going to have some sort of space-time contiuum self intersection issue pretty soon. i don't want to give away any of your secrets (i'm not smirking mark), so i'll leave it at that.

Ok, Brad.

You can go work in England.

Are you happy now?

I will soon be the proud owner of a Canon Wordtank G-50.

editor's note: that's great michael. what the fuck does it do? presumably it looks up words and translates between japanese and english, or it rolls around on 2-ton treads destroying lexicons with 5cm explosive shells, or it's a set of fucking car keys. please enlighten us.

Still waiting to hear about working in England.

I was taken aback today when I visited one of my favorite sites,
All Music Guide, and it was radically redone. I was quite unhappy at first but then I decided to keep an open mind and refrain from becoming an old curmudgeon. Unfortunately the site seems to be running much slower than it used to... perhaps server issues since it keeps popping up with temporary connection problem screens. I don't like how the albums with years don't appear on the first summary screen. Extra extra clicks wear on my patience. Maybe it will grow on me seeing as how I've used it all of 5 minutes.

I think we had left Mt. Rushmore and headed east towards the ever exciting badlands. Hmmm . . . there really isn't much to say about them. They weren't particularly mean or anything, just desolate, but I've seen that before. We drove, for a long time, and then drove some more. And eventually, we were in Sioux Falls, SD. THANK GOD! We've made it though the badlands, to a bastion of intillenctualism. Mark and I were forced to stop, and read Chaucer of a cup of tea while debating the application of the slippery slope to ethical situations. By the time we left Sioux Falls we had revitalized ourselves, ready for our trek to Nashville. . . or we drove through that po-dunk town quickly on route to Sioux City, Iowa. Really, there aren't a lot of big cities in the middle of the country.

So we stop in Sioux City for two reasons. It was around the middle of the day, and we were both itching for a shower on some level. If we kept driving we would end up in Nasvhille at 4 in the morning, and I wasn't too down with that. So we were going to spend some time taking care of shit.

Step one was a shower. Mark took the reigns and gave us two options: KOA or the YMCA. There was a third possible option of a truck stop, but since we were in the big city, the odds of finding one were low. We passed a KOA and decided that was the best option. Mark's plan, was to basically walk in like we own the place, go straight to the showers, shower and leave. I was a little skeptical, especially with it being close to a holiday, but to Mark's credit it went off without a hitch. It was nice to feel clean again, although I did have one problem. I leaned down to wash my legs and nailed my head against the tile wall. Lesson learned, in a narrow shower, don't bend over. Shit, my machine is having issues. I need to shit down and go at this again.

Continuing this ridiculous series of postings . . .

So Mark and I are figuring out how we are going to get back from Seattle, the pacing, how many ladies we can find Mark along the way, etc. The "only" constraint is that it is the 2nd of July, and I have Pre-op on monday?? Actually I don't since the office is closed, so I really don't know when I am going to have surgery, which adds an interesting element to this whole equation. Mapquest says that it is ~40 hours from Seattle to the ATL. I figure we can knock that out in 36 since Mapquest always over estimates. But there's this other thing looming in my mind.

See, I didn't really bring this up too much in my earlier post but as I left Nashville the first time I couldn't help but wonder if I should have stayed an extra day in Nashvile and sacrificed a day in Denver. Granted, due to the workings of Beth Porecca (new Disney employee), Denver was supposed to be my hook up point, but (and this part I didn't really get at in the blog) I had a great fucking time in Nashville hanging out with Chowning. I was really tired well before we went to sleep, but I couldn't bring myself to leave. And it wasn't a "man I wanna tap that ass" moment, talking to her was really cool. . . o.k. I could go on for a while here and I just leave it at I had a great time in Nashville, so it had crossed my mind to stop there . . . on they way back . . . during the fourth of july . . . ? The first day in Nashville I wasn't really sure what was going on, I had truely just wanted a place to sleep for the night, I didn't expect to be so smitted by Chowning, and so part of me was still not sure if there was really anything there. A stop back in Nashville would give me that opportunity, but was that really the right thing to do? There were a few reasons in the back of my mind why I shouldn't try to see her again in Nashville, and should just blitz to the ATL for surgery ASAP. In the end I couldn't help but call her and see what she was doing during the 4th, she was/is too cool to pass up that opportunity. Truth is I had been talking to Chowning a bunch on the trip, so it was easy to place another call and try to be all slick and nonchelante (sp?) about figuring out her plans for the 4th and seeing if we could crash there. This all gets handled at a gas station while, the perfect passenger that he is, was cleaningthe bugs off of the windshield. With that set we didn't have as much time as we thought if I was going to get to Nashville with maximum daytime to spend figuring out what the hell was up with this Chowning girl. Off we went at a decent pace, through Washington, Idaho, and into Montana.

Mark took the bad shift (2am-dawn) the first day, which was a mistake. I am pretty good at that shift, and bad a sleeping in a car at times, so it makes the morning shift really hard on me. As it was, since we were now on a deadline, we didn't get to see much of western Montana. I don't know when the sun came up (although I was driving at the time) but it wasn't until after Butte that I saw how beautiful Montana is.

I've always heard of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho reffered to as Big Sky Country, and it took Montana for me to figure out why. See, unlike Colorado, where the sky is broken up by these mountains that loom on the horizon, or like New Mexico, where there is a solid horizon line broken by these pillars of rock, or even Nebraska were it is so flat that clearly they have the biggest sky . . . Montana has this nice mixture of space and mountains small enough that they aren't towering. I'm sure Montana has some great peaks, but it didn't have much of horizon line, it was all broken up by these smaller mountains. Unlike Atlanta, which certainly doesn't have a clean horizon because of all of the hills, the mountains in Montana were spread out enough that you got the spacious feel that Tennessee mountains don't give you. So there is still plenty of sky, but it is framed well. And that is why I think they are called the big sky states.

So we bulldoze our way through Montana and into Wyoming, across more desolate land without trees (there comes a point when you are out of the evergreens and back into the high plains where the tree disappear) and finally into South Dakota. Mark gets this idea that we should go so Mount Rushmore. I'm game for just about anything, as long as it doesn't interfere with me getting to Nashville so we get off of the interstate and head towards a big rock with faces on it. Not that we can see it yet.

We drive, and drive some more, and then some more. Oh, and we pass a waterslide which loks like lots of fun since it is fucking hotin the car. But through all of this, and more traffic we continue to Mt. Rushmore, destinedto live the American summer trip dream and look at dead presidents. somewhere along the way it occurs to me that there is one FUCKING HUGE problem with this idea. We'll see if you were paying attention. What day was I trying to end up in Nashville?? What day did we leave?? Well, we drove through the night to get past Montana, which mean it is what day again?? That's right kids, the day before the 4th of July!

When deciding on a whim to see a monument that is somewhat out of the way, be sure to take into account what day it is and how close you are to a holliday designed arond patriotism and national pride. Needless the say the road between the highway and the entrance to the park was packed beyond belief. As we get closer to the "historic site?" the place turns more and more into a pidgeonforge gattlinburg site. Tons of "native american" selling stores in crappy old style buildings and swarming with people who look like the would rather be somewhere else. I had my reservations about this trip at this point and was wishing we had just gone to the waterslide and enjoyed a few trips down.

We eventually make it to the security check (makes sense, if I wanted to destroy america I would blow up a rock in the middle of nowhere). The security check was super lax, almost non-existant. He asked if we had explosives, guns, nuclear weapons, he might have well have asked us if we were terrorists, or I guess he could have looked at us, decided we looked white and felt that was enough. It was ridiculous. So we wind our way just high enough to see the fucking heads, take an uninspired picture and turned tail. We checked off that box in our personal to do lists and moved on with our lives, and by that I mean we spent forever driving across South Dakota.

M

And we'll continue. There's been a swell of FF:CC playing here, and the games went on until 4 am this past morning with a good crew. Mark, Brad, mikex0r and myself. With Mark the game has taken on a whole new level, we have a understanding of what is going on in a whole-game sense. While we understood mechanics really well, but now we know what is worth doing.

But back to the story, I believe we left off at the close of thursday night, we had just floudered an evening downtown and I had stooped into a bad karma well. Friday rolls around, I wake Brian up at some point. We had plans to go with Mark to the Science Experience or some shit like that. I say shit not because I wasn't into it, but because it had some stupid name. I was basically a Discovery Kids zone like here in Atlanta, but much bigger. Regardless, I WAS excited to go, so Brian and I got up and got moving. We found Mark and parked in the deck right next to his hostel. Mark, knows where the action is so we start walking . . . and walking . . . and walking to get there. Apparently it was a long way away. "Why didn't we drive?" Brian asked on multiple occasions, to which I had absolutely no fucking answer. I just parked when I found Mark. Near his hostel, because surely the museum/fun center/sweatshop couldn't be that far from Mark's place if it was in downtown, right? So we walked for a few miles, i swear no more than three, and the entire time I getting bitched at, about how far we are walking, and then how far we will have to walk back, and why did we let Martin make decisions when he can't seem to make a good decision to save his life.

Well eventually we get there, so these fuckers can shut up and we can have some fun. Wait, why are there people standing out front? Shit, the place is fucking closed. Yup, not only did we walk a long way to get there, but we get there too fucking early so we can't get it. Fortunately the place is going to open within the next 30 minutes. Of course the question comes up who decided to meet at this time, and of course the answer is Martin, Maker of Bad Decisions. No one mentions that if we hadn't parked across the fucking world we would have been there really fucking early. So we're standing in line and we decide the line is too short so we sit down. eventually more people come and we feel the need to defend our position in line, so one of us is going to have to stand. Clearly a roche is the only solution. Mark gets the first loss. Brian the next. this is looking food for me. Oh, and Martin gets the next two, so that his busted ass gets to stand while the others chill on the bench. When it rains it fucking pours. We spend forever in the science place. There was lots of cool shit to do, including s giant chess game that, despite not playing well, I did manage to win against Brian (is this my luck changing?). They also had Tetris, which is always a good time. We end up staying there until 2:30 pm, at which point we hop a bus back to the car (whose idea was it to park in Portland??!!) and head on our way. I drop Brian off with a note and Mark and I begin the long drive home, at least at that point it was to home.

There isn't much to say about driving for a long fucking time. If you are driving non-stop then half of it is spent at night when you don't see shit, and the rest of the time can get pretty mundane also. Mark really wanted to find a stopping point in the middle of the country to prevent him from going insane. We're looking at some place, but really all of the cool stuff that we haven't seen a lot of is in the west, and that part of the trip would be over in the first night. Then there is this other issue looming over head . . .

Right, well I'm back from surgery (at least on some coherent level) and many phone calls, and it is time to finish the story that I began. I believe when we left off we had failed in Mark's endeavour to get the ladies (an endeavour that no doubt I am trumping up for the sake of story), so what were three eligible bachelors to do on a thursday night? Go to the bars, and to the bars we went, although in them we didn't. We walked to the Pioneer Square bar area to look for some action, trying to find a nice pub that we could hang out in. Each of us took the reigns trying to choose a place. I think Mark chose diner at Taco del Mar, Brian led us to this over priced (10$ cover) bar/club, and I led us to the biker bar. None of these options were working so a change in thought process had to occur.

I took over and said that we were going to this place called Cowboys. I figured it would be a little rawkus, witch a western flair, and I was ready for that. At least there would be people there and that was what I was looking for. Well, after paying the 5 dollar cover we got in, and there were people there. The pace was fucking packed and playing . . . chingy?? Truely this was not the pseudo-western place that I thought is was going to be, but it did have two half-height pool tables and a mechanical bull. If I haven't already explained that somewhere during the evening all of my karma turned south, whether it was in order to pull a great upswing, or just part of another chapter in "Martin: God's Whipping Boy" only time and the blog will tell. Regardless, going to Cowboys was a less that stellar choice. The place was so crowded that it was impossible to move around in the crowd. The theme was obviusly a Coyote Ugly one, which was fulfilled when the DJ called for the bartenders to get on the stage and "work it for the fellas." Not really the scene that we were expecting. We pushed our way back to the pool tables, at least I'm going to get a game in before I leave. We end up sitting in the corner (how typical for us dorks)next to the girl whose job it is to get people into this singles racket. I que up on a table filled with these drnk middle-30s ladies. There is already another guy lined up but I figure it wouldn't take that long. Man I'm a fucking idiot some times. The ladies take forever to finish there game, I mean for ever. Not only do they spend all of their time talking about shit, they can't make a shot to save their lives. Eventually the guy in line gets fed up and starts arguing with the ladies, and I move on to the next table. I wish there was more to be said about our time at Cowboys, but really I waited for a game of pool against a good player, came two balls shy of running the table. Other player runs all but the eight. So I got the ball on the rail at one end, a shot on the 7 in the corner, and a 2 ball nestled into the pocket. There had been a good bit of trash talking so I figured this was my time to play smart, finish the three remaining balls and walk away the victory. Everyone thought I was going to shoot the 7 since it was a pretty straight shot, but I'm against the rail and I don't trust my accuracy there, so I pop at the two . . . and miss the 2 ball entirely. My shoulders sink, a few more trash talking words were exchanged between the other guy and myself and I lose the game. Really, I swear, my luck was horrible until Nashville.

Since Brian and Mark weren't really doing much, and I had just sucked it up huge we left Cowboys, walking back home, desheveled. On the way there we pass this other bar that I had noticed before and this chick pops out of nowhere and starts talking to us. She's about 5'4", blonde, lots of eye make-up and apparently looking for a conversation. So we start talking to her, and she's asking us to come in. I'm thinking about it, but I don't want to pay another cover (I may have mentioned that there was a joint cover for many of the bars, but Cowboys wasn't on the list, another great choice by me). So we're talking to the girl, and all of a suddent she feels my pec. I look at her confused, and then she does it to the other guys also. Again she asks us to come in, and now she brings a friend over. I can't remember how, but she gets our ages out of us (she porbably just asked) and she says, or so I think "man, now I feel young" which seems to fit, the girl doesn't look much over 17, she obviously found her way into a bar and got people to buy the two coronas she had in her hand. So she tries to get us in another time and then we walk away after talking to some other durnk guy outside the bar. . . well, it turns out she didn't say "young" she said "old" and I missed the chance to go mack on some chick and her friend. Yet another bad decision, it really doesn't get better for a while folks.

After laughing, and making fun of each other we headed back to the hostel so Mark could get some sleep. Brian and I headed home, having failed in getting him a wife and me some action. Apparently I had turned into a bad luck magnet for all those around me, which was a great way to go into a long road trip. Regardless, we were going to head to a museum the next day before heading out so what could go wring there?

So who else has noticed that the Japanese lyrics to "flower of carnage" and the translation in the liner notes of Kill Bill Vol 1 soundtrack have a few decrepancies? Cause it kind of bugs me.

When I was watching vol 2 I was reminded of something I read about why the Japanese drive on the left side of the road. Apparently back in the 18th century foot traffic was regulated to the left side of the road cause samurai always drew their swords with their right hands, and it might be a disadvantage if they were pinned down to a fence or a wall or something and couldnt draw their swords.

ha. that spidey movie is great. so that got me thinking... i could start collecting legos and stock my shelves with magnificent lego creations. then i looked at the prices, remembered i was a cheap bastard, and started trying to figure out how much profit lego makes per lego. $300 for the imperial star destroyer? It seems I've been away from toys for too long.

i started back playing diablo 2 with the new season. maybe i'll finally make it through hell hardcore.

great travel posts martin.

Matt - I like your insights on marriage.
And yes, my friend Russell, who you met briefly at improv, thought you were too young to be married.

So are those custom legos, or does lego have a spiderman series? ok, so through the power of the internet, I just answered my own question.


This is cool

One other thing, everyone should check this Spiderman 2 remake with stop-motion legos. It's fantastic!

Well Martin (and Mark), we're all dying to know two things:
a) How was the surgery? Any puking occur? Would you like brownies?
b) What happened with the ladies?

Maybe these are questions best answered by a visit to the Robot Factory.

In other news, I'll throw out a few sentences about what's going on in my life. First off, I think married life isn't very different from serious relationship life. What's odd is the biggest changes are external to the relationship; the way people treat you changes but the way you treat your spouse / significant one does not. You feel much more accepted by family, especially very Catholic family, and you have a lot of comments about being too young to be married (in my case in particular).

I spent last week in DC at a computer vision conference. The International Spy Museum was a highlight, along with eating at an amazing Lebanese restaurant off the Adams Johnson subway stop.

Work continues to be fun - we have a new demo reel that we show to nightclubs. Greg is working on a new demo reel for museums and kids which should feature 8Ball, our latest game. Greg is getting all fired up about Transformus, a burning-man style event he is helping organize.

I'm getting excited about 5 more years of school. And I'm also excited that Mark is in town for an indefinite amount of time. Hooray!

Well, I'm back again. A nights sleep does wonders for a person, but after three nights of a total of 10 hours, I didn't want to get up to my alarm. But I did, at 9:15 and tried to start the day.

There's some housekeeping stuff about lsat night and today that I need to get out. Mark, Jeremy, Brad and I played Chronicles until I couldn't even stay awake. I did manage to call Jason and talk to him about stuff that you'll read about on the blog of the trip (maybe). Eventually I was just too fucking tired. Anyway, I wake up and try to start the day and the first thing was to call my doctor's office and figure out what was up with surgery. Well, it turns out that I did have an appointment with the doctor . . . today . . . at 9 AM . . . and it was 9:30 when I was making this call. I'm scheduled to go under tomorrow, but at what time I don't know. They fit me in for my pre-op today ay 2:15, but that means that all of today is going to be spent getting ready for surgery.

I will use this time to share a bit about surgery that I didn't get a chance to on the last blog. Mark has pointed out that bad memories fade with time, and maybe that is the case here. Until recently I wasn't exceptionally concerned about surgery. I would happen, and I would rehab like I did last time. As you get closer and closer to the day I remember the feeling that I a having right now: I can move, walk, and even run just fine, and I going to lose all of that for the next few months. It can be a tough pill to swallow, and I feel at this point that I don't remember all of the pain that I was in, or how much it affected my life. I really doesn't do any good, persay, but I remember these feelings from before, and was surprised when they surfaced again. At least this time it will be chronicled and so when I have to replace my head I'll be able to read this and remember or something. Well, I was going to write more, but I'm running out of time before I have to get more shit done. Talk to you guys tonight. . . maybe . . . there's tons to do. Later.

This is the beginning of the mega-post that is Mark and my trip from Seattle to Atlanta. There is a lot of shit that went down during this trip, we lost a few people. I will try to be compreshensive as much as possible. This will most likely have to be broken up into multiple blogs in order to make it work. My brain wont function on one thought for long enough and things well be happening in the mean-time (Brad is coming for Crystal Chronicles as we speak). With that in mind we will begin our espade in Seattle. . .

This is going to start on thursday afternoon, just after my clinic. Brian and I meet up after class and ditch the school. We knew something was going to happen today, but wasn't sure what because I needed to find Mark and make sure he wasn't dead. The best option was to head home and wait for Mark to call me. Call shows up around 4:30 or so as Brian and I are enjoying the lazy teacher afternoon (the time between 3:30 and 5:00 where all of the teachers are done working but all you suits are still at the grind). Mark was a little giddy if I do say so myself (check his blog for his opinion). Apparently he had met this girl (Magda) from Australia at the hostel and they had spent a good part of a day together. So he tells me that there is this cheap night-ish cruise that they are going on, sounds like fun so Brian and I get in to run wingmen if need be.

We meet up with Mark, go grab a bite to eat and then hustle and bustle back to the hostel to meet Magda and her friend. We're sitting there for a few minutes, blaming me for her not being there since I have been so stoked for Mark. We decide to head to the dock so that we don't miss the boat, and also the girls might already be there. As we leave we run into Magda who is hustling to get her friend. Mark said she was, and she is indeed, cute. She told us she was going to get her friend and we ran ahead [1]. So we get to the docks, just in time to see a ferry leave. It turns out that the ferry isn't what I thought it was, a cruisesque experience where hot singles take in the sunset on the way out and the city lights on the way in. In reality it was a commuter ferry to get people to and from an island. . . and it was sailing away as we watched it. With little idea of what to do, and neither of the ladies that we're going to come along we sat there for a bit contemplating. Brian's eagle eyes spotted the ladies and Mark went to go talk to them. There was a big debate on what to do, and it was getting pretty clear that the ladies weren't feeling it. In the end we decided to go get ice cream from a corner vendor. After standing in line we get the ice cream, and when we turn to continue talking to the ladies, we find them a block and a half away. Yes, they ditched us. Mark goes in fast persuit, and Brian and I look at each other. I won't go into the details here, but basically Brian and I found the ladies from a distance, then talked a bit about how this was over and we needed to do something else. We find Mark, who didn't find the ladies for a while, and we all agree to leave and find something else to do.

There's plenty more to go on that night alone, but I'm tired and get to sleep in my bed tonight.

M

Yo. This is a combo post from Martin and I. Martin is chilling with Chowning (Nashville Friend). I am at the computer, blogging. So, we left SEA at or around 2:00 PM PST. We drove pretty much straight through to get to Nashville for the fourth festivities. We did have a 25 mile one way detour to go see Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. I recommend that everyone see that place once. Just once. There is no reason for me to spend any time there. Once you see the faces from the road side, thats enough.

Another detour was the trip to Metropolis. Home of superman. There is a superman statue. And some cutouts where one could photo their face with superman or superwoman body. Its hokey, but only 3.5 miles outside of the highway.

There was also the movie videogames stop in Souix City, Iowa. We saw the Michael Moore film and played some crappy video game. I mean crappy by the controllers were worn. How can one play soul caliber (an 8 way fighting game) with no right directional control?

Lastly, we showered at a KOA camp ground. Ahh... cleanliness.

So, we are chilling in Nashville. We should be back in ATL tomorrow.

Hope all is well.

Mark

martin, your machine is fixed. it wasn't quick and it wasn't 'easy,' but it appears that everything is back in line more or less. what a pain in the ass windows is. atlanta is still here, too, which is cool.

so the weekend with my mom (now long over) was great. we went to the garden and ate out a lot and had a generally riotously good time. we fought (argued about stupid shit) a lot, but that appears to be our dynamic these days. i don't say that approvingly, really; but that's the way it is. sigh. also, i (with the help of the mom and the mn) built the new terminal station. it's pretty nice. gotta figure out something to do about the printer, however. i got a cd storage solution, but it's the wrong answer. when the engineers return, i'd like to get their input on some designs for a homebrew.

also, i got the led sign. oh yeah. it's not 'web enabled' yet, so people can't tell me not to suck any dicks on my way through the parking lot or to get back to work or any shit. but i'm working on it. the software is actually coming along pretty easily, but wrestling with the bastards at biltmore about static ip, billing and the like is throwing a monkey-wrench in the proverbial works. anyway, i expect mark's computers to arrive today or tomorrow, so that'll give me something new to play with (woo!). hopefully everything will be going and playing nicely together and shining in the sunlight when all the peeps get back from the west.

come home, you fucks.