another quick one.

I tried this the other day for about 45 minutes and at the end of it, the computer I was working on crashed. So here's a brief synopsis:

Sydney is fun. I'm going a little ways north to either A) work at a hostel on the beach, B) wwoof for some organic hippie types, or C) (cross your fingers) work for a guy on a 38 foot sailboat near Byron Bay.

There's some crazy cars here, my favorite being a thing that looks like a new, sweet El Camino.

I was surprised to find out that the population is roughly 65% Asian to 35% Caucasian, with a few percent being Indian. And four black people.

These are some pictures of Darling Harbor which was really nice to walk around in. The bridge is really big, and that's over by the Opera House.

The last one is at a bar I went to yesterday next to where I'm staying. They have crab races every Monday night! Number 18 won, I did not. But this girl won a 3 day 2 night sailing trip at Whitsunday Island. Good job little crab!

word.

Sydney is fun. It's a lot like Chicago, but there's more independent shops and things in addition to the chains. I'll probably be leaving here in the next couple days, as the visa/phone/work-travel membership things are still getting worked out. Going to Wwoof north of here, which should be fun and save me some money until I can work.

Walked around a lot since I've got time to kill. Took the mandatory pictures of the Opera House, bridge and harbor. I'll post soon. The weather has been gorgeous, 65ish and sunny since I've been here, but it's weird. It's "winter" so the sun starts to go down around 4:30 or 5. Anyway, I'll keep y'all updated soon.

quickly

Getting all the visa stuff straightened out has been way more of a hassle than I thought it would. You can get a passport in a couple days, or even the same day, but it takes all kinds of jumping through hoops and clearing red tape for the visa.

School's done, and graduation was actually pretty cool. It took too long, but it was nice, and the party afterwards turned out to be a great time. Thanks to Caleb and Liz for various whiskeys, and Matuska for the Chinese surprise gift. Butterfly clips rock.

Spent another day-and-a-half visiting my parents, which always feels a little bit like the twilight zone. Time seems to pass differently than normal, and I feel like I'm always just waiting to get home.

Scanning books and sites about packing and what to bring/what should be left. I leave for the airport in 44 hours.

My 'morrows always seemed just fine.

Been a while.

School is almost done. Busy weekend ahead. I'm going to have an empty house to force me to get work done, and it seems pretty much everyone is out of town, so I'll have no distractions. Just a few more days.

It was one of those weeks where the nights turned into mornings, basic things like laundry and food took a backseat to getting shit done, and Johnny Walker became a nighttime companion.

One of my classes involves myself, and 5 others from from Engineering, Design, and an MBA student. Tuesday we had to give a final presentation to the vice president of product development for Motorola. I was running on 1 hour of sleep. Our MBA student was late. And consequently, we finished our presentation with her dictating the last 4 slides to another group member in the car on the way to Motorola. It was neat.

Worked out in the end, and our group actually "won" for the most innovative concept and product ecosystem. Anyway, we got some recognition, and supposedly they're going to give us each a new phone for winning. woo.

I have a busy couple weeks ahead as well. Graduation next Saturday, and I'm going to have to stick a party in somewhere. Leave for Australia a week from the following Monday. I have to get home to see my family a little before I leave, too.

I took this photo because it made me smile the other day. Granted I'd been awake for about 30 hours, but I still think it's funny.

We've started making good use of our back porch recently. The other night, we were sitting back there talking, listening to music, and enjoying the weather. Because it's staying light later, everything was cast in a sort of blue glow from the twilight. It reminded me of how the snow-covered ground in the winter starts to look blue after a few minutes.

Colin told me about different places in San Francisco. I've never been west of the Mississippi, so I've got to work on that. Apparently their China-Town is far superior to our own, here in Chicago. There's lots of open-air fish markets, the entire population is actually Chinese, and there's different menus for tourists. Also, most meals have some sort of cold fish and rice, regardless whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I was advised to read the Joy Luck Club.

Other places of note were the Golden Gate Park, wine country (in general), and Sausalito. I don't know what any of these are but maybe I'll get to San Francisco someday.

Brian talked more about Australia and seeing the road trains on the west coast. One way of transporting goods across the continent is by truck and trailer. Apparently, they've got semi trucks that drag along a series of trailers up to five or six, winding uncontrollably down the road. I've heard the best thing to do in a situation when one of these is headed your way, is to just pull off the road as far as you safely can.

Liz spoke of a guy named Giovanni from a small hotel in Rome. He was very nice, and he and his brother were concierges at the hotel where Liz stayed. Giovanni had his own restaurant, which turned out to be a few tables off an alley somewhere near his home. He cooked Liz and her friend an amazing meal with many different courses, and accompanied by a variety of wines. If I ever end up going to Italy, it seems like the kind of place I'd like to visit.

I still have a couple weeks of school left. It's weird to think if I'm never going to see most of these people again, or if we're going to stay in touch. Or where everyone will go when we part ways. Weird. But I guess it's all part of moving onto another chapter.

Elaboration.

Thursday I bought a ticket to Australia. I've never been there, and it's somewhere I can go fairly cheaply, support myself, and speak the language. It's pretty much the best time I could think of to do this sort of thing since I'm kind of lacking career employment for the moment. And in the long run, what's an extra couple grand on top of the loans I'm already going to be paying off? An extra ten dollars a month?

The ticket says I'll be gone from May 21st to August 21st. I'm going to end up missing softball, which sucks, but maybe I'll learn to play rugby or throw a boomerang instead.

I've never really traveled for any length of time, so it should be a pretty good experience.

Huge big news for the sharing on the blog.

Graduating (finally) on May 12th. Going to Australia May 21st.



I know, right?

Chocolate rivers and Gobstoppers.

Today sucked. I ran around this morning before work, got everything together, and waited for the train forever. The conductor was lacking the concept of anything in between go and stop, so I was sufficiently nauseous by the time I got off for work. The entire day was like a war of attrition, boring, seemingly endless, and an uphill battle I felt I couldn't win. On top of that, it was just one of those days when your psyche takes over, emotions and imagination start to run rampant because of the lack of stimulation at work, and you just feel like crap by the end of it.

The rest of the night went surprisingly well, and by the end of it, I felt pretty good. Hung out with Colin and also Brian, who wound up having the night off from work by guessing the number 32. It was close enough to 37, so he came home at about 8pm.

We all started rehashing things somehow, and dragged out old pictures, making fun of our younger selves and pointing out people from our collective pasts. It was kind of fun, and kind of sad. My hair and clothes were AWFUL.

Anyway, great roommates are fun to have. You all should invest in a good pair, on my recommendation.

Learning is good.

We're coming down to the end of the semester, and there's been lots of presentations and papers. In one of my classes, the professor was talking about citing sources when you present data to a class. Without it, there's no way to verify that what you're presenting is credible information.

Of course, if that source you're citing happens to be The Onion, you're probably going to need some help regardless. Yes it actually happened.

No, it wasn't me.

one of the guys.

Bear, Liz's dog, is staying with us for a few days. He's a big happy mutt, who just wants to be around people and play fetch. Right now, he's hunched up against me with his nose resting at the edge of the keyboard. I took him for good walks the past couple mornings, and today we played fetch with one of those longer throwy sticks that lets you launch the ball. Bear was good, and he's ok to be off the leash in the park without running away.

Last night was pretty nice. I picked up my bike from Boulevard Bikes and it rides better than it ever has before. New tires, brakes, bar tape, and everything tuned up and ready for spring. I'm excited.

Brian and Colin spent most of the day cooking red beans and rice, cornbread, big pots of gumbo, and picking up necessities for today's Taylor Family Easter Extravaganza. I helped Colin in taste-testing the cornbread recipe, and consulted the Cast-Iron Skillet Cookbook for some suggestions. We're going to pick up a rice cooker today, because apparently it will increase the quality tenfold. Yeah, rice cookers. What's up.

We went out with our new roommate, Simone, and her sister Helder. I tried the crab cakes from Dunlay's because it was a special and sounded great. They were pretty good, but when she brought the check and I found out they were 22 bucks, I was all, wtf? Anyway, I guess I'll stick to the burgers or something.

Then we all went to the whirlaway for a couple more drinks, and Colin narrowly avoided having to talk to some crazy friend of a girl he met the other night. Simone was immediately impressed with the whirlaway, with all the half-hipster dudes, layers of cigarette smoke, and coolest spanish lady barmaid you can find.

Heading home today to spend some time with the family over the holiday, and get some work done. I've decided that the best part about Easter is the Reeses peanut butter Eggs. Go ahead, try to come up with something better. You can't. I've tried.

Soccer

I played on the Mantis/Manatee team yesterday and it was really fun. We lost 2-0 but the other team probably thought that they should have scored more. So it was a moral victory. A few of their guys were really good, and the girls all used to play on Division one college teams.

I haven't really played soccer since junior high, so it was interesting to say the least.

I mostly felt like the one on the left.

We played at Montrose, right near the lake. The field was artificial, but nice and a little spongy. I'd never played on an artificial field before, and it was a pretty cool experience. I was anxious when we got there because it seemed overwhelmingly huge, and I felt really unprepared.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to run more, and practice.

And do something fun this weekend.

Also, we should have our new roommate chosen by tomorrow. So there's that.

strange.

"Maybe I shouldn't have stabbed that guy so many times."

Local punk singer arrested in murder

March 27, 2007
LOS ANGELES -- The former lead singer of suburban Chicago punk rock band Mest was arrested on suspicion of fatally stabbing a 25-year-old man during an argument, police said.

Anthony Lovato, 26, was being held on $1 million bail pending an investigation of criminal homicide, said Officer Mike Lopez of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Lovato and another man were arguing early Sunday in the parking structure of an apartment building when the man punched Lovato, Lopez said.

Lovato pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed the unidentified man many times, authorities said.

When police arrived, they found the wounded victim on the ground. He died later at a hospital.

Lt. Andrew Neiman said Lovato was calm and cooperative when police arrived.

"He did in fact call the police, call 911, after the incident and remained on the scene [to] surrender himself," he said.

Authorities said Lovato and the victim had been involved with the same woman at different times, and police had been called to her apartment Saturday night when the two men fought, but no one was arrested at that time.

Lovato helped form Mest in 1995 in Blue Island, and recorded several albums on Madonna's Maverick label and performed on the Warped Tour, a touring music and extreme sports festival, in 2003.

The band broke up last year.


It's strange because we played shows together. They partied with us and crashed at our drummer's house. Weird.

Nice.

This past weekend has been pretty great. Friday, I got out of class early and hung out with Cassie for a while, bought some new running shoes and had Chipotle (it's amazing, everyone else is wrong) which I haven't had in almost a year, and did some earthy stuff.

Saturday, I did some productive things around the house that I should have done a while ago, like laundry and cleaning, and watched the rest of "Undeclared," which I've never seen, but have since put in my top ten of something somewhere. Ben Gorski and his two roommates Joe and Judd came up to stay for an impromptu visit, and we went out for KO's birthday to Nick's beer garden. It was also Judd's birthday, so we went out a little early beforehand, and bought him drinks the whole night.

KO was in rare form Saturday night, so if you couldn't make it, just tell him it was awesome. I don't think he'll remember either way.

Colin, Ben, Joe, Judd, and I spent part of the night being bored, but then surprisingly, the bulk of the night was spent chatting up the table next to us and the four attractive women sitting at it. We stayed out entirely too late, but had the coolest cabbie ever to drive us home. He was an older black man, and was dishing out words of pertinent wisdom left and right. Then he said I was acting like a bitch. It was hilarious.

Although we didn't get to bed til around 5, we were all up and ready for brunch at Dunlay's by 10:30. Far and away the best bloody mary you can get for five bucks-made with a shot of guiness, a skewered pile of sopressatta, olive, pepper, and onion, and comes with a beer chaser.

Today was so beautiful outside that it needs to be redundantly blogged about. I drove around in Brian's car with Colin to pick up some records before everyone came over to grill out on Nate's sweet Weber (he and Katie brought most of the food too.) But driving around was amazing. People were outside and energized. Walking dogs, lauging, shopping, eating and drinking. Music was playing, the sun was shining and it was like all the neighborhoods in the city just shrugged of the layers of winter malaise and enjoyed what it had to offer. Driving around in the midst of all of it going on was really fun today, and one of the things I miss about having a car.

I had a good time with everyone tonight, sitting out on the back patio grilling, and having a good time. Definitely what I picture when I think of good times in the summer, and I hope it was just a preview of what is to come.

I can't sleep!

Got home from work tonight at 10pm and hung out with Brian for a while. He used one of my suits to go for an interview today for a different position. TRU, the Tactical Response Unit, means that he wouldn't have to wait for something to happen to see some action. Something goes down, and he would get the call to go kick some ass. Seems to suit him pretty well. Cross your fingers.

Starting tomorrow I'm going to be on spring break. And it's supposed to rain all next week, but I'll be damned if I can't invoke some of the spirit of Miami and Cancun. I'll have to pick up some of those little umbrellas. And some drunk teenage girls.

The new roommate search is in full swing, and even though it sucks that Brian is moving out, it should be interesting to say the least. Who is this new person going to be? Will they have hipster hair and a scarf collection? Be a bookworm? A Video gamer? An english major-turned department store makeup specialist?

Who knows?

throwing in the towel.

Been a long couple of days, but pretty good overall. Still dogsitting until tomorrow sometime, but it's been kind of nice. It's a great area to walk around in, especially since I don't know it very well. So the mandatory walks have been good for me, and it's fun having a dog around the house.

aida.

Unfortunately, the apartment is pretty sparse in the way of things I like. There is no comfy couch, or chair to relax in, and there is no television. There are also no books to speak of, besides those involving business planning and methods, investment banking, and how to keep a razor-sharp collar.

Last night I went to see 300, with Caleb and Cassie. I thought it was great, and not just because all the action was done really well. Do yourself a favor and go see it. Tonight was fun too, being St. Patricks day. I walked over to Janice's house, danced a jig, and ate some corned beef and cabbage. Melissa, Janice's roommate made a fantastic spread, and was a general whiz in the kitchen.

From there, six of us took a cab over to Morley's house for his birthday kegger. It was legendary. Everyone had a good time, and it turns out I didn't actually put the moves on someone named Ashley a couple weeks ago as was rumored.

Everyone took their shoes off, which I've found to be a Terrible Idea at a kegger, as I first soaked my socks in beer, and then helped clean up with paper towel "beer skates". This happened three times. And yes, I felt really, really old.

There was beer pong, an iced keg in a bathtub, and one guy lost half his pants. It was awesome.

Something to laugh about

I'm staying at a classmates house for the weekend, dogsitting. It's a very nice smallish apartment, right near damen and armitage. The dog is a husky, and she's really sweet. I've found that in order to pick up people, men or women, all you have to do is walk a pretty dog.

Tuesday we had a presentation to motorola for class, which I was working on with my classmates until 6am that morning. And most of the weekend. They have a suprisingly really good buffet at the west campus, complete with fresh fruit, giant strawberries, parfaits, pastas, and anything from the grill. It actually worked out fairly well, just not much sleep.

Hey, awesome. Somehow I deleted everything else on my camera's card while trying to move the photos to my computer. But the strawbrerries were good.

actual size!

So that's been most of the past week, I guess.

Saturday is St. Patricks day, which apparently isn't really celebrated by Irish outside of Chicago. And in case you were going to Ireland soon, you'll be hard-pressed to find any corned-beef and cabbage. That's the word on the street.

But keeping in tradition of the non-Irish folk drinking a lot, I've heard something's going down. Go ahead, ask around. I think our Italian friend is doing something. Hope to see everyone soon. It's been a long winter.

Embrace the suck.

It's March. In fact, it's almost a full week into March. We're supposed to be basking in the teasing warmth of the upper 40's and creeping into the occasional 50ish. Yeah, maybe I'm just overzealous, but I'm tired of the cold. It's snowing out. Again. I mean, come on. Come on!

On a positive note, some congrats are in order. Colin had his first crazy Momma incident today, and apparently it went well. He didn't get hit with a shoe or anything, and no one went to jail. So that's good.
Also, Caleb got his Master's degree/diploma in the mail which is awesome and still impressive. I read almost a paragraph of his thesis before my eyes started to shrivel up. I was somewhere near 1/1000th of the way through it.
And lastly, kudos to me. I'm a hero and I've got a sticker to prove it. I gave blood today to the worst manurse to ever stab a pointy pipe into someone's arm. There were four ladies who knew what they were doing, and I get jerky lab tech with the compassion of a refrigerator. But it's cool. I got some apple juice, so that's rad.

I am, however, getting tired of being in school and working. And this weather, man it's still snowing. (I left for a while.) There's still lots to do for everything. I guess it seems like everyone gets a raw deal during the winter months, though. I'm jealous of Ali getting out of here for a while. Soak up some sun for me!

I guess that's what we do though. Good things happen, regular things happen, and sometimes you just get slapped around for a while. As long as you keep getting up, even if you'll probably get smacked again, you're doing ok. Something like, "you never fail until you stop trying." Something like that.

Peace out, hombres!

Joliet, via the Rock Island District.

Feels like it's been a while.

I spent a couple hours tonight trying to figure out what was going on with our internet, and it turns out that the modem decided to reset itself and change the WEP password without telling our computers. Or so says Jessica from Comcast. Neat.

Anyway, my computer is apparently still unhappy with the whole setup, so I've gone back to my Mac for the time being. It's nice, I guess. Like trying on an old baseball mitt you haven't used for a while. Different and new, yet comfortable and familiar.

Anyway.

I was planning on going home tonight or tomorrow. Turns out my great uncle died last night and his funeral is tomorrow. Unfortunately, there's no way for me to get there before the service starts, so I'm going to miss it.

Ray was an intersesting guy. He was probably around 5 foot 9 or so, but one of his legs was quite a bit shorter than the other. So his stance switched between around 4 foot 6 and 5 foot nine. He was always a really nice guy, and as long as I knew him, he made old fashioned wooden toys in his garage workshop. My brother and I would go over to his house, visit with my Aunt Kitty, and Uncle Ray, and hang out at their house while the family caught up. He would usually have something new or different crafted, whether it was a train, car, caterpillar, or some other handheld toy designed for little kids. They were crafted well beyond anything I've seen since, and I knew he always had a good time making them.

I always feel bad about knowing my grandparents less than I would have liked to. They lived through times that I'll never experience, and faced hardships that I can only imagine. It's too bad that it works out that way sometimes. Maybe it's because of the dispersal of the extended family, or the stronger push for a more successful and wealthy youth. Maybe it's just because our generation feels the need to get as far away from our parents as possible. Weird.

I remember a quote somewhere that went something like this, "At 18, I couldn't believe how stupid my parents were, and at 22, I couldn't believe how much they learned in 4 years,"

Anyway, I suppose this is one of those introspective, what does it all mean/what's important kind of posts.

Regardless, I've been feeling much better about things lately. Spring is here, and summer is not far behind. Smile.

potential energy, lying in wait.

At first our internet was working sporadically. The modem is crap, and it would tend to just turn off sometimes and need to be reset. Most likely this would happen in the middle of writing an email, or checking something important. Like something funny on youtube.

Last week, the modem decided to stop working wirelessly altogether. Now the extent of internet use is limited to the dining room table, tethered by a cable to the modem. It's strange, and it reminds me of being back at home. There was only one computer in the house and it was just off the kitchen on one of those rolling computer desks.

It's still there, although the computer has been upgraded. When I go back to visit my parents now, I can usually find my dad on there at some point playing Civilizations 3. It's kind of funny to watch an old guy play video games in the same addictive patterns that I used to exhibit when I was younger. 5 more minutes, one more move.

So this lack of internet in the rest of our apartment has had the side effect of limiting my online time to quick blog checks and email. It's easy to lose hours surfing youtube, myspace, blogs, news, whatever. Anyway, I'll try to come up with something coherent at least every couple days.

Today is the last day of February. Finally. In my book, spring starts tomorrow. It's time to wake up out of the winter lull. Shake loose the weights of seasonal mental clutter, and look forward to what the new season will bring. Going to have to get some new springy music, and clothes. Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Males are little flying sperm missiles.

Ants are pretty crazy. Check it.

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/060508_mm_ants_rule.html

No, really, check it out.