Big Week + 1 day

The Big Week started last Saturday when I was the nearly unsuspecting target of a surprise birthday party for my 30th year. We had dinner at Casa Portugal (fortunately their food preparation skillz far out weight their web design skills) and it was delicious. I also got a few things that I've always wished for. Namely a "I Dig Chicks" trucker hat, a "mullets rule" t-shirt with "30" on the back, and stick-on sideburns and mustache.

The Big Week continued on Tuesday when I actually turned the big-three-oh at 9:50-something in the morning. The fun continued with dinner by the window and the Top of the Hub. The food was good but the views were spectacular. It's fun to watch a city and more particularly, an airport, work.

The fun continued, no, surged forward on Wednesday when I found out that I'll be moving to Moldova for two years and three months. As a Peace Corps volunteer, I'll be working with grassroots NGOs on everything from a business plan, to fund raising, to web development, to actually volunteering and helping them get things rolling. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe and is still struggling with self-subsistence post-USSR & communism.

The fun still wasn't stopping on Saturday when there was a blow-out party at my place for the collective birthdays of Graham, Allyson and myself. We drank drinks, talked shite, stayed up late and suffered the following morning.

The fun finally came to screeching halt Sunday afternoon when I was telephoned by my father's wife. Apparently dad was drunk Saturday night and decided that he has to warn his neighbors about something and set of some sort of explosives. I'm not sure if the neighbors heeded whatever the warning was, but my father hopefully learned a lesson when the explosives tore off the majority of his hand. So far, his pinky finger is still attached, but it looks like the whole thing's going to come off at the wrist. Way to show the neighbors Pa.

I'll update the post with party pictures later. No worries, there won't be any pictures of my dad's adventures.

Sweet Home Chicago

Acutally, it's not my home, but it is sweet. I've been here since Friday evening and have been having a grand old time. Saturday was the "Day of Sports" as we went to the Cubs game in the morning and then left in the 6th inning (just as the Cubbies scored 5 runs), to head to Soldier Field to see US Mens vs England in a friendly - that turned out to be not so friendly as 3 yellow card were issued. The US men lost 2-1 and the Cubbies won 5-1.

Saturday night Jay and Amy drove down from Detroit and we hung out the past few days. I'd love to put some pictures up, but I forgot my camera. I also have to make the post from a Starbucks as everyone in Jill's building has their wireless network protected.

That all for now.

So, you want to hear some funny shit? You do? O.K.

I go to my doctor today to get my physical for the Peace Corps. Because it's just a physical, my doctor stops in, but leaves the actual physical to his resident, who's a nice guy and good at what he does. Usually.

So he's going over the form and says, "OK, well it looks like I need to check for hernias and give you a rectal exam. I just need to stick my fingers in your rectum for just a few seconds and make sure that your prostrate is okay. It's not pleasant, but it'll only take a few seconds. The Peace Corps is awfully through."

So, he gives me my rectal exam and everything is hunky dorey. He goes to check the "ok" next to "Prostrate Exam," pauses for a second with a slightly confused, bemused look on his face, and then says "Oh jeez, I didn't notice that it said 'men, over 50 only', my bad."

Yep, I got a rectal exam today even though I didn't need one.

I should really get something for that. Cash, free dinner, something.

Montezuma

Montezuma

So Costa Rica rocked. Like a rock star rocked. I need to finish putting all my pictures on Flickr and then post them for all the world to see how "rock star" a trip to Costa Rica can be.

So, the flight there (and back) was less rock star like. We flew on TACA airline. A conversation with Michele, who lived in El Salvador with the Peace Corps, on whether or not it's reasonable to drive from San Salvador, through Columbia, and to Costa Rica (it's not), learned me that TACA is also commonly known as "Take A Chance Airline." Wished I would have known that before I bought the tickets. To all who read this and are planning a trip to Costa Rica - it's not worth the $40 you spend to fly on TACA instead of an airline you're familiar with. My word is gold. It took us two days to get there and we were never confirmed on any flight we took, despite being told otherwise.

Once we got there, however, the poor travel couldn't dim the white hot brightness of Costa Rica's beauty. We rented an SUV (tip #2: rent a SUV not a car. Only 1/2 the roads are paved and if they go anywhere good, they probably aren't) and drove from place to place. First we stayed a few days in La Fortuna.

The weather was awesome and nearly cloudless. We were incredibly lucky to be able to see the top of Arenal volcano. We hiked around and stayed at Villas Josipek which were ok. I wouldn't recommend taking tours with them if you are young and able. The "guide" that could speak English was nice enough, but didn't really know much about the area and wasn't really in game shape and ended up slowing us down. You should check out places that are on the other side of the volcano than Josipek (I think you want the west or southwest side) for better, though potentially more dangerous, views. After a few days of volcano viewing, rainforest hiking, and waterfall swimming, we headed west to the Nicoya Peninsula.

We drove most of the day and took a ferry over to the peninsula. This was the best part of the trip. Montezuma was great. Incredibly laid back and beautiful. If I smoked pot religously, I would probably move down there and settle in. It wouldn't get any better. The beach is beautiful, the weather is hot, there are tons of great hikes, and there are monkeys. La Fortuna had monkeys too, in fairness, but you didn't see them as often. We saw white-faced monkeys and got lucky and spied a pair of howler monkeys (who make god-awful noises that you can hear for miles). We took a trip to Mal Pias ("bad land" - though it's quite nice) which is a surfer town to catch the sunset. It was cloudy but beatiful none the less and the ride back I was able to see more stars that I ever had.

There's more to add, but the Man needs me to do some work. Maybe I'll write more later. Probably not, but anyway, there's a half synopsis of the trip.

"The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak," Bush said. "In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in favor of life."

These words ring quite hollow considering the source, George W. Bush. A man that has sent Americans to die in Iraq, in turn killing thousands of Iraqis. A man who sent more people to their death than any other governer in the history of Texas and likely any other state. A man who once mocked a woman he condemned: Just before her execution date, Tucker appealed for clemency on the grounds that she had become a born-again Christian. Bush's reply: "Please,'Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me.' "

Yeah, his presumptions are in favor of life.

Holy shit, I've just applied to the Peace Corps. And, in 8 hours I'm going to be on a flight to Costa Rica. Holy shit. I've got to pack.

I've thought of a few ways to start this post and I've settled on this...for now.

Every once in a while you speak to someone who is doing something amazing. Tonight, it was Peter, or Pedro to his friends. He is one of the Irish guys here that I hang out with and he is here to do his post-doc research. He field of study is cancer and on a very drunken walk home he explained what he is doing. To do so, he explained genetics and cells and how cancer works and how we've been treating it and how we want to treat it. He is working on the "how we want to treat it" part. Basically right now, with chemo and other therapies, we are trying to kill as many cells as possible and if you treat it soon enough, you kill enough cancer cells and few enough of the good cells so that the good cells can kill the cancer cells. What happens is the good cells feel overwhelmed by the cancer cells and then they commit suicide, literally. He is trying to figure out how to "rally the troops", figuratively, so that they don't kill themselves and kill the cancer cells instead. Fucking wicked awesome.

What I learned was great and I felt miserable that I could pay the favor back. I could tell him about DB design and how to write a clever php script, but it certainly pales in consideration. I really need to find a new line of work!

Also, it's 5:13 AM, so I can't be sure what I wrote makes sense, though I believe in it thouroughly.

Overheard in the kitchen at work:

Man: Yeah, so were trying to work with the goldfish.
Woman: Wait. What kind of goldfish? The real ones?
Man: Yeah, you know, the fish? Goldfish?
Woman: Oh, I thought you meant the cracker.

I just took this quiz to see who would be my ideal presidential candidate. There are some surprises and some things that aren't surpising at all. The surprises are that there are three parties on my ideal list that come before Kerry and the Dems. What isn't surprising is that Bush is last and that we only "agree" on 6% of all political issues.

Cobb, David - Green Party (97%)
Nader, Ralph - Independent (97%)
Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (88%)
Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (68%)
Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (38%)
Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (24%)
Bush, President George W. - Republican (6%)

I just caught a grasshopper. In my room. On the third floor. In the middle of Cambridge, MA. WTF?

Last night, after seeing "The Anchorman" with D, I gave him a ride home. He lives in Jamaica Plain. That means a trip on the J-Way. That has to be one of the most insane roads in the Boston area. That's saying a lot. It is a four lane road that is curvy and hilly (which is not common here in the Hub) and the only thing separating oncoming traffic is two yellow lines painted on the road. I've always wondered why people drive so ridiculously fast on the J-way until last night when I was driving home. To me, driving on the J-Way evokes feelings that must be similar to those who fought in WWI and were directed to "go over the top." You have to do it; You know you are probably going to die; You just go as fast as you can and hope that you can survive through breakneck speed and sheer terror.

And, "The Anchorman" was funny.

today's spam:

lumpish smother conscious allot awkward transpire pasadena diplomat chariot thomas bertie birdlike russula match elisha alder penitent redound coolidge inferred bumble selwyn brothel everyone avid bleak inform bemadden zigging bali prognosticate dove colosseum bologna kickback onlooker jewell workshop catskill tenacious weller slumber coercion obsequy marshmallow splice myosin compelling bevel kilo covalent piggyback gibbous playback allocable clammy amputee tuxedo sneaky caliper neckline scoff triplet dortmund

The entertainment value of posting and reading these every day will decline with each posting, so I'm going to stop after today. However, it would be fun to try to write short stories using all of the words posted above.

Anyone in?

Today's spam arrived in my inbox with the subject "re:cc:Onlin.e over-night phar'm"

the email read:

hideaway objectivity machine coax brethren cuddly scuff beirut accentuate godfrey greenhouse carcinogenic cooke freemen amputate homebuild diffuse arbiter topgallant bumblebee clash indispose elide shrew berra selectmen remnant compare indira omnibus congressmen tablespoon bartlett bucolic cent shaft eigenvector forever horsedom giblet bryophyte hoover committeewoman downside deallocate befell burnt balky concord acoustic apiece emil intercalate mettlesome sulfurous failsoft vicissitude cutworm cur suppression flatulent dried kraut tomorrow

Which philosopher are you?

I am Plato. I became disgusted with societyafter the citizens of Athens put my teacher Socrates to death. I was initially interested in the meaning of ethical terms, but I abandoned my mentor's skepticism and began to construct and entire system of metaphysics based upon the reincarnation of the soul and immortal ideas which are the true meaning of all reality. I expressed all my ideas in beautiful dialogues between characters who were both fictional and real. For this reason we can never know for sure what I really believed. In fact, I went on recordonce as saying that the central task of philosophy is to commune with the things themselves, and that this can never be done through writing. So while I am the father of philosophy, its hard to know whether I wasn't just being ironic the entire time. Oh yeah, and I was also queer as a three dollar bill.

I haven't posted in a while as I had family here for commencement and then was in Miami for a week. This will be a brief post, but I am hoping to post more this weekend.

Anyway, what is up with spam adding lists of words on the end of email now. Today I received an email about "re fi nanc in g my home" and the email ended with this:
"CPP expectations distinction accordance allow invoke all individual
is respect describe When Japan report dictionary tailoring
back What acceptable holidays impossible fully term header"

Yesterday I received an email that read:
"woodwork olga palindromic patterson amino energy calve hypertensive foul cougar narcissism contrive oughtn't corny forever sunglasses threesome vertical valine proxy rockford candlelight eclipse vaccinate affluent hackneyed divan improvisate mccormick civic hypochlorous tritium chastise hereunder chenille delirium vary appleton charity academician genus buckley adam ludicrous hundredfold transportation ampere faber incendiary cellular rectangle proceed anyplace intuitable stearate analogy asymptotic continue asunder closure insuperable getaway accomplice wilful"

I think it's kind of funny, and whomever is creating this either is good at flipping through the dictionary or has a spectacular vocabulary (or at least knows a ton of words, but possibly not their meanings).

That's all I have for now.

Has someone ever said something to you and you just feel you stomach drop and you almost feel like you want to vomit?

Yeah, that just happened.

And it keeps lingering. I'll forget about it for a few minutes and then it kicks the door down again and bounces around in my mind for many minutes. it's hard to work right now.

Well, that was fun.

I am still getting over a weekend of debauchery.

It all started out fairly benign – dinner and a beer with a classmate after finishing (My last final ever!!*). Then I get home, the G and R are eating dinner and having a beer. I drink a beer as well. G decides to whip me up a cocktail to celebrate my being done. I drink what may be the most awful cocktail I’ve ever met. Then we head out to the B-Side to meet some of G’s mates and Pedro. Someone orders a round of shots, it goes down hill fast.

Wake up Saturday morning and start getting ready for the evening party we are hosting. 9 PM comes and guests start rolling in…and don’t stop. There must have been close to 125 people in our house (and on the driveway). It was quite insane and we definitely broke some fire safety/maximum capacity laws. I had a great time, I just wish that I had, had more time to meet some of my friend’s friends and spend more time with friends of mine that I didn’t get to hang out with.

Sunday, Pedro and I took the two Scots to the Red Sox game. It was great fun being an ambassador for the day. I didn’t realize until then that talking baseball is like speaking a foreign language. Bunt, bock, line drive, touch-up, reliever, closer, walk, run, ball, sacrifice fly, ground-rule double… We had to stop and explain the vocabulary after each sentence explaining the game. G has been watching the Sox with us for sometime and was able to translate a bit. They both are quite keen on watching sports so in the end, it wasn’t hard for the to pick up what was going on and for them to become fans. They both walked out with new Red Sox hats and jerseys (Ramirez and Damon). We had been drinking this entire time and thought that it would be a good idea to pub crawl the way home. That was quite fun too, though I’m still feeling the effects two days later. I had a good time with D visiting, but I don’t think my liver would be able to take much more of him being around.

Sunday we got lunch, walked around Harvard Sq, played some basketball, saw D off to the airport, then I sat in the living room for a few hours trying to catch my breath. It was a great weekend.

* - until Grad school, but that won’t be for at least 2 years.

i just ate some spicy tuna rolls. i keep burping and it tastes like i was drinking beer. i don't understand.

i know that the people that read this already know, but i've been listening to ratatat and it's really good. it's from the same guys who are in e*vax. that is definitely worth checking out as well.

i can't wait until finals are over.

Bored at work today, I was reading McSweeney's Daily Reason to Dispatch Bush.

While nothing the president says can really astonish me much, there were two particular quotes that just made me angry.

Day 32: In 1999 Bush said that he didn't like to read long books, especially when they were about policy.

For his first two years in office, the president's staff spent only 30 to 45 minutes a week discussing policy with him. Clinton spent the same amount of time per day on the subject.

In 2003 Bush told Fox News that he rarely reads newspapers beyond their headlines.

Um, why would you want to be president if you had a particular distaste for policy? I mean really. I'm not a presidential scholar and I've never read over a job description for the Office of the President, United States, but I'm pretty sure that "inclination to interpret and write sound policy" would be on the list. I mean because when your President and you do your job by creating policy, right?

So, why does Bush want to be president? He takes more vacations that any other president in history, he doesn't like policy, or foreign countries, or working late. I really think he would be better suited riding a lawn mower on the side of a highway working for some D.O.T. I really think he would like that better too.

DAY 36: "I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." — President George Bush, aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

While this statement seems fairly obvious after Dubya said that he couldn't think of ANYTHING his administration has done wrong during the "War on Terror," but what really bothers me about this is that people will give this man a vote knowing that he isn't very "analytical." Do you really want a president that can't think his way out of a wet paper bag? One that actually boasts that he can't think his way out of a wet paper bag?

I really don't understand.

While I was waiting for the train today at the Central Sq. T-stop I spied a gentleman across the platform wearing a "Cedar Point Athletics" t-shirt. For those of you who don't know, Cedar Point is an amusement park in Sandusky, OH. Like me, you may be asking, what does an amusement park have to do with athletics? Well, my friends, I'd love to offer you an answer, but I'm stumped as well. All I can come up with is more questions. Like, who is the bigger asshole, the guy who decided that a CPA shirt would be a good idea, or the guy who agreed and bought the shirt?

It reminds me of this stupid school fund raising event we had at the venerable Butler Intermediate High school. If we could get something like half a billion people to get a subscription to Newsweek we could win a t-shirt. Not just any t-shirt mind you, but a "Butler Polo Club" t-shirt. Ha ha ha. Butler is a town of about 20,000 people an hour north of pittsburgh. There is high unemployment because all the steel plants closed. The closest thing to a polo club at butler would be the coin-operated rocking horses outside of k-mart. i didn't sell any magazine subscriptions that year. or ever , really.

you should all go out and buy snow patrol. they're really good.