You may have noticed (although it takes a keen eye) a countdown clock added to the “about me” section. Yeah, over there in the right hand column. Well, I have determined I have to get everything I am ever going to accomplish finished before that timer runs out. In true Owen Meany style I have predetermined the date of my death.

Sunday July 19th, 2054. 7:30 P.M.

I went down to Colorado Springs this weekend to visit my Grandma. She turns 91 tomorrow. We brought her a lucky bamboo plant in celebration. She normally doesn’t like us to bring any gifts for her. She believes it’s a waste of money. She doesn’t want anymore material possessions. In her eyes it’s just another thing that needs to be taken care of. As a result, she doesn’t really even appreciate them. This makes my mother angry. My mom thinks it’s more important to receive gifts as a validation of people’s appreciation of you. We brought over food we bought from Boston Chicken. She didn’t consider this a material gift and ate it right up. I like gifts but rarely expect them. I almost always accept them.

I was born 30 years ago. My mother gave birth to me at age 25. I know this because on my 25th birthday my mom told me, “you are now half my age.” This disturbed me. It also means my grandma had my mother when she was 35. I did this math in my head while staring into a Jim Beam & Coke on Saturday night. Thirty-five is much older than I expected. I would guess this was particularly old to be having a child during the 1940’s.

My grandma still lives by herself, in a two-story house. She takes care of all the bills. She cooks her own meals. She has a hamburger and vanilla ice-cream every Sunday. She fills her own gas. She does her own laundry. She drives herself to the doctor. The idea of her driving around makes me nervous. I think she’s too old to drive. She has a “neighbor boy” mow the lawn. She thinks he charges too much money.

My grandma was really quite during our visit. I don’t think she has a lot to say. And she is generally a very quite woman. Maybe she has trouble relating to us. She is not very social and she rarely has guests. I suspect her life is very quiet normally. Our visit was probably a little chaotic for her. It was really nice to see her again. I should call her more often, in fact, I will.

A few quick things for today. Just cause I feel like it.

My brother and I are in a bit of a pickle. I am golfing tomorrow. I have no idea if I’ll be playing nine or eighteen holes but will most likely be playing till the early afternoon. My brother has a party tomorrow night in Ft. Collins. Somwhere in between we have to fit in my Grandma’s 91st birthday. The golf course, the party, and my grandma are all at least an hour away from each other. We might be able to pull it off somehow, but if were not in a pickle, the lid sure is on tight. The great part is I know it’ll work out somehow and we’ll all be crunchin’ on kosher dills.

Last night I rented Great Expectations. I read the book years ago in a long defunct book club of friends, that lastest a whole two books. I think Dickens Great Expectations may have wiped everyone out. Anyway, I thought it was a good book so I tried out the movie. I was expecting a period piece but the story was very modernized. Pip was called Finn. Gwyneth was fairly revealing (yummmm). And overall it was done pretty good. I’d recommend it.

I have a couples wedding shower tonight. Let the sillyness begin. Blech.

I went to see Of Montreal (one of their better songs can be found here) last night. I had to coax myself out though. It was raining like crazy and I knew I wouldn’t be home till sometime after midnight (my head ended up hitting the pillow at 1:20. ugg) and I was just feeling generally lazy. But I went and it was worth it.

The show was held at the Larimer Lounge. This is the first time I’ve been there and it was hardly a lounge, more of a ordinary dingy bar - in somebody’s basement. Something akin to the 15th Street Tavern. The stage was a smallish platform backed by black sheets nailed to the wall. It small and smoky and intimate and I can’t decide if I liked it or not. However the lounge does have a great schedule including Essex Green, Dressy Bessy (they were in the crowd last night) and Mates Of State in the next couple of months.

Here’s a list of things, by category, which I would like to try and get accomplished before I die. Henceforth known as The Big List. Of course this list can be adjusted, pruned, expanded and thrown away as I see fit. Life is about crossing old things off and starting new things. I also understand some of these things are not necessarily attainable (see a UFO for instance) but I really, really would like it to happen. In addition, there are a number of things that I want to do in my life or improve upon but have no solid benchmark of completion such as “tell everyone close to me I love them” or “develop my level of spirituality”. You know, crap like that. Maybe they’ll be on another list someday but somehow I doubt it.

CREATIVITY
File a patent for a useful/useless gadget
To be published in some capacity, such as an article in a magazine
Develop my own film
Design and have made my own t-shirt
Create my own font
Brew my own beer
Make a souffl� correctly

EVENTS
Run with the bulls in Pamplona
Visit Mexico during day of the dead festival
Visit Rio during Carnival
Attend burning man
Visit New Orleans during Marti Gras
Go to a Grateful Dead concert
Celebrate New Years in Times Square

GIVE
Teach someone to read
Give $#,### to charity anonymously
Be an escort at an abortion clinic
Volunteer to a worthy cause for at least six months
Pay for the dinner/lunch ordered by the vehicle behind me in a drive-thru

GROW
Help raise a child
Grow a garden
Plant a tree in a place I�ll always be able to visit

LEARNING
Learn yoga
Learn how to sail
Learn how to ride a horse
Learn to play a musical instrument with some degree of skill
Learn to juggle
Learn to water-ski slalom
Learn to ride a motorcycle
Learn sign language
Learn to shoot a gun
Learn to ride a unicycle
Learn HTML
Learn to surf
Read all the books on this list
Memorize a poem I enjoy and pass it on to someone else
Complete a two or four year degree
Learn to windsurf
Become a notary public

NAUGHTY
Get high on hash in a caf� in Amsterdam
Taste absinthe
Trip acid
Get drunk on Bourbon Street
Have sex in the ocean
Have sex on a forest floor
Have sex in a public place
Have sex on a train
Have sex on a boat
Have sex on a sailboat
Have sex on the kitchen table or kitchen floor
Have sex in a sleazy hotel
Spend all day in bed with a lover, only leaving it to eat or visit the bathroom
Spend the day at a nude beach
Fire an automatic weapon
Have nude photos taken
Take nude photos
Go skinny-dipping in the ocean
Get thrown out of K-Mart for disreputable behavior
Party down at the Whiskey A-go-go
Stay out all night in Manhattan
Become a member of the Mile High Club

OTHER
Experience zero gravity
Spend time in a sensory deprivation tank
Navigate a corn maze
Navigate a hedge maze
Be on TV
Be in a newspaper
Do something that makes someone say, “You know, I really admire what you did!”
Cook all my meals for a week
Do everything on this foodie list

POSSESIONS & SPOILS
Get comped a room in Las Vegas
Own a home
Be my own boss
Get a pedicure
Get a professional massage
Be independently self-supportive
Be mentioned in a newspaper
Eat Peking Duck
Try to eat sea urchin again
Eat truffles (the fungus)
Eat a durian fruit
Get acupuncture
Throw a huge party and invite all my friends and family

RELIGEOUS & SUPERNATURAL
Do a Catholic confession
Attend prayers at a synagogue
Attend A Hare Krishna service
Attend a s�ance
Get hypnotized
See a UFO
See a ghost
Give a Eulagy

SPORTS & EXERCISE
Do 100 consecutive push-ups
Scuba dive
Score above 200 bowling
Score below 100 in golf
Ski a double diamond slope
Helicopter ski
Ski Whistler/Blackcomb
Snowcat ski
Attend the Superbowl, WorldSeries, US Open, Masters, Kentucky Derby, Indianapolis 500, Stanley Cup Finals, or the Olympics
Hike the Colorado Trail
Go white water rafting in class 5 rapids
Earn a belt in a martial art
Swim a mile without stopping
Go deep-sea fishing and catch a fish
Make it onto the jumbotron at a major sporting event
Spend three months getting my body into prime physical shape
Rock climb a route with several pitches
Swing on a trapeze
Swim with dolphins

SEE
See the aurora borealis
See the milky way
See a great white in the wild (while in the water)
See a whale in the wild (while in the water)
See all the movies on this list (being
See a tornado
See a full lunar eclipse
See an active volcano
See Niagra falls

TRANSPORTATION
Fly on the Concord
Go hang-gliding
Go in a hot-air balloon
Ride in a Submarine
Ride on a fan boat
Ride on a hovercraft
Ride in a blimp
Fly in a helicopter
Go on a cruise
Road trip from coast to coast in the U.S.
Drive a vehicle at a speed of at least 145 miles per hour
Go Parasailing
Go paragliding
Go windsurfing
Ride a cable car in SF

TRAVEL
Visit all 50 states
Visit all 7 continents
Straddle the equator
Walk on a glacier
Travel through the top 15 most populated cities in the US
Travel through the top 10 most populated cities in the world
Go to Easter Island
Visit to Stonehenge
Stay a night at the Gramercie Hotel
Go to the Louvre in Paris
Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower
Go to the top of the Statue of Liberty
Go to the top of the Seattle Space Needle
Go to the top of the Empire State Building
Visit a rainforest
Explore the Carlsbad Caverns
Visit the red wood forest in northern California
Stay the night in a lighthouse
Walk across the Golden Gate Bridge

i could be
it should be
what if it was
i wish it is
i know it’s not
it always is
because
i say so
i know so
what i think happens
does.

Anonymous - read on a wall somewhere

What does it mean to be a good person? Do you have to be completely selfless? No way, that can be bad actually. Do you have to be completely selfish? An Objectivist would tell you so, but in my opinion, that’s even worse. I think it’s really hard to be good sometimes. I mean really hard. I consider myself a good person most of the time. Or is it that I should consider myself to be a bad person only very rarely and not really a good person most the time, just a person. Do humans automatically default to “good”? I believe they do. I think. Most of the time anyway. But I also believe you must show some sort of undoubtably positive action in order to be considered Good. It takes an effort. Nothing comes easily, especially being good.

I was sleeping in this morning, as I often tend to do on the weekends. Because I really like my sleep. And becuase I was out late last night. I spent six hours in my apartment yesterday doing an extremely thurough spring cleaning job and listening to rain storms drift through the city. In the end, my bed was made and sheets were changed, the rug was vacumed, the frig cleeaned out, my back and feet hurt, and my fingers were pruned with cleaning chemicals and mop water. But now, when I have my socks on, I can slide across the hard wood floors nearly the entire distance of my apartment. Afterwards I went to a friends house warming party, drank keg beer, played pool, talked smack. On the way home I grabbed a drink at a nearby bar because I didn’t feel like going back to my exceptionally clean yet exceptionally lonely apartment.

10 Jobs I’ve had:

Babysitter
Golf Cart Washer/Driving Range Picker
Carny (Carnival Worker)
Research Analyst
Gas Station Attendant
Calender Designer
Tent Pole Painter
Lumberjack (Wood Chopper)
Phone Surveyer
Grease Monkey/Tire Buster (Mechanics Assistant)

This guy has been at it for a little while now. He’s come a long way since his first drawing. For some reason I really like his drwings. I can’t tell if it’s the creativity or the simplicity that I like most. Maybe it cause it seems Sam Brown draws just cause he likes to, not for money, not as a job, or not to “express his complicated emotions”. And I love it when an artist will say this “you do not need my permission. i encourage you to use my drawings however you like. print them out and hang them up. email them to friends. paint your own copies of them on your walls. use them in your powerpoint presentations.” Anyway, if you don’t feel like exploring the links, a few of my most recent favorites can be found below. Enjoy.

I went up to Boulder last night. I hadn’t been there in close to a year. And boy was it worth the drive. I met Katy and a couple of her business clients at Japango for dinner. All you can eat dinner. All you can eat sushi dinner! All you can eat sushi dinner for $27!! And two-for-one drinks ‘til 6 o’clock. We sat there for 3 and-a-half hours and gorged ourselves. We must have ordered a couple hundred dollars worth of sushi. My god what a fucking feast. It actually physically hurt to walk out of the restaurant. There was a down side though.

Last night was my first ultimate game of the season. We had a game last Monday but I pussed out cause it was snowing. We won. League standings can be found here. Our team name is Chachi.

I like to try and score at least one point a game. It doesn’t always happen but it’s a good goal and I achieved it last night. Our team was much better than the opponent, but I think we all had a lot of fun.

One of the kind of quirky things about ultimate is that after the game is over, and everyone has told everyone else “good game” and slapped their hand, you say a little cheer or rhyme for the other team about how well they played or something funny that happened during the game. Usually you try and work their team name in to the rhyme. For example, last night our cheer was:

I’m not sure what causes it. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s just loneliness, or a form of it because it seems to subside when others are around, or if things in my life are going particularly well. But I have a tendency toward the Sunday Sads. My old roommate used to call them The Blues, as she had a problem with them too. Sometimes we’d suffer together.

As an old girlfriend used to say, a typical ingredient in the Sunday Sads are the Saturday Stupids. I find that my Sunday Sads usually involve sleeping in too late, not doing anything productive, not having people (or a person) around to talk to (or at least listen to), not having anything to do, feeling lathargic, insecure, slighly depressed, low on self esteem, and knowing Monday is just around the corner. I can’t tell if most of these things are the symptoms the or results of the Sunday Sads. It seems to me it all just wants compound on each other like bacteria in a petri dish - all you have to do is put it in some light, make sure the temperature is right, and suddenly you have a rampant multiplication of yech.

My taxes are now officially submitted. This is the first time I’ve gotten a refund in the last two years because I lost my shirt trading stocks during 2002. On the trading front, 2003 isn’t looking any better (but at least that means another refund next year). So I need to find a more disciplined approach to my trading. I got out of nearly everything on Friday so I can reassess my strategies.

Also on Friday, I went over to my brothers to lend him my ski gear. He had a friend over who fixed us one of the most unique and best tasting home cooked meals I’ve had in a long time. It was breaded pork tenderloin medallions in a special sauce with onions, tomatos, and pine nuts that was effused mainly with honey. It was excellent. But I was too tired to eat too much.

Yesterday I went over to my friend’s house to watch the Avalanche play and BBQ. Living in an apartment without a porch I love going to BBQ’s. Watching hockey was a definite second to sitting on the porch with a turkeyburger, beer and good friends and just basking in the beautiful weather. This is one of my favorite activities, mostly because I’ve been deprived of it over the last two years. Afterwards I went out to celebrate Lebers birthday at Dave & Busters. No video games for me that night though, just some idle chit-chat with and a couple white russians. It all made for a very pleasant day.

After working on my taxes for a while last night I decided to go out for a couple beers. I started talking to a couple of people at the bar next to me. A couple of beers turned into a couple more. We were all getting along well and having a good time bullshitting so when they invited me to go to another bar with them I went. Well I’m paying for it today. I’m so extremely tired. I didn’t get in untill 2:00 am last night - that’s waaaaay too late for a school night and no particular cause. It was fun but today I’m just spent.

In others news, the other day I went to my moms for dinner. We watched About A Boy, wich was a pretty good movie. I got more into than I expected too. Anyway, I’d recomend it if your looking to rent a video this weekend.